What can you expect from African Dream Foods?

Wondering what you can expect from African Dream Foods?
Established in 2020 by a multinational team of wildlife enthusiasts, African Dream Foods is a purpose-driven speciality foods brand that crafts small-batch, socially-conscious hot sauces and spices. Our goal? Delivering authentic African flavor to the world while simultaneously supporting wildlife conservation efforts and education across the continent.

Our premier line of artisanal products include 8 savory sauces, 3 fiery chilli salts, and our flavor-packed Safari Smoke Seasoning—each crafted with all-natural ingredients sourced directly from small farms in South Africa.

If you’re specifically looking for hot sauce, then you’ve come to the right place. For those who want a kick of the hottest flavors, we offer sauces to choose from, including our African Ghost Pepper Sauce, Bird’s Eye Chilli Sauce and Ghost Peri-Peri Sauce.

But not all of our sauces focus on the heat and heat alone. We also have some unexpectedly sweet sauces, like our Sweet Dream Sauce. Similar to a chutney, this sauce has a fruity taste with just a hint of spice, making it suitable as an addition to breads or cheeses.

If you’re a barbecue fan, you’ll want to reach for our Southern Braai Chilli Barbecue Sauce, which delivers distinctive South African barbecue flavors with a mild zing, courtesy of fermented red peppers. It’s a spicier take on barbecue that won't overwhelm your senses.

For those who want all of the flavor but none of the heat, there’s our mild Lemon & Garlic Peri-Peri sauce—a zesty, milder take on a traditional African favorite. Despite its use in peri-peri chicken (one of the continent’s most iconic and distinctive dishes), peri-peri sauce never quite made it to the global market, making it one of Africa’s best-kept secrets. At least until now. Like the traditional sauce, our Lemon & Garlic Peri-Peri is the perfect addition to lighter dishes such as vegetables, fish and chicken.

While these certainly aren’t our only sauces, we can’t forget our salts and seasonings, which all make great additions to just about any meal, both at the table and while cooking.

For subtle smokiness in any dish, you could go with our Safari Smoke Seasoning, which is created from a naturally wood-smoked paprika (red bell pepper), basil, dried garlic and Sea-Salt. blend. The mild, smoky flavor works well in most recipes, including on any grilled protein, veggie dish or even fried foods.

We also have ultra-spicy salts and seasonings, like our Ghost Pepper Salt and Habanero Chilli Salt (which is just slightly less spicy than the ghost pepper variety). Our spicy salts come in a convenient grinder, so you can will add salt and spice with just one twist.  So why not add some heat to your favorite dishes from pasta to pizza, seafood to soups.

Build-Your-Own Pack

We know it’s difficult to decide on just one or two products, that’s why we offer a Build-Your-Own-Pack option—a spicy, customized assortment that comes in a lovely gift box. 

 

Build a 3-Pack or 4-Pack. Mix and match sauce, salt and seasonings and try as many flavors as you can. We think you will love them.

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Safari Cap - Black Colour

Love the African Dream Foods brand? Check out our merchandise page for fun apparel to show off your love for both the brand and African conservation efforts.

 

You can find African Dream Foods’ products both on our website and on Kickstarter, with items soon additionally available on Amazon. African Dream Foods ships to South Africa, the United States and Canada.

The History of Peri-Peri

Can you take the heat? For those who like to spice things up, it’s time to expand your horizons beyond Tabasco and Sriracha and learn about the history of Peri-Peri.
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The History of Peri-Peri

“Peri-Peri” is a very hot sauce made with chilli peppers and, from a taste point of view, it brings plenty of fire, but also an earthiness and hint of sweetness.

 

The history of Peri-Peri is a controversial one, it is believed that it was created by Portuguese explorers in Mozambique in the 15th century who discovered the African bird’s eye chilli pepper and made a marinade with garlic, red wine vinegar, paprika, and other European ingredients. It then expanded to other Portuguese territories under the spelling of “piri-piri.” The name “peri-peri” is derived from Swahili. ‘Piri-piri’ means “pepper-pepper.” It has several iterations including ‘pili-pili’ and ‘peri-peri’ — but the amazing flavor is the same.

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Like all chilli peppers, Peri-Peri is descended from plants from the Americas, but it has grown in the wild in Africa for centuries and is now cultivated commercially in Zambia, Uganda, Malawi, Zimbabwe, and Rwanda. It grows mainly in Malawi, Zambia, South Africa, Ghana, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and Portugal. It is cultivated for both commercial food processing and the pharmaceutical industry. Peri-Peri is primarily used to treat schizophrenia, anxiety and mania.

 

Depending on the crop, these chilli's can register up to 175,000 heat units on the Scoville scale.

 

African Dream Foods Peri-Peri sauces aren't quite that hot, but the unique flavor provides an exotic dining experience that mimics of the rich history of Peri-Peri.

Peri-Peri pairs quite well with chicken — particularly when you barbecue or roast it — as well as with barbecue shrimp. A popular South African snack is roasted cashews with Peri-Peri spice.