How I Make My Gari Soakings for Lunch

Gari is processed from cassava that is grated into the dough and then fried in a hot shallow iron or frying pan. The dried crispy product is then used for different recipes including gari fotor, pino, soakings, etc.

Gari soakings is a recipe made by mixing gari with water, sugar, milk, groundnut, salt, and other nutritious ingredients in a large bowl, cup, or glass.

Among High School Students in Ghana, gari soakings is simply called “soakings”. This food is also part of the “Student Companion” a term commonly used by High School students to refer to gari and shitor and other handy foods eaten in the dormitory without cooking.

Milk, milo, groundnut, biscuit, bread, and salt are additional ingredients to make the soakings rich in nutrition and also add extra taste as soakings can be prepared only with gari, sugar, and water (raw soakings).

The gari soakings prepared with gari, sugar, and water are called raw soakings.

Ingredients for making balanced diet gari soakings

• Gari
• Sugar
• Salt
• Water
• Milo
• Milk
• Groundnut
• Biscuit
• Bread

The ingredients for making gari soakings vary from individual to individual. I prefer gari soakings with gari, salt, milk powder, groundnut, and biscuit.

I use Milo once in a while. When I am hungry and I want to drink gari soakings, that is when I add bread.

I prefer king crackers to sugary biscuits so I mostly use King crackers for soaking.

Since I take my soakings for lunch, I use chilled water.

Let’s go straight and make our soakings.

Instructions for nutritious gari soakings

I have two stages for making gari soakings for reasons I will explain later.

You can go wild on your soakings and mix them with any preferred ingredient to reap the best out of your gari soakings.

Enjoy your afternoon with my gari soakings recipe.

Stage 1: making gari soakings

Mix 1 cup of gari with 2 teaspoons of sugar, ½ teaspoon of salt, 4 teaspoons of milk powder, 4 teaspoons of groundnut, and a biscuit in a clean dry bowl.

Stage 2: making gari soakings

Fetch an amount of the dry mixture into a bowl, cup, or glass, add your preferred amount of water, and stir the mixture well, add more ingredients if needed, and drink.

Why do I have two stages for making gari?

Gari is a carbohydrate food. When you add water to it, the amount increases. The gari soaks the water, then increase.

So, if you pour water on 1 cup of gari or ½ cup, you should expect more in return in a few minutes.

Not only that, since it soaks the water, it becomes soft and loses its taste making it hard to enjoy.

Another thing is, I don’t prefer much sugar and I also don’t want my soakings to be thick. So, I have my first mixture in a dry bowl. Later transferred to the bowl or cup I am going to drink from.

This way, I can control the amount to drink at a go. In addition, it prevents the gari from getting too soft because I only fetch a little at a time.

Lastly, I can preserve the rest of the mixture for another time or day when I am satisfied or no longer interested.

Watch Gari Soakings Video

Dateguide

Gari soakings is highly nutritious when prepared with nutritional ingredients. It quenches your taste for both food and water.

When taken raw, you are only benefiting from carbohydrates. At times gari soakings especially raw soakings may give you uncomfortable feelings in your chest after drinking.

Eating raw gari or drinking raw gari soakings is believed to affect your eyes negatively. So, always add ingredients rich in nutrition.