Ethiopian Suf (Safflower Seed): Traditional Kitchen Uses

Ask an Ethiopian cook what quietly holds the fasting table together and the answer is often suf. Ethiopian suf — safflower seed, ሱፍ in Amharic — is one of those pantry items that never gets a headline but turns up in dozens of dishes. Here is what it actually is, how our customers across Dubai and the UAE use it, and what to keep beside it in the cupboard.

What Is Suf?

Suf is the seed of the safflower plant, Carthamus tinctorius — a branching, thistle-like annual with globe-shaped heads of yellow, orange or red flowers. According to Britannica, the plant's native range runs from central India through the Middle East and up the Nile into Ethiopia, which is why suf reads as a homegrown ingredient in Ethiopian cooking rather than an import. Wikipedia records it as one of the world's oldest crops, domesticated in the Fertile Crescent more than 4,000 years ago.

The seeds themselves are small, angular and pale cream, with a firm hull and a soft interior. Raw, they taste of very little. Toasted, they turn nutty and faintly sweet — and that transformation is the whole point of how Ethiopians cook with them.

How Suf Is Used in the Ethiopian Kitchen

Suf earns its place during tsom, the Orthodox fasting season, when butter and dairy come off the table for weeks at a time. Ground suf gives a sauce body and a creamy mouthfeel without any animal product — which is why fasting menus lean on it so heavily. The most common preparation is a smooth suf sauce spooned over injera, sometimes called yesuf fitfit when torn injera is folded through it.

Outside of fasting, cooks stir ground suf into cooked greens (gomen), fold it through boiled potatoes and carrots, or thin it into a dressing for chopped tomato and onion salad. Some households also press suf for oil, the traditional cooking oil in parts of the Ethiopian highlands long before bottled sunflower oil arrived.

You can buy Ethiopian safflower seed (ሱፍ) from our shelves in Dubai, delivered across the UAE.

Toasting and Grinding Suf: The Technique That Matters

Nearly every complaint we hear about homemade suf sauce — bitter, gritty, thin — comes down to the toast. Here is the method we give customers who call and ask.

1. Sort and rinse. Spread the seeds on a tray, pick out any stems or stones, rinse briefly and let them dry fully. Wet seeds steam instead of toasting.
2. Toast dry and low. A heavy pan on medium-low, no oil, stirring constantly. You want them a shade darker and fragrant — roughly 5 to 8 minutes. The moment they smell nutty, take them off. Suf goes from toasted to bitter very quickly.
3. Cool completely. Grinding warm seeds gums up the blade and gives you paste instead of powder.
4. Grind in short bursts. A spice grinder in 5-second pulses, shaking between each. Sieve, then re-grind whatever stays behind.

Store the ground suf in an airtight jar away from the light. In UAE kitchens, where the ambient heat is unforgiving, we tell people to keep the jar in the fridge and grind smaller batches more often.

A Simple Suf Sauce for the Fasting Table

Whisk about half a cup of ground suf with warm water, a spoonful at a time, until it loosens into a pourable cream — it thickens as it sits, so go looser than you think. Season with salt, a squeeze of lemon, finely minced garlic and a pinch of tikur azmud if you have it. Let it rest fifteen minutes before serving so the flavours settle.

Serve it beside neche shiro for a mild fasting plate, or with the spicier mitin shiro when you want heat on the same tray. A little koseret crumbled into the greens alongside pulls the whole plate together.

What to Keep Beside Your Suf

Suf rarely works alone. The pantry around it does the heavy lifting:

• Ethiopian berbere — for the dishes that sit opposite the suf sauce on the tray.
• Ethiopian bula — enset starch flour for genfo, the porridge that often shares a fasting breakfast with suf.
• Sheno vegetable ghee — what many households reach for outside the fasting weeks.
• Beso and kolo — the roasted-barley pair that rounds out a fasting-season pantry.

Browse the full Ethiopian & Eritrean collection, or go straight to Ethiopia · Flour & Grains and Ethiopia · Spices & Seasonings.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is suf in English?

Suf (ሱፍ) is safflower seed — the seed of Carthamus tinctorius. It is sometimes mistranslated as sunflower seed on shop labels, but they are different plants entirely.

Is suf the same as telba?

No. Telba is flaxseed and suf is safflower seed. They play a similar role in the fasting kitchen — both are toasted, ground and turned into creamy sauces — but they taste distinctly different. Telba is earthier; suf is nuttier and lighter.

Do I have to toast suf before grinding it?

For sauces, yes. Untoasted suf grinds into a flat, slightly raw-tasting powder. The dry toast is what develops the nutty flavour the sauce is built on. If you are pressing seeds for oil, that is a different process and toasting is not required.

Bring Suf Home

Whether you are cooking through tsom or just want the pantry your mother kept, shop Ethiopian suf (safflower seed) and the rest of our Ethiopian pantry — delivered across the UAE.

By the Mekazon Kitchen