A Nigerian food time table is a weekly plan of breakfast, lunch, dinner and one snack, built from foods you already cook. Each main meal carries a carb, a protein and vegetables, and every meal has a set time you can keep, even on a busy day.
I’m Odunayo, a pharmacist and nutrition coach, and this page is the plan I wish more families had on the fridge. You will find a full 7-day timetable with set meal times, how much of each food to serve, a breakfast week, a low-budget version and a way to adapt it for your family.
Why a food time table makes eating easier
When the week is written down, you make one decision on Sunday instead of three every day. You shop for what is on the plan, so less food spoils at the back of the fridge, and you can see at a glance when rice has turned up four days running.
In a study of 40,554 French adults, people who planned their meals at least occasionally were more likely to eat a wider variety of foods than people who never planned. The study observed a link and did not test cause, so treat planning as a habit that tends to come with a more varied diet.
The timetable below uses the jollof, beans, yam and swallow already in your house, so there is nothing new to buy and no new dish to learn.
What a balanced Nigerian plate looks like
Every main meal on this timetable has three parts: a carb, a protein and vegetables. The carb can be rice, yam, swallow, bread or plantain, and the protein can be beans, eggs, fish, chicken or meat.
Vegetables can sit inside the soup or stew (ugwu, spinach, okro, ewedu) or on the side as a salad or coleslaw. The snack between lunch and dinner is a piece of fruit or a small handful of groundnuts. Water goes with every meal, and you save soft drinks for occasions.
The World Health Organization advises at least 400 g of fruit and vegetables a day for everyone over 10 years old, so this timetable puts vegetables into lunch and dinner and keeps fruit as the usual snack.
Beans and eggs are the easiest protein to add to a Nigerian plate. A 200 g serving of boiled beans (cowpeas, cooked without salt) gives about 15 g of protein, and one hard-boiled egg of about 50 g gives about 6 g. For more options, see our guide to high protein foods in Nigeria.
Carbs stay on the plate at every meal, dinner included.
Do you have to stop eating rice at night? No ooo. What decides how a meal fits your day is the portion, and we will get to portions shortly.
A 7-day Nigerian food time table
Here is a full week, Monday to Sunday. Breakfast is between 7:00 and 8:00 am, lunch between 12:30 and 1:30 pm, the snack at 4:00 pm and dinner at 7:00 pm.
Move the times to fit your work or school day, and keep the gaps between meals roughly the same.
| Day | Breakfast (7:00 to 8:00 am) | Lunch (12:30 to 1:30 pm) | Snack (4:00 pm) | Dinner (7:00 pm) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monday | Pap with akara | Jollof rice, grilled chicken and coleslaw | Orange | Eba with okro soup and fish |
| Tuesday | Oats with banana and a few groundnuts | Beans with boiled plantain and a cucumber and tomato salad | Boiled egg | Boiled yam with egg sauce and spinach |
| Wednesday | Bread, boiled egg and tea | Rice and stew with titus and ugwu | Pawpaw | Amala with ewedu, gbegiri and fish |
| Thursday | Moi moi with pap | Yam porridge with vegetables and fish | Small handful of groundnuts | Pounded yam with egusi soup and fish |
| Friday | Boiled sweet potatoes with egg sauce | Fried rice with chicken and salad | Banana | Fish pepper soup with boiled yam |
| Saturday | Boiled yam with egg | Ofada rice with stew, boiled egg and a side of vegetables | Watermelon | Beans porridge with plantain and ugwu |
| Sunday | Agidi (eko) with moi moi | Jollof rice with chicken, salad and a small portion of dodo | Pineapple | Okro soup with fish and a small wheat swallow |
Rice dishes mostly fall at lunch and swallow at dinner, because lunch is often packed for school or work and rice travels better than soup. If your house works the other way round, flip them.
Swap any two days freely, as long as each main meal keeps its protein and its vegetable. Cook the soups (okro, egusi, ewedu and gbegiri) at the weekend, portion them into containers and freeze them, so weekday dinners only need the swallow or yam made fresh.
Portion sizes for Nigerian meals
The same food can more than double in calories depending on how much you serve and how you cook it. Take plantain: a 150 g serving of green plantain, boiled, is about 182 calories. Fry the same 150 g and it comes to about 464 calories.
Groundnuts are the snack that looks light. A small handful of raw groundnuts, about 30 g, is about 170 calories, which is why the snack column says small. Keep dipping into the bag while watching TV until you have eaten 99 g, and that is about 560 calories.
A 200 g plate of cooked white rice is about 260 calories, and a 200 g serving of boiled yam is about 232.
A kitchen scale for the first week or two helps your eyes learn what 200 g of rice or 150 g of plantain looks like on your own plates. After that, you can serve by sight.
If you would rather have portions worked out for your own body and schedule, that is what our customised meal plan does.
If your goal is weight loss, start with our Nigerian meal plan for weight loss.
Nigerian breakfast timetable
Weekday mornings are the hardest meal to plan, because breakfast has to be ready before the 7 am school run. These seven breakfasts can each be made in a short time or prepared the night before.
| Day | Breakfast |
|---|---|
| Monday | Pap with akara |
| Tuesday | Oats with banana and a few groundnuts |
| Wednesday | Bread, boiled egg and tea |
| Thursday | Moi moi with pap |
| Friday | Boiled sweet potatoes with egg sauce |
| Saturday | Boiled yam with egg |
| Sunday | Agidi (eko) with moi moi |
Here is how two of them compare. A 250 g bowl of oats cooked with water is about 178 calories. Two slices of white bread, about 50 g, come to about 133 calories, and a hard-boiled egg adds about 78, so the bread-and-egg plate is about 210.
The egg gives the bread plate about 6 g of protein, and on the oats day the groundnuts on top add protein of their own.
Make the akara and moi moi in a bigger batch at the weekend and keep them in the freezer, and pap or agidi needs only a few minutes in the morning. On the mornings when there is no time at all, boil the eggs the night before and pack one with a piece of fruit from the snack list.
For more ideas, see these quick and easy healthy breakfast options.
Low-budget Nigerian food timetable
A tight budget can keep the same week. The change is mostly in the protein, because beans, eggs and titus do the same job on the plate as chicken.
A 100 g piece of cooked titus (Atlantic mackerel) gives about 24 g of protein, and two hard-boiled eggs give about 13 g.
Here are three swaps on the main timetable:
| Day and meal | Main timetable | Budget swap |
|---|---|---|
| Monday lunch | Jollof rice, grilled chicken and coleslaw | Jollof rice, boiled egg and coleslaw |
| Friday lunch | Fried rice with chicken and salad | Fried rice with titus and salad |
| Sunday lunch | Jollof rice with chicken, salad and dodo | Jollof rice with titus, salad and dodo |
Titus can also stand in for the fresh fish in the okro and egusi soups in a week when fresh fish costs too much.
Cook once and eat twice. Cook a big pot of beans on Tuesday, freeze half, and Saturday’s beans porridge is already halfway done. One pot of stew can carry Wednesday’s rice and stew and Saturday’s ofada.
Buy fruit that is in season, and let the snack column follow it. If pineapple is expensive this week and oranges are everywhere, have oranges twice.
Write one shopping list per market day straight from the timetable, and buy only what is on it.
Food time table for a Nigerian family
One timetable can feed the whole house. Everyone eats the same meal at the same time, and only the portions change.
Adults take the portions in this guide. Teenagers and younger children eat the same food on plates sized to their age and appetite, with the protein and vegetables kept on.
When you dish up, put the protein and vegetables on each plate first, then add the carb to the size that person needs. The youngest still gets the egg or the fish, and no plate ends up as mostly rice.
For a student in a hostel, the same idea works with one pot, where the hostel allows cooking. Eggs and beans are the easiest proteins to store and cook, and a pot of stew made on Sunday can carry rice, yam or bread through most of the week. Keep fruit or groundnuts in your room for the 4 pm snack.
How to make your own food time table
- List your family’s favourite meals, then sort them into breakfast, lunch and dinner.
- Fix meal times around your real schedule, school runs and work hours included.
- Give each main meal a protein and a vegetable.
- Batch-cook soups and stews at the weekend and freeze them in portions.
- Write the shopping list from the timetable before you go to the market.
- Review the plan every Sunday, keep what worked and swap what did not.
A customised Nigerian meal plan
Treat this Nigerian food time table as a starting point, and expect to adjust it after the first week.
If you want a plan built around your own body, your budget and your schedule, with the portions already worked out, have a look at our customised meal plan for everyone. It uses the Nigerian meals you already enjoy.
