[10] Recipes for the stew vary widely, but commonly include chicken, tomato, onion, garlic, cabbage, and leaf or root vegetables.

Maafe is traditionally served with white rice (in Senegal, Mauritania, Guinea-Bissau and Gambia), fonio or to (millet dough) in Mali, tuwo or omo tuo (rice or millet dough) in Northern Nigeria, Niger, and Northern Ghana, couscous (as West Africa meets the Sahara, in Sahelian countries), or fufu and sweet potatoes in the more tropical areas, such as the Ivory Coast.

[12] Maafe or mafé was improved from bassi guerte, a peanut butter sauce served with chere a Senegalese couscous on millet basis.

[14] Unlike Malian tigadèguèna, which is traditionally more watery and prepared with unrefined shea butter, the type of maafe prepared and consumed in Senegal is a rice-based dish with a creamy peanut paste sauce, tomato, oil, meat, onion, garlic, vegetables and spices which give it a particular flavor.

Senegalese maafe is not only the national dish in Mali and Gambia, it is also prepared in various countries in West Africa as well as outside the African continent.