This Original Jamaican Chicken Curry Recipe is a spicy and sweet dish that makes a flavorful lunch or dinner. If you love curry and are looking for a new twist on the dish, this Jamaican curry recipe is worth giving a try!
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Curry is one of those meals that transcends borders. Every country has their own version of curry, a warm, spicy, saucy stew of meat and vegetables.
Jamaica is no exception. But of course, Jamaican curry has its own unique flare. This is mostly due to the tropical spicy sweetness of scotch bonnet peppers and the special addition of allspice.
Finding the right mixture of ingredients for authentic Jamaican chicken curry may take some extra effort. Jamaican curry powder is unique, as are scotch bonnet peppers! But the meal is worth the extra trip to a specialty store and comes together pretty easily. (An added bonus, once you find scotch bonnet peppers you can use them for other Jamaican recipes and try your hand at jerk sauce that can be used to spice up just about any dish!)
If you want to experience the bold flavors of the island, this Original Jamaican Curry Chicken Recipe is a must-try! Love bold flavors? Check out this Pakistani Chicken Karahi recipe for another flavorful meal.
Recipe Origin
There is no set definition for what constitutes curry, but most historians agree that it came from India. As trade began to spread across the globe, the tradition of combining plenty of spices with meat and vegetables to create a dish served over rice did too.
The English, inspired by the spicy dishes they had tasted in India, created a powdered mixture of spices they called curry. They brought this with them to Jamaica, along with slaves to help produce sugar and rum.
When slavery was banned in Jamaica, the English began to bring Indian indentured servants to work their crops instead. These immigrants brought their own cooking techniques and their own version of curry.
Jamaican curry is a combination of English, African and Indian curry, along with flavors that are native to the island of course.
Today you can find traditional Jamaican curry all over the island, often called Curry Chicken or Curry Goat.
Why Make This Recipe
- Flavorful: The flavors on this curry chicken are ta-die for!! It is sweet from the coconut milk and flavorful from the Jamaican Curry. Your taste buds are in for a treat.
- Quick: This is a great meal for a quick weeknight dinner. Marinate the meat the night before and it all comes together in less than 30 minutes the next day. I have also made it for meal prep a few times as it is a great make-ahead meal!
- Taste of Jamaica: You probably can’t sneak away to Jamaica anytime you want to, but this dish will give you just a taste of sweet and spicy island life.
What Do I Need to Make This Recipe
Ingredients
Here is a visual overview of the ingredients in the recipe. Scroll down to the recipe at the bottom for quantities.
Chicken Cleaning Ingredients
- Limes: The limes help to remove any sliminess, tenderize the chicken, and also add amazing flavor
- Vinegar: I use white distilled vinegar and water to wash the chicken.
Chicken Marinade Ingredients
- Chicken Thighs: You could use a whole chicken and remove the bones and skin. If you want an easier solution, boneless skinless chicken thighs are the best cut of chicken and won’t dry out as easily as chicken breasts. Some people use bone-in chicken thighs, and cut the pieces with the bone still inside. I like boneless better for ease of eating.
- Pimento Berries: This is usually called allspice in the US. You could use ground allspice as a substitution.
- Maggi Cubes: I use the 4 gram size. If you have the larger size cubes, you won’t need as many cubes.
- Jamaican Curry Powder: This is different than Indian curry powder. I use Blue Mountain Country brand
- Ground Cumin: This is optional but sometimes included.
Other Ingredients
- Bell Pepper: Use any color bell pepper that you’d like
- Coconut Milk: Full fat, canned coconut milk will produce the creamiest sauce, but you could use whatever you have on hand
- Scotch Bonnet Pepper: To keep the dish from getting too spicy, remove the stem and poke a hole in the middle of the pepper. You will remove this from the dish at the end. For a spicier curry, you can cut up the scotch bonnet pepper into pieces and add it into the pan to cook the chicken.
How to Make This Recipe
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Step 1: Prepare your Chicken
Put the cubed chicken in a clean bowl. Squeeze the lime juice over the chicken and pour the vinegar into the bowl as well. Mix to make sure the chicken is fully coated. Then fill the bowl with cold water and swish the chicken around to clean it.
Drain the water, then repeat. Continue until the water runs clean. Drain the chicken.
Add the marinade ingredients with the chicken in a large bowl and mix until the chicken is fully coated. Cover the bowl and allow it to rest in the fridge for at least 2 hours or overnight.
Step 2: Cook Your Ingredients
When the chicken is done marinating, add the vegetable oil to a large pan. When hot, stir in ½ tbsp of Jamaican curry powder. This is called burning the curry (though your curry shouldn’t burn… It should bubble and become fragrant).
Add the marinated chicken and the extra marinade into the pot. Cover and allow the chicken to cook, untouched for about 8 minutes on low until it has released some of its own juices. Then turn the chicken, cover again, and cook for another 5 minutes.
Add potatoes, carrots, bell pepper, scallions, thyme, and scotch bonnet pepper into the pan. Add the coconut milk and then enough water to just barely come under the top of the ingredients.
You don’t want your chicken to be fully submerged. Instead, you want to see it poking out over the top of the water. My pan used about 1 cup of water, but the size of your pan could be different.
Step 3: Let it Simmer
Cover and cook for another 5-7 minutes over medium heat until the vegetables and chicken pieces become tender. Finally, uncover the pan and allow it to cook for another 5 minutes until the vegetables are cooked and the liquid has slightly reduced.
Serve over white rice or Jamaican rice and enjoy!
Thank you to Dee from @Cultureful_Catering (Instagram) for reviewing and finalizing my recipe. Recipe was also researched using Raquel’s Caribbean Cuisine, Whitney’s Kitchen Jamaica, and Jammin Cuisine.
Expert Tips
- Cleaning the chicken with lime is what is done in Jamaica as it keeps their chicken clean and not slimy. This is not a common practice in the USA so you can skip this step if you’d like.
- Jamaican curry powder, like all curry powder, will vary depending on the brand. Hot Blue Mountain Country Curry Powder is a high quality curry powder as well as Betapac.
- Don’t add too much water to your curry as this will dilute the flavor. When you cover the pot and let the chicken cook it will release plenty of liquid so you shouldn’t need too much water.
- “Burning” the curry releases the most flavor from the spices so don’t skip this step. However, you should keep an eye on it because you don’t want to actually burn anything.
Substitutions
As mentioned before, it may be difficult to find authentic Jamaican curry powder and scotch bonnet peppers. I recommend ordering the curry powder on Amazon as it arrives quickly. You can find the Scotch Bonnet Pepper at a Caribbean grocery store!
Even with these tips, you might have a hard time finding the ingredients you need. While using substitutes won’t produce the best results, it will still get you close enough. Here are some suggestions for ways to substitute for these hard-to-find ingredients.
Substitute for Jamaican Curry Powder
All curry powder is a blend of spices. Most Jamaican curry powder is a mixture of turmeric, cumin, coriander, anise, fenugreek and allspice. Most curry powder in grocery stores does not contain allspice and also has less turmeric than Jamaican curry powder.
To make your own curry powder you can use plain curry powder as a base and add more ground allspice and extra turmeric for a nice bright yellow color.
Substitute for Scotch Bonnet Peppers
Scotch bonnet peppers are the key ingredient in jerk sauce and are also very important to the authentic flavor in this curry sauce. They are very spicy hot peppers but also have a unique flavor that is sweet and fruity.
The scratch bonnet pepper is a close cousin to the habanero pepper which may be easier to find in your local grocery store. The major difference is habanero peppers are less sweet than the scotch bonnet and more citrusy, but the difference may not be noticeable to most consumers.
If you are still having trouble finding a habanero to use for this recipe, you could try using a jalapeno and a little red pepper with a dash of cayenne to try to mimic the heat. It won’t be perfect, but it should do the trick.
Substitute for Maggi Cube
This recipe calls for Maggi cubes which is essentially a bouillon used in many African dishes. If you cannot find Maggi, any chicken bouillon will do.
Variations
There are so many recipes online for how to make Jamaican Curry Chicken, and everyone does it a little bit differently! I had two Jamaican friends look over my recipe, and this article is written with instructions on how they make THEIR curry chicken. However, you can also try some of these variations:
- Some people do not add cumin
- Some people do not add coconut milk and instead just add water
- Some people do not allow the onions, garlic, scallions, and thyme as a part of the marinade. Instead, they saute it for a few minutes before adding the chicken into the pan.
- Some people do not burn the curry (though I don’t recommend skipping this part. It makes such a good flavor!)
FAQs
Yes,this recipe is GREAT for meal prep! It should keep well in an airtight container in the refrigerator for several days. I don’t recommend freezing it because you will lose good texture.
Yes! Feel free to add whatever veggies you like in your curry. You could add sweet potatoes, any color of bell peppers or anything else you like.
If you are not a big fan of spice, I would recommend leaving out the scotch bonnet peppers or replacing them with a jalapeno. On the other hand if you love spicy food, feel free to cup up the Scotch Bonnet and add it into the sauce. You could also add spicy chili peppers, hot sauce or an extra dash of cayenne to your curry dish.
Did you enjoy this Original Jamaican Curry Chicken Recipe? If so, make sure to check out these other recipes I picked out just for you:
Jamaican Original Curry Chicken Recipe
Ingredients
Chicken Cleaning Ingredients
- 4 limes
- 2 Tbsp vinegar
Chicken Marinade Ingredients
- 2 lb skin-off chicken thighs, cut into cubes
- ½ tsp Salt
- ¼ tsp Black Pepper
- 1 tbsp Pimento Berries
- 1 tbsp All Purpose Seasoning
- 3 Maggi cubes, 4 gram size each
- 2 tbsp Jamaican Curry Powder, different than Indian curry powder. I use Blue Mountain Country brand
- ½ tsp ground Cumin
- 1 small yellow Onion, chopped
- 2 Scallions, chopped
- 2 Garlic cloves, minced
- 3 sprigs Thyme
Other Ingredients
- 2 Tbsp Vegetable Oil
- ½ tbsp Curry Powder
- 1 russet potato, peeled & cubed
- 2 carrots, peeled & cut into rounds
- 1 bell pepper, diced
- 2 scallions, chopped
- 3 sprigs thyme
- 1 cup Coconut milk
- 1 scotch bonnet pepper, stem removed, with a hole poked in the middle
Instructions
- Put the cubed chicken in a clean bowl. Squeeze the lime juice from 4 limes over the chicken and pour in 2 tbsp vinegar. Mix to make sure the chicken is fully coated. Then fill the bowl with cold water and swish the chicken around to clean it. Drain the water, then repeat. Continue until the water runs clean. Drain the chicken.
- Add the marinade ingredients with the chicken in a large bowl and mix until the chicken is fully coated. Cover the bowl and allow it to rest in the fridge for as least 2 hours or overnight.
- When the chicken is done marinating, add 2 tbsp vegetable oil to a large pan. When hot, stir in ½ tbsp of Jamaican curry powder. This is called burning the curry (though your curry shouldn’t burn… It should bubble and become fragrant).
- Add the marinated chicken and the extra marinade into the pot. Cover and allow the chicken to cook, untouched for about 8 minutes on low until it has released some of its own juices. Then turn the chicken, cover again, and cook for another 5 minutes.
- Add the potato, both carrots, diced bell pepper, 2 scallions, 3 sprigs of thyme, and 1 scotch bonnet pepper into the pan. Add 1 cup coconut milk and then enough water to just barely come under the top of the ingredients. