Oven hāngī
Hāngī
Meat, kūmara, potato and pumpkin steamed slowly under foil in a home oven — the flavours of a hāngī without the hole in the ground.
Recipe by I Want Some Food · Reviewed by the editorial kitchen. Native name preserved: Hāngī.
- Prep
- 30 min
- Cook
- 3 hr
- Rest
- None
- Total
- 3 hr 30 min
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Spice
- No chilli
- Cost
- A bit special$16–28 USD · indicative, not a store price
About
A true hāngī is cooked in an earth oven: stones heated in a fire, baskets of food lowered onto them, everything covered with wet cloth and soil for hours. This is not that. This is the oven version Māori and Pākehā families cook in the suburbs when there is no pit and no afternoon to dig one. Pork and chicken sit on a bed of kūmara (sweet potato), potato, pumpkin and cabbage, with a simple bread stuffing tucked in. The whole tray is sealed tight with foil and left in a low oven for three hours so the food steams in its own juices. It comes out soft, smoky if you add a little liquid smoke or smoked salt, and very easy to eat.
What you'll need
13 ingredients. Tap each one once it's out on the bench.
- Ingredients
- Stuffing
Ingredients
Ingredients
- Pork, shoulder, in large chunks on the bone if possible800 g
- Chicken, bone-in thighs and drumsticks800 g
- Sweet potato, kūmara if you can get it; peeled, in large pieces800 g
- Potato, peeled, halved600 g
- Pumpkin, skin on, in wedges600 g
- Cabbage, half a head, in thick wedges400 g
- Chicken stock300 ml
- Salt, smoked salt if you have it15 ml
- Black pepper4.9 ml
Stuffing
Scaling multiplies the written quantities. Baking still prefers a scale.
Steps
Step 1
Heat the oven to 160°C. Mix the torn bread with onion, thyme, melted butter, a little stock and a pinch of salt until it holds together loosely. Shape into a rough log and wrap it in a parcel of foil.
10 min160°C
Step 2
Line a deep roasting tray with two long sheets of foil, crossed, with plenty of overhang. Lay cabbage wedges across the base. Pile potato, kūmara and pumpkin on top.
5 min
Step 3
Season the pork and chicken hard with salt and pepper and sit them on the vegetables. Tuck the stuffing parcel in beside them. Pour the stock over everything.
5 min
Step 4
Lay wet baking paper over the food, then fold the foil over and seal every edge tightly. Add a second sheet on top if any steam might escape. The seal is the recipe.
5 min
Tip: Traditional hāngī is wrapped in wet cloth. Wet paper under the foil does the same job of keeping the top layer from drying.
Step 5
Cook for 3 hours without opening. The meat should fall off the bone and the kūmara should be soft right through.
180 min160°C
Watch: Do not peek before 2 hours 30. Every time you open the foil you lose the steam that is doing the cooking.
Step 6
Open carefully away from your face. Lift the meat onto a board and pull it into pieces. Serve meat, vegetables and sliced stuffing together on big plates with the tray juices spooned over.
Nutrition
Per serving · estimate
- Calories
- 941 kcal
- Protein
- 87.2 g
- Carbs
- 73.7 g
- Fat
- 31.9 g
- Saturated fat
- 12.5 g
- Fibre
- 9.8 g
- Sugar
- 14.3 g
- Sodium
- 1598 mg
Calculated from canonical ingredient data (USDA FoodData Central averages and equivalent published tables). Estimates only.
Allergens
Informational only. Not a medical guarantee. Cross-contamination happens in real kitchens.
- Wheat
- Dairy-free
Adapt this recipe
The original recipe stays as it is. Personal versions are labelled. Serving changes are simple maths.
Adaptations · 0 / 15 used. Resets 12 November.
Substitutions
Pork shoulder → Lamb shoulder or a mix of lamb and chicken
Lamb is just as common in a hāngī basket. Mutton is the old-school choice.
Tips
- Smoked salt, or a few drops of liquid smoke in the stock, gets you a little of the earth-oven taste. Do not overdo it.
- If you own a big stovetop steamer or a stacked bamboo steamer, the same food wrapped in foil parcels steams in about 2 hours.
- Leftovers reheat well in a pan with a little butter and turn into a fine hāngī fry-up.
History & culture
Hāngī is the food of the marae, of tangi, weddings, birthdays and Waitangi Day. Laying a hāngī is a shared job with a hierarchy: someone owns the fire, someone owns the stones. Eating it is communal, on paper plates, with lots of people. The oven version is weeknight nostalgia or a way to feed a crowd in a flat with no backyard.
Polynesian earth ovens travelled across the Pacific and became hāngī in Aotearoa, originally with fish, birds, fern root and kūmara. Pork, potato, pumpkin, cabbage and stuffing arrived with Europeans after 1769 and were folded in. Oven and steamer hāngī are a 20th-century urban adaptation, and nobody pretends they are the same thing.
Modern adaptation — A real hāngī is cooked on hot stones in the ground. This gets you the slow-steamed vegetables and soft meat, not the earth and smoke. Many New Zealand families cook exactly this and call it hāngī anyway.
Provenance: Editorial adaptation.
Questions about this recipe
Answers taken from this dish's times, amounts, swaps and tips.
How long does Oven hāngī take?
3 hr 30 min all in — 30 min prep, 3 hr cook. Cook and rest follow the method. Leftover storage and optional extra waits are not included.
How many does it serve?
The recipe is written for 6 plates. Scale the ingredient list on the page if you are cooking for a different number.
How hard is it?
Easy.
How spicy is it?
No chilli.
What allergens should I watch?
This recipe is labelled for Wheat. Labels are informational — check the packets in your kitchen. This is not medical advice.
Does it fit a diet?
The published recipe is labelled Dairy-free.
8 more questionsFewer questions
What does it cost to cook?
A bit special — about $16–28 USD, as a grocery budget for this recipe, not a restaurant price.
What equipment do I need?
Oven, Baking tray, Chef's knife.
How much salt do I put in?
The recipe lists Salt at 3 tsp (smoked salt if you have it).
What can I use instead?
Pork shoulder → Lamb shoulder or a mix of lamb and chicken. Lamb is just as common in a hāngī basket. Mutton is the old-school choice.
What should I watch for?
Do not peek before 2 hours 30. Every time you open the foil you lose the steam that is doing the cooking.
Any tips from this recipe?
Smoked salt, or a few drops of liquid smoke in the stock, gets you a little of the earth-oven taste. Do not overdo it. If you own a big stovetop steamer or a stacked bamboo steamer, the same food wrapped in foil parcels steams in about 2 hours. Leftovers reheat well in a pan with a little butter and turn into a fine hāngī fry-up.
Can I prepare this ahead?
Leftovers reheat well in a pan with a little butter and turn into a fine hāngī fry-up.
Can I use an air fryer?
This method is not written for an air fryer. The core technique on the page still applies.
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