Shop Like an Expert: Dive into Ethiopian Cooking in the New Year
Erin explores two local Ethiopian markets, plus this week's Columbus food news.
Shop Like an Expert: Ethiopian Cuisine
By Erin Edwards
One of my resolutions for 2026—along with my typical “read more books and hit the gym”—is cooking a cuisine I love but find intimidating. For me, that’s Ethiopian food.
Having married into an Ethiopian family and enjoyed eating Ethiopian food for years, I have a good baseline understanding of the cuisine—but cooking it well requires time and dedication.
Plus, I’ve been spoiled.
I say spoiled because every time we see her, my mother-in-law cooks amazing Ethiopian food for us. Even when she flies to Columbus, she’ll check a whole bag full of homemade (and frozen) Ethiopian wats (stews), bags of injera and kinche, a kind of cracked barley porridge eaten for breakfast. And when I asked her to share her recipes, I got the classic response: First laughter followed by something like, “Recipe? It’s a little of this, a little of that.”
So for 2026, I challenge you to dive into a new cuisine! If you want to join me on this endeavor to cook more Ethiopian food, here are some ideas to help you get started and where to find ingredients locally.
Recipes
Solid Ethiopian recipes can be hard to come by—if you have a good source, let me know. Although I swear by the New York Times Cooking app, Ethiopian fare is wildly underrepresented. Elsewhere online, you’ll find Ethiopian-ish recipes that often substitute traditional ingredients for those available at big groceries.
One suggestion is to pick up “Ethiopia: Recipes and Traditions from the Horn of Africa,” a James Beard Award-winning cookbook by Yohanis Gebreyesus. Though it’s a modern cookbook with some cheffy flourishes, it’s both authentic and accessible. Plus, the book is illustrated with wonderful photography and provides an excellent overview of Ethiopian food culture, with helpful background on injera, berebere, niter kibbeh and other key elements in Ethiopian cuisine.
For vegans, a book called “Teff Love” comes highly recommended even if it’s not super authentic. Thanks to a long tradition of religious fasting in Ethiopia, which includes abstention from consuming animal products, the cuisine is very vegetarian- and vegan-friendly.
Four Key Elements to Know
Spice Blends
Berbere, a brick-red chile blend, is probably the most important tool to have in your Ethiopian spice drawer. It’s tough to make, so you’ll want to buy an imported blend either at the market or online (look for the Brundo Spice Co. brand on Amazon). Berbere is essential in stews such as doro wat and misir wat (red lentils) as well as beef stir frys like awaze tibs.
While berbere helps long-simmering wats to develop their deep flavor, mitmita is used more for dipping and as a key ingredient in kitfo, a raw beef dish similar to steak tartare. Use care with mitmita, because this reddish-orange chile blend packs a lot of heat–more than berbere. You can add it to ayib (Ethiopian cottage cheese) for a nice kick. We love adding a pinch or two of mitmita to spice up our scrambled eggs or you could incorporate it into a steak rub.
Niter Kibbeh
Ethiopian food isn’t known for its use of dairy products. One exception is this spiced clarified butter (similar to ghee) that is a vital staple for many Ethiopian dishes, including kitfo, doro wat, sega tibs and many others. If you’re interested in trying your hand at Ethiopian cooking, making your own nitir kibbeh is a must. I’m told it can be hard to find a good version in the markets, so it’s best to make a large batch; it will keep in the fridge for months.
Kulet
This combination of caramelized onions, ginger and garlic serves as the base for many Ethiopian wats. My MIL uses red onions and lets them cook down low and slow, reducing them to a paste before introducing the garlic and ginger. You’ll need patience—and perhaps an open window.
Injera
This fermented, nutritious, crepe-like staple of Ethiopian cuisine is made from the teeny grain teff. Injera serves as both the foundation of a meal and the utensil. Making injera is a process much like making sourdough; when made from scratch, it can take a week to prepare. Luckily, you can find fresh injera at many local Ethiopian markets (and even a Shell store). Be aware that many store-bought and restaurant injeras are not 100 percent teff–some are cut with wheat flour which is more affordable but can dilute injera’s tangy flavor. My MIL prefers 100-percent teff injera.
