Eru: A Cameroonian Delicacy Recipe

Nov 29, 2025 0

Eru is a prominent traditional vegetable soup of the Manyu people, a finger-licking dish at the center of the table in a Cameroonian party and it is sometimes the first to finish on the table in a party.

Eru is a classic Cameroonian dish and one of Cameroon’s signature dishes. This is a meal that is great on any regular day of the week and for special occasions alike. It is nutritious, delicious and its flavor is one of a kind. It is very simple yet uses ingredients that are often tricky to find outside of West Africa, but not impossible to find.

Eru, or Okazi leaves (as it's called in Nigeria), is a creeping plant, Gnetum Africanum, that grows wild in the African forest. It's a traditional meal for the Bayangi people in the southwest region of Cameroon.

If you ask me what soup is a must-eat among the vast variety of Cameroonian foods, I’ll have to say ‘Eru’ most definitely. Eru to me is the easiest and most delicious soup of all time.

In many restaurants and homes in Cameroon, whenever Fufu and Eru is on the menu for the day, everyone happily awaits the moment when the food is served to feast on it. I remember my childhood days feasting on this dish at home and in Mama Helen’s restaurant in Limbe, my hometown in Cameroon.

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Eru is a native dish to Cameroonians, especially Southern Cameroonians.

🇨🇲 How to cook Cameroonian Eru with Spinach | Recipe with measurements |

I hear it is also eaten in Nigeria. Natives of Cross Rivers State use it to prepare the famous Afang soup.

I’m yet to see someone who doesn’t like this delicacy. It is that meal that will make a responsible man fail to follow the queue when he notices it is almost finished at a party. Lol. But seriously people just love this dish.

As it’s customary for an African girl child to learn how to cook, I got my hands on cooking Eru by assisting my aunties and other mothers in the neighborhood when they cooked Eru for parties and during festive seasons. I love to cook Eru when I have guests and for family gatherings so I don't feel guilty eating it alone.

This recipe is very special to me because for the first time on my blog, I am using the Eru from my line of products which I recently released into the market under my food distributing company Keng’s International Foods LLC. Keng's International Foods LLC brands itself to be a leading African food distributing company working towards conserving and preserving Cameroonian/African cuisines across generations. Through our products, we aim to use authentic cuisines to give our customers the experience that will connect them to their home countries while being far away from the land of their birth and the land of their ancestors. Eru from Keng’s International Foods LLC is sourced from the forest terrains of Manyu Division and processed to give our customers the best satisfaction.

Manyu Division also shares boundaries with the Cross Rivers State of Nigeria with a similar agricultural terrain that produces Eru where it is locally called in Nigeria as Afang or Okazi leaves. Manyu Division has an agricultural terrain made up of the Takamanda, Mone River, Nta Ali, and the Ejangham forest reserves that are known to produce an abundance of Eru.

Eru is a wild plant that is harvested from the forest in Cameroon. In Nigeria, it is called Ukazi or Afang.

Afang soup has a striking similarity to Eru but it is more “soupy’ and the Eru is ground or pounded prior to preparation. Another soup that really looks like Eru is the Edika Ikong, also prepared by the Calabar people of Cross Rivers State in Nigeria.

Eru is cooked with a combination of Gnetum Africanum (the botanical name for Okazi leaves), waterleaf, crayfish, assorted meat and lots of red palm fruit oil. I know right? Lol. Listen, this is not one of those foods that you can simply swap this for that? No way!

When I began considering how to make it healthier and thought of what to swap, it quickly dawned on me that it will have to be THE OIL. That’s the only ingredient that is overboard (in my humble opinion) in this recipe. I have actually seen Eru swimming in a sea of oil. Talk about an overflow! :). There is no Eru without (enough) palm oil. You can’t even call that eru now ah ah. Call it dry okazi soup if you will but definitely not Eru.

There is enough wahala the Southern regions of Cameroon are going through right now and I’m not going to add food wahala on it! M’ba oooo (not me)! My Southern Cameroon friends, I’m with you guys on this one. O.k. back to making Eru healthier. There is good news. Most of the ingredients used in making this delicious soup are VERY healthy.

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Eru has a fresh leafy green taste that blends well with palm oil and the spiciness of habanero peppers. The combination of fufu and Eru has the perfect balance from the smooth texture of fufu (for this recipe, I substituted water fufu with garri) to the crunchiness of the proteins (meat, cowskin and tripe) in the moist and juicy Eru soup.

Eru is commonly eaten with cassava fufu (locally called water fufu); although it is a native dish to the Manyu people, water fufu and Eru is also one of Cameroon’s signature dishes.

For the longest time I thought most African stores didn’t have Eru because I didn’t know it is also called Okazi. But when I found out that it was the same thing I finally began to use up the Eru my mom gave me ages ago.

As some of you may know by now, growing up I was not interested in cooking; I learned/I am learning most Cameroonian recipes as an adult. This was one of those recipes I had to call my mom for. You know how it is with recipes that you learn from a parent. They are more like “you want a good amount of crayfish,” or “you just want enough oil for it to shine”. The shine part are actual directions from my mother on more than one recipe lol. Well after some effort I have succeeded in putting this in a recipe for you.

Ingredients for Garik

The meats: We normally use beef, dried fish and canda for this. But you can use smoked turkey, or some other type of meat instead.

Canda: Canda is pretty much beef skin. It goes by different names in different countries but if you ask for beef skin at an African store they will most likely know what you are talking about. I made it optional though because not everyone cares for its texture. Also depending on how well it was cleaned, you might still need to burn some hairs off.
Eru: Once again, Eru also goes by Okazi. When you go looking for it at an African store, check for both names. You will usually find it dried so you will have to soak it for a little bit before rinsing and cooking.
Spinach: Overall, you want the vegetables to be tender so you want a good spinach to Eru ratio. Start with less Eru then add until it is a pretty even ratio and not mostly one or the other.
Scotch Bonnet Pepper: I almost made the scotch bonnet pepper optional but I don’t think Eru is the same without it. I think Eru is best spicy but should at least have that scotch bonnet pepper flavor. To impart the flavor, you can just drop these whole in the pot and squish it with your spoon a bit. The more you squish and the longer you cook the pepper, the spicier it will get. But you will need to really crush these for the Eru to be spicy.
Palm oil: I say 1 to 2 cups of palm oil so it is really up to you but you don’t want too little. Start with one cup and you can add a little more if the palm oil flavor is not much or if it is looking dull.

How to Cook Eru

Thoroughly wash the eru under running tap water. Use a strainer to strain the eru and squeeze firmly to drain excess water then set aside.
Cut the meat into bite size pieces and wash thoroughly under running tap water. Place the meat into a clean pot and add salt, bouillon, and enough water until it’s slightly above the level of the meat. Cook on medium heat until it's done.
Add the cooked tripe, fish, cow skin, and habanero pepper into the pot and allow to cook on medium heat for 10 minutes.
Add the spinach or water leaves into the pot and mix well. Note: at this stage.
Add the crayfish and adjust the salt and bouillon to your desired taste and mix well.
Add the eru into the pot and mix until it's fully incorporated. Allow to cook on medium heat while mixing intermittently. Note: Eru does not need too much water.
When you notice that the eru is beginning to get soft, add the palm oil to it and mix well. Then allow to cook on low heat until the palm oil is done. Note: You can tell when the palm oil is done if it has melted into the pot, no longer taste like raw palm, and blends all the flavors of the pot together well.
Turn off the stove and set the pot aside.

How to Make Garri Using a Microwave

Pour the Garri into a microwavable bowl and add water until it is slightly above the level of the garri in the bowl then stir so that the water is fully incorporated into the garri.
Place the bowl into a microwave and microwave for 4 minutes. Remove the bowl and stir the garri so it cooks evenly.
If the garri is too hard, add ¼ cup of water into the bowl. If the garri is too soft, add ¼ cup of uncooked garri into the bowl then mix well and microwave again for an additional 2 minutes.
Remove the bowl and stir the garri. Adjust the texture if needed and mix well then set aside for serving.

Serving the Garri and Eru

Mold the garri into a round, cone, or cylinder shape and transfer it onto a clean plate.

Eating: Finally, please don’t be boujie and use a fork. Eat these with your hands 🙂 It is not by force but just do it ok?

Tips and Tricks

Eru leaves are very hard to cook, soak them water hours before cooking.
Cook the stockfish in a separate pot. Finally add the crayfish.
Eru soup is one dish I can't count how many times I've cooked and never gotten any issues with it.
If using dried Eru, soak in warm water for 30 minutes to 1 hour before cooking.
NEVER soak in hot water.
NEVER soak in warm water overnight.
Don’t add water after adding in your Eru. It is a ‘dry soup’ You sure need water to cook your meat/fish but make sure the water is dried before you put in your spinach/waterleaf.
Don’t add onions to Eru. I have seen some recipes including onions and that is just out of place.
Don’t cook Eru without crayfish.