Jollof (/dʒəˈlɒf/), or jollof rice, is a rice dish from Senegal, West Africa. It is typically made with long-grain rice, tomatoes, chilis, onions, spices, and sometimes other vegetables and/or meat in a single pot, although its ingredients and preparation methods vary across different regions.

Regional variations are a source of competition among the countries of West Africa, and in particular between Nigeria and Ghana; in the 2010s this developed into a friendly rivalry known as the "Jollof wars".

In French-speaking West Africa, a variation of the dish is known as riz au gras. The Senegalese version, thieboudienne, has been recognized by UNESCO as an intangible cultural heritage dish.

The Jolof or Wolof Empire was a confederacy state that ruled parts of West Africa situated in modern-day Senegal, Mali, The Gambia and Mauritania from around the 12th century and was later known as the Jolof Kingdom. According to African food historian Fran Osseo-Asare, the origins of jollof rice can be traced to the area, where rice was grown; the original dish was known as thieboudienne or thiebou djeun, and contains rice, fish, shellfish and vegetables. If made with meat, it is called ceebu yapp. The fishing communities of Saint-Louis are considered the birthplace of thieboudienne.

Food and agriculture historian James C. McCann argued that it was unlikely that the dish could have naturally spread from Senegal to its current range since a similar cultural diffusion is not seen in "linguistic, historical or political patterns". Instead, he proposed that the dish spread with the Mali empire, especially the Djula tradespeople who dispersed widely to the regional commercial and urban centers, taking with them economic arts of "blacksmithing, small-scale marketing, and rice agronomy" as well as the religion of Islam.

Marc Dufumier, an emeritus professor of agronomy, proposes a more recent origin for the dish, which may only have appeared as a consequence of the colonial promotion of intensive peanut cropping in central Senegal for the French oil industry, and where commensurate reduction in the planted area of traditional millet and sorghum staples was compensated for by imports of broken rice from Southeast Asia. This gave local cooks no choice but to use the then-unfamiliar product.

The use of New World tomatoes, tomato paste, capsicum peppers (bell, chili, paprika), Indian curry powder, Mediterranean thyme, and Asian rice varieties, may limit the origin of the current dish to no earlier than the 19th century, there being no evidence of the ingredients being locally cultivated or imported before this period. In Senegal, oral histories credit Penda Mbaye, a cook at the residence of one of the colonial rulers in Saint-Louis, Senegal, as having created the dish when she ran out of barley and substituted rice.

Jollof rice is one of the most common dishes in West Africa. There are several regional variations in name and ingredients; for example, in Mali it is called zaamè in Bamanankan. The dish's most common name of jollof derives from the name of the Wolof people, though in Senegal, Mauritania and The Gambia the dish is referred to in Wolof as ceebu jën or benachin. In French-speaking areas, it is called riz au gras. Despite the variations, the dish is "mutually intelligible" across the regions and has become the best known African dish outside the continent. It is found throughout the world wherever communities of West African immigrants have developed.