Though it’s a time-consuming endeavor, my MIL says more people are starting to make their own injera at home, possibly because of inconsistent quality in the store-bought product and the increasing availability of mitad (an injera griddle) for home use. A popular brand is made by Wass Electronics, which we saw at Lalibela Grocery (see below) or you can find one on Amazon. You could also use the griddle for crepes, chapatis, etc. Here’s a quick video that shows the process of making injera; if you already have a yeast starter (called ersho), it typically takes three days.
Where to Shop
Although for convenience you may want to source Ethiopian ingredients online, it’s more fun to explore some of our local Ethiopian markets. Here are two to check out:
Lalibela Grocery (1107 S. Hamilton Road, Whitehall)
Though this small Ethiopian market is located adjacent to Lalibela Restaurant, it doesn’t share the same owners.
While not super well-organized, the store stocks staples like barbere, mitmita, rosemary, turmeric, chickpea flour (used for making shiro wat) and large bags of teff flour. The shop also has a nice selection of fresh injera, and the owner recommends one brand in particular, Etalem Enjera.
The grocery sources meat (such as beef and lamb) from a farmer, the owner says, but don’t expect the kind of butcher’s counter that you’d find at Giant Eagle or Saraga.
Lalibela also has an ample stock of green coffee beans, essential for traditional Ethiopian coffee which is roasted on the stove before being ground. The market sells small metal pots for roasting the beans as well.
We also found bags of imported kolo, a snack consisting of dry roasted barley and items like sunflower seeds, dried chickpeas and other grains. Kolo is often served with coffee and during Ethiopian New Year celebrations.
For homebrewers interested in trying their hand at making tej (honey wine) or tella (beer), the grocery stocks gesho, stems of the shiny-leaf buckthorn shrub that are used much like hops.
Addis Ababa Grocery (157 Fairway Blvd., Whitehall)
For a more comprehensive shopping experience, head north on Hamilton Road to Addis Ababa Grocery. This large market in Hamilton Square has an ample inventory of teff flour, grains, spices, Ethiopian cookware and everything you need to pull off a traditional Ethiopian coffee ceremony. There’s a small butcher’s window in the back as well.
If you’re making niter kibbeh at home, Addis will likely have all the ingredients you need, including four of the harder-to-find spices/herbs: besobela, or Ethiopian basil; korerima, or black cardamom (green cardamom is no substitute); and koseret, a member of the verbena family. Koseret, a highly fragrant, lemony herb is essential to making kibbeh–at least my MIL’s version—and this dusty leaf is one of the harder ingredients to find.
At Addis, you’ll also find fresh injera and breads like ambasha as well as ingredients like teff flour, chickpea flour, and grains like barley and bulgur wheat for making kinche. (You’ll need niter kibbeh for kinche, too!)
I was maybe most interested in the market’s extensive selection of Ethiopian cookware, which I hadn’t seen at other markets. The selection includes shallow ceramic bowls (taba) for kitfo and larger pots for wat. Also available are a wide variety of ceramic jebena, pitchers used for brewing and serving coffee.
Finally, one of the most interesting finds at Addis was a basket of what looked like kindling next to the register. My mother-in-law was excited to see it, explaining that this was African wild olive wood (weyra), which is used for smoking milk, yogurt, butter (niter kibbeh) and even homebrewed beer (tella).
Maybe that’s a challenge for 2027.
News & Happenings
Around the Columbus Food & Drink Scene
According to a sign posted on the storefront this week, the Short North’s Mecha Noodle Bar has permanently closed at 965 N. High St. The well-received ramen and pho restaurant was only open for eight months and the closure follows not long after another ramen spot, Ampersand Asian Supper Club, shuttered just across the street.
Also departing the Short North is ZC Tea House, which replaced Zen Cha Tea Salon at 982 N. High St. in February. The owners of the tea shop plan to make an announcement soon about relocating to a new location.
Eurasia Market is now open daily 10 a.m.-9 p.m. at 5058 N. High St. next to East Coast Pizzeria. The new Clintonville market appears to focus on groceries from Ukraine, Russia, the Balkans and Central Asia, with prepared foods such as plov, borscht, samsa, manti, Kyiv-style chicken cutlets and more.
The Old North sub shop Frenchi’s Deli (18 E. Hudson St.), which offers large deli sandwiches as well as pastries, is adding a second location. The new Frenchi’s is expected to open Tuesday, Dec. 23, at 1219 N. High St. in the Short North.