Shito (Ghanaian pepper sauce) substitutes

A Chinese-style chili-in-oil condiment with crunchy solids, ideally one containing dried shrimp or an XO-style seafood chili sauce.

Best for

jollof rice, waakye, kelewele and fried plantain, grilled fish, eggs and rice

Structurally this is the nearest thing on any supermarket shelf: dark chili solids suspended in oil, spooned onto food rather than cooked into it. A plain soybean-based chili crisp is savoury but soy-forward and often numbing from Sichuan pepper, while an XO-style sauce is closer on the dried-seafood umami and considerably sweeter and pricier. A little fish sauce and a pinch of smoked paprika per tablespoon closes most of the gap.

A Southeast Asian chili paste, ideally the belacan version made with fermented shrimp paste.

Best for

rice dishes, grilled meat and fish, fried plantain, beans and stews

Sambal belacan is the right flavour direction because the shrimp paste supplies the marine funk shito relies on. What it lacks is the toasted darkness: sambal tastes of bright, raw, fresh chili where shito tastes of chili cooked for forty minutes. Frying the sambal in a spoon of oil for two minutes until it darkens and smells nutty fixes a surprising amount of that, and it also gives you the oily texture shito has.

The West African fried pepper base of blended chilies, tomato, onion and pepper cooked down in oil until the oil separates.

Best for

jollof rice, rice and beans, fried plantain, grilled meat

The same idea from a neighbouring cuisine: peppers fried in oil until deep and rich, served alongside rather than cooked in. It is red rather than black, sweeter because of the tomato, and it has no dried fish, so it reads fruity and bright where shito reads smoky and savoury. Add a tablespoon of ground dried crayfish or dried shrimp per half cup and you are much of the way to shito.

A North African chili paste used as the heat and body, with fish sauce added to supply the savoury seafood note.

Best for

grilled meat and fish, rice dishes, stews needing a hit of heat

Works better than plain hot sauce because harissa is a thick oily paste, so it sits on food the way shito does. The giveaway is the caraway, cumin and coriander in most harissa blends, which makes the plate taste Tunisian rather than Ghanaian. The fish sauce adds the missing savoury depth. Choose the plainest harissa you can find and skip any rose harissa, which is floral and sweet.

Warm ¼ cup of oil over low heat with 2 tablespoons ground dried chili, 1 tablespoon ground dried shrimp or crayfish, 1 tablespoon dried onion or onion powder, 2 teaspoons grated ginger and 1 teaspoon garlic powder, and cook gently for 10 to 15 minutes until dark and fragrant.

Best for

any use of shito, waakye, jollof rice, fried plantain, grilled fish

If you have ground dried shrimp or crayfish in the cupboard, this is by far the best answer on this page, because it is shito made quickly rather than something pretending to be shito. It will not have the forty-minute depth of the real thing and it will be a shade browner rather than black, but the flavour is right. Keep the heat low: the ground shrimp burns bitter fast.

Any thin bottled hot sauce, listed as the honest last resort.

Best for

adding heat to rice or beans when nothing else is available

This covers one of shito's three jobs and misses the other two. You get chili heat, but not the fried-seafood umami and not the rich oil that carries it, and most bottled hot sauces are built on vinegar, a sharp note shito does not have at all. On a plate of jollof it will do something rather than nothing. Do not expect anyone who knows shito to be fooled.