How To Make Berbere (Ethiopian Spice Paste)

One of the staples in Ethiopian cooking is Berbere, the chile infused spice mix that adds a punch of heat to many traditional dishes. A little berbere goes a long way and this recipe will make enough to cook several dishes.

berbere is a great way to add heat to any number of dishes, not just Ethiopian food. We have used it when a recipe calls for chile paste or just needs a little extra kick.

This recipe is naturally gluten free.

Watch a Video

Here is a video of 2 Cooks in the Kitchen making Berbere:

The Spice Cupboard

This recipe requires a rather extensive library of spices and it can be an adventure finding them all. Now that we have them we find ourselves using them often and it is very handy to have them on hand. This did create an organizational crisis in our spice cupboard which we solved with Vertical Spice.

The Spices

We will be using a mix of whole spices and ground spices for this recipe. We’ll sweat the whole spices in a dry pan before grinding them and mixing them with the already ground spices. This helps bring out more flavor and oils from the whole seeds.

Sweat the Whole Spices

We’ll start by heating a small dry frying pan and sweating the black peppercorns, cumin seeds, allspice, cloves and cardamom pods in it for about 5 minutes. We want them to get a little fragrant but be careful not to burn them. You’ll need to stir them frequently. When they are fragrant and maybe a little smoky take them off the heat and let them cool for a few minutes.

Remove the cardamom Seeds From the Pods

We need to take the seeds out of the cardamom pods by opening the pods and prying the seeds out. They come out fairly easily and you can collect them with the other whole spices. Discard the woody pods.

Grind the Whole Spices and Chile Flakes

Next we are going to put the whole spices into the spice grinder along with the red chile flakes and grind everything up into a fine powder.

Add the Rest of the Spices

We want to mix the ground whole spices with the spices that are already ground and the easiest way to do that is to put everything in the spice grinder and pulse it a few times. We will add the salt, turmeric, smoked paprika, cayenne and fenugreek to the spice grinder.

Cook the Shallot and Garlic in Spiced Butter

Next we will work on our wet ingredients. Using the same pan we used for the spices we’ll heat 3 tablespoons of nitir kibbeh over medium heat. Nitir Kibbeh is an Ethiopian clarified, spiced butter very similar to ghee. We have a recipe for it. Once the butter is hot we will add our diced shallot and garlic.

Add the Ginger

We’ll cook this for a minute or so and then add our grated ginger. We’ll cook this together for 2 more minutes and then remove it from the heat and let it cool.

Grind In the Mortar and Pestle

Now we put everything in the mortar and pestle and grind it together until we have a coarse paste. We find it easiest to start with a just some of the spices and onions at first, grind that and then add some more, continuing in this fashion until it is all incorporated.

When we are all done we’ll put the berbere paste in a pint container, cover it and store it indefinitely in the refrigerator. This recipe makes about 1 1/2 cups.

Explore our Ethiopian Recipe Collection for a complete meal.

• Nitir Kibbeh (Ghee) Ethiopian Spiced Butter
• Berbere (Ethiopian Spice Paste
• Injera (Ethiopian Fermented Flatbread)
• Zigni (Ethiopian Goat and Carmelized Onion Stew)
• Misir Wat (Ethiopian Spiced Lentils

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