10 Best Tswana Traditional Foods With Pictures and Recipes

Tswana ethnic group is the Bantu-speaking people of South Africa and Botswana. The Tswana region is known for its savory traditional foods that both natives and visitors enjoy each time they are served either as breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Because these meals leave you wanting more, most people who only visited end up scouting for the recipes months after they have left the region, hence this article. It is also important that you get to watch carefully people who cook each of the meals well and if you have no access to such persons, then there are DIY videos on YouTube that would help you replicate any of these meals perfectly.

Here are some of the best Tswana traditional foods and their pictures. You can also try to make these dishes, using the under-listed recipes and cooking instructions.

Vetkoek is translated as “fat cake”. It is a baked bread eaten with minced meat or chicken stew or as a sweet snack with honey, jam, or syrup. It is often served as a side dish, with the main dish.

This is a Tswana traditional recipe and is often served at events and celebrations.

Mogodu is also called Tripe or Usu, and it is commonly prepared and eaten by the Zulu tribe, but it is also one of the best Tswana meals.

This meal is one of the few accepted starch meals that has been served during funerals in Botswana, it’s made from sorghum, beans, and added vegetables.

This Tswana traditional food is usually served with liver or chicken stew, for breakfast, and mind you, it is quite satisfying. The procedure for preparation ain’t so difficult, let’s see.

Bogobe otherwise called porridge is one of the very sumptuous Tswana traditional foods. It is originally from Botswana and can be tweaked during the cooking process to get a variety of other types of meals.

For fermented Bogobe (also called motogo-wa-ting):

For non-fermented Bogobe (Mosokwana):

You can eat it with meat or vegetables for lunch or dinner. Another tweak to the traditional process of making Bogobe is to add sour milk and melon to make Bogobe jwa Lerotse.

The Botswana chicken groundnut stew is another one of the traditional foods of the Tswana people. It gives you that awesome feeling a well-fed person has and is best served with rice.

Mogatla, which means “oxtail” in Setswana, is a stew that is enjoyed by the Tswana people all over South Africa – and Botswana.

Morogo is a vegetable meal that comes in different varieties and different tastes and can be easily identified.

Phaletshe (pronounced pah-leh-cheh) is also known as pap. This pap meal is made basically from maize and in Botswana, you can tell how strong someone’s arm is by the consistency of their phaletshe!