Recipe
🍳 BREAKFAST
Bota
A soft, thin maize-meal breakfast porridge enriched with peanut butter and a little sugar.
Zimbabwean · easy · serves 4
prep 5 min · cook 20 min
~248 cal · 8g protein · 32g carbs · 11g fat · 4g fiber · 2g sugars · 2g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
↓ Jump to Recipe
AI-generated illustration
Bota is a soft, thin maize-meal breakfast porridge from Zimbabwe, cooked looser than the stiff sadza eaten later in the day and enriched with peanut butter, a little sugar, and sometimes butter or milk. The peanut butter melts in to give it a creamy richness and nutty flavor children and adults alike go for.
Where sadza is the firm staple of lunch and dinner, bota is its gentle morning cousin, smoother, sweeter, and quicker to make. The addition of dovi (peanut butter) reflects Zimbabwe's fondness for groundnuts throughout its cooking.
In Harare and across the country, bota is warming, comforting breakfast food, the kind of simple porridge that starts countless Zimbabwean days. It is easy, nourishing, and deeply familiar, the taste of a Zimbabwean childhood morning.
Saved recipes and passport stamps are kept on this device. Sign in to keep them across your devices and leave reviews.
Make it yours
✓ Naturally vegetarian, vegan and gluten-, dairy-, egg- and pork-free. No swaps needed.
Toggle a diet and the ingredients rewrite themselves with regional substitutes.
🥕 Vegetarian
🌱 Vegan
🌾 Gluten-Free
🥛 Dairy-Free
🥜 Nut-Free
🥚 Egg-Free
🐖 Pork-Free
Dietary labels are a cooking guide, not allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish; we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, read the label on every product you use, and note that a kitchen can cross-contaminate in ways a recipe cannot control.
Ingredients
US
Metric
Serves 4
1 cup maize meal (mealie meal)
1/3 cup peanut butter
4 cups water
to taste sugar
a pinch salt
Instructions
1
Whisk the maize meal with 1 cup of cold water into a smooth paste.
✎ Chef’s note
Wet the meal with cold water first, always. Tipped straight into boiling water it seizes into lumps that will not whisk out.
2
Bring the rest of the water to a boil and stir in the slurry.
3
Cook gently, stirring, until smooth and soft.
4
Stir in the peanut butter (or sunbutter) and sugar until creamy.
5
Serve warm in bowls, with milk and sliced fruit if you like.
✎ Chef’s note
Bota and sadza are the same meal at two thicknesses: bota is the loose breakfast porridge, sadza the stiff version eaten with relish at lunch and dinner. Sorghum, millet or rapoko (finger millet) meal are all used in place of maize.
Harare tradition.
Ratings & reviews
Cooked it? Rate this dish:
No account needed. Sign in to leave a full review with a comment.
Cooked it?
Kept on this device, no account needed. Sign in to leave a review and keep your passport across your devices.
No reviews yet, be the first to cook it.
🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Harare. Sadza is cooked in two stages: a thin porridge first, then more meal beaten in against the side of the pot until a spoon will stand upright in it. At the table a piece is torn off, rolled in the right hand and dented with the thumb to carry the relish, whether that is beef stew, greens in peanut butter or dried fish.
🗺️
Zimbabwe. Peanut butter is used as a cooking fat and a thickener rather than a spread, stirred into greens, pumpkin leaves and porridge, and it is the base of dovi, the peanut stew. Madora, the mopane worm, is dried and rehydrated or fried and eaten as a protein-dense snack, and it is farmed and traded seriously rather than as a curiosity.
🌍
Africa. Africa's fifty-four nations hold cuisines as different as Morocco's slow-cooked tagines and South Africa's open-fire braai, yet shared threads run through them: ancient grains like millet, sorghum, and teff; stews thickened with groundnut, okra, or palm; and fiery condiments from Tunisian harissa to Ethiopian berbere. Staple starches, fufu, injera, ugali, couscous, anchor communal meals often eaten by hand from a shared dish, where hospitality is a point of honor.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
More from Zimbabwe
Muriwo Unedovi (Greens in Peanut Butter)Collard greens folded into a creamy peanut-butter sauce, Zimbabwe’s everyday pairing for sadza.
Nyama ne SadzaBeef stewed with tomato and onion served with stiff maize sadza, the everyday heart of the Zimbabwean table.
Chikenduza (Candy Cakes)Soft, yeasted sweet cakes baked tall and finished with a bright pink glaze, a Zimbabwean bakery treat.
Browse all Zimbabwe recipes →
Good to know
You’ll need: Blender, Whisk.
Storing it: Thickens as it sits. Reheat with extra water or milk to loosen, and keep 2 to 3 days refrigerated.
Make it a Zimbabwe meal
MaheuDrink
Chikenduza (Candy Cakes)Dessert
Similar dishes from around the world
Chura GertehThe Gambia
Bouillie d'ArachideCôte d’Ivoire
Papas de MilhoAngola
Papa de ArrozGuinea-Bissau
MotogoBotswana
Igikoma cy'UburoBurundi
Cuisine
Diet
Vegetarian Recipes from Around the World
Vegan Recipes from Around the World
Gluten-Free Recipes from Around the World
Dairy-Free Recipes from Around the World
Egg-Free Recipes from Around the World
Pork-Free Recipes from Around the World
Vegan Breakfasts from Around the World
Vegetarian Breakfasts from Around the World
Gluten-Free Breakfasts from Around the World
Dairy-Free Breakfasts from Around the World
Egg-Free Breakfasts from Around the World
Frequently asked questions
What is Bota?
A soft, thin maize-meal breakfast porridge enriched with peanut butter and a little sugar.
Where does Bota come from?
Bota is a Zimbabwean dish from Harare, Zimbabwe.
Can Bota be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Bota recipe includes substitution suggestions for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, egg-free, and pork-free versions, including several at once such as gluten-free and dairy-free together. Treat them as a starting guide rather than a guarantee, and see the allergen note below.
Is Bota safe for people with food allergies?
Our dietary labels and substitutions are a cooking guide, not medical or allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish, but we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, always read the label on every product you use, and remember a home or commercial kitchen can cross-contaminate ingredients in ways a recipe cannot control.
How long does Bota take to make?
About 25 minutes total (5 minutes prep, 20 minutes cooking), serving 4.
Get the Sunday Spin
One dish from somewhere in the world, in your inbox every Sunday. No spam, just dinner inspiration you can cook that day.