Fluted Pumpkin Leaves (Ugwu) substitute

Best substitute

Mature Bunched Spinach

Use the same amount by volume, chopped as the fluted pumpkin leaves (ugwu) you are replacing

Best for egusi soup

Taste and texture differ

The best substitute for ugwu is mature bunched spinach, chopped and squeezed dry, at 1:1 by volume and added in the last two minutes. Lacinato kale is the closest match on structure if you want visible shreds of green that hold their shape, and green Swiss chard is the closest on flavour. Baby spinach works but collapses to almost nothing, so use nearly double and add it off the heat.

Other fluted pumpkin leaves (ugwu) substitutes

Ranked, with the exact amount to use

2Lacinato (Tuscan) Kale
Different taste
Use the same amount by volume, ribs removed and sliced very thin
The dark, bumpy, flat-leaved kale also sold as cavolo nero or dinosaur kale.
What changes
Best for
egusi soup, edikang ikong, ogbono soup, any soup where you want the greens to stay visible
The best structural match on a supermarket shelf: it holds a shred and takes five to eight minutes of simmering without dissolving, which is exactly what ugwu does. It is chewier and more cabbagey with a faint bitterness ugwu does not have. Cut the tough central ribs out and slice the leaf into ribbons no wider than a few millimetres, otherwise it eats tough and dominates the spoon.
3Green Swiss Chard Leaves
Close match
Use the same amount by volume, ribs removed
The leaf portion of Swiss chard, with the thick stalks cut away.
What changes
Best for
egusi soup, efo riro, vegetable soup, edikang ikong
The nearest thing to ugwu on flavour: mildly earthy, faintly sweet and not bitter, with tender leaves that hold together better than spinach. Two practical notes. Use plain green chard, because rainbow or ruby chard bleeds pink into the soup and looks wrong. And discard the stalks or cook them separately, since they need much longer than the leaves and stay squeaky if you add them at the end.
4Collard Greens
Different taste
Use the same amount by volume, sliced into thin ribbons
Broad, thick, sturdy greens from the cabbage family, sold fresh and frozen almost everywhere.
What changes
Best for
egusi soup, edikang ikong, long-simmered soups, bitter leaf soup as the bulk green
The sturdiest option and the most forgiving of a busy kitchen, since it holds up to ten or twelve minutes in the pot. It is also the slowest to soften, so add it earlier than you would ugwu rather than at the very end, and slice it into thin ribbons. The flavour is sweet and cabbagey with a mild bitter finish, noticeably further from ugwu than chard is, but it looks right in the bowl.
5Pumpkin, Squash or Sweet Potato Leaves
Close match
Use the same amount by volume
The young leaves and shoots of pumpkin, squash or sweet potato vines, sold in African, Caribbean and East and Southeast Asian grocers.
What changes
Best for
any ugwu use, egusi soup, edikang ikong, vegetable soup
If you can find these, take them over spinach without hesitation. They are the same kind of vegetable as ugwu, genuinely close in flavour and body: soft but not floppy, mildly sweet, faintly grassy, and they hold their shred. Strip any fibrous outer skin from thicker stems, which peels off easily, and cook them three to five minutes rather than two.
6Baby Spinach
Taste and texture differ
use nearly double the volume, added off the heat
Bagged baby leaf spinach, the most convenient and the weakest option.
What changes
Best for
quick weeknight soups, when nothing sturdier is available
Honest about this one: it works and it works badly. Baby spinach collapses in about sixty seconds and effectively dissolves into the soup, so you lose the visible ribbons of green that are half the reason ugwu is in the dish, and you gain a lot of water. Use nearly double the volume, stir it in after you turn the heat off, and squeeze the chopped leaves first. It is greenery in the pot rather than a substitute for ugwu.

What is Fluted Pumpkin Leaves (Ugwu)?

Fluted Pumpkin Leaves (Ugwu) is The broad dark green leaf of the fluted pumpkin vine, spelled ugwu or ugu and sold fresh or frozen in shredded form, stirred into Nigerian soups at the very end of cooking.

Cooking tips

Ugwu goes in at the very end. Two or three minutes in a hot soup is all it needs, and after that it turns khaki and loses the mild sweetness that makes it worth adding. Many Nigerian cooks stir it in, cover the pot and turn the heat straight off.
Slice it fine and get it dry. Shred the washed leaves into thin ribbons, then spin or squeeze the water out. Wet greens are the single biggest reason egusi and edikang ikong come out watery, and the problem is worse with spinach than with ugwu.
Do not wash and squeeze ugwu the way you wash bitter leaf. Ugwu is not bitter, so all that washing achieves is throwing flavour down the sink. A rinse to get the grit off is enough.
Frozen shredded ugwu from an African grocer is a far better swap than fresh supermarket spinach, and it is cheap and keeps for months. Add it straight from frozen in the last three minutes and do not thaw it first, or you will pour off flavour with the melt water.
When you are using spinach or chard, add it after the heat is off and stir once. The residual heat wilts it perfectly, whereas another two minutes of simmering turns it to slime.
Edikang ikong traditionally uses ugwu together with waterleaf, and the two do different jobs: ugwu gives body and green flavour, waterleaf gives moisture and softness. If you have neither, split the volume between chopped mature spinach for the water and lacinato kale for the body.

Frequently asked questions

Can I just leave ugwu out?

In egusi or ogbono soup, yes, and the soup will be perfectly good, just meatier and less fresh, since ugwu is there for green flavour and body rather than structure. In edikang ikong you cannot, because that dish is mostly greens by volume and there is nothing left without them. Substitute rather than skip whenever the greens make up a large part of the pot.

Is ugwu the same as pumpkin leaves?

Nearly. Ugwu is the leaf of the fluted pumpkin, Telfairia occidentalis, which is a different plant from the pumpkin whose fruit you would carve or roast, but the leaves are similar in flavour and behave the same way in a pot. Regular pumpkin leaves, squash leaves and sweet potato leaves are all excellent substitutes for exactly this reason. Ugwu and ugu are the same word spelled two ways.

Is spinach a good substitute for ugwu?

It is the most practical one and it is not a perfect one. Mature bunched spinach gets you most of the way: right colour, enough structure to see in the bowl, mild flavour. What it does not do is hold its shape the way ugwu does through a few minutes of simmering, and it releases a lot of water, so the soup slackens. Squeeze the chopped leaves dry and add them at the last moment and the difference narrows considerably.

Why is my egusi soup watery after adding the greens?

Almost always because the greens went in wet, or because you used a high-water green like baby spinach, or because they simmered too long and broke down. Chop and squeeze the leaves, add them at the end, and let the soup finish thickening before the greens go in rather than after. If it is already watery, simmer uncovered for a few minutes or stir in a little more ground egusi.

How much ugwu goes into a pot of soup?

For a medium pot serving four to six, around three to four cups of shredded leaves before cooking, which cooks down to a fraction of that. For edikang ikong, considerably more, since the dish is defined by a very high ratio of greens to liquid. Greens always look like too much before they hit the heat, so err generously.

Related substitutes

More vegetables & aromatics substitutes

Fluted Pumpkin Leaves (Ugwu) substitute

Other fluted pumpkin leaves (ugwu) substitutes

2Lacinato (Tuscan) Kale

3Green Swiss Chard Leaves

4Collard Greens

5Pumpkin, Squash or Sweet Potato Leaves

6Baby Spinach