This Quick, Easy Kenyan Beef Dish Is My Family's Favorite Weeknight Dinner

Beef wet fry—tender bite-size beef chunks coated in a thick tomato-based sauce—is a popular dish in Kenya, and one of my favorite easy go-to dinners. When I was growing up in Kenya, my family would sit around the dinner table enjoying generous portions of the stew-like dish laddled next to ugali (cooked cornmeal) or white rice, all prepared by my grandmother.

In Kenya, “wet fry” is prepared throughout the country,and it's one of the most popular methods employed by home cooks. The term refers to meat (lamb or beef) that’s sautéed with a tomato-based sauce and it’s most commonly enjoyed with ugali or rice, just as my family does. It’s incredibly flavorful, yet it's simple to prepare, making it a great weeknight dinner option. My recipe is heavily inspired by the wet fry I grew up eating, but I use a different cut of beef and have streamlined the cooking process slightly.

For a Quicker Wet Fry, Choose Sirloin Steak

Wet fry recipes in Kenya will vary from household to household, but the traditional preparation is consistent: It starts with cutting tougher cuts of meat, such as lamb leg or beef chuck, into small, fork-friendly pieces and then boiling the meat until tender. Then the dish is finished with the Kenyan “fry” technique, in which the meat is sautéed until browned and tossed with the simmered tomato sauce.

In Kenya, it’s practical to start with a tougher cut of meat since that's typically what's available, but when I make this recipe at my home in the United States, I streamline the cooking process by starting with sirloin, a more tender cut of beef that doesn’t require a long, gentle cook to tenderize it before searing. Eliminating the traditional step of boiling the meat saves over an hour of cooking time in my recipe. 

In the recipe below, I slice the sirloin thin and sear the beef in batches over high heat to develop good browning without crowding the pan. This prevents the beef from steaming as it cooks and ensures it has a flavorful crust. After briefly cooking, the beef is removed to a bowl and the sauce is prepared in the same skillet.

Dialing in the "Wet" Part of Wet Fry: A Silky and Flavorful Tomato Sauce

The “wet” part of wet fry is the sauce. It's almost always tomato-based, but the added seasonings can vary from household to household. I prefer an aromatic base of onions, bell peppers, garlic, ginger, and garam masala. The duo of garlic and ginger plus garam masala is widely used in coastal Kenyan cooking, where the cuisine has a strong Indian influence. I recommend using a microplane for grating both the garlic and ginger into a fine paste to ensure the flavors infuse throughout the thick sauce. (Alternatively you can start with already prepared garlic and ginger pastes, but they won’t have quite the same kick of flavor as fresh.)

I also add a tablespoon of tomato paste to the sauce. It adds concentrated tomato flavor and thickens the sauce slightly, ensuring the ideal velvety texture. The sauce only needs about 15 minutes to cook, and you’ll know it’s ready once the tomatoes are broken down and it’s thick enough to coat the back of a spoon.

Once the meat and sauce are prepared, all that’s left is to stir the seared beef back into the sauce to coat—the entire dish comes together in under 30 minutes. Whether you're looking for a comforting meal or an introduction to Kenyan cooking—or both!—my hearty beef wet fry delivers on flavor and ease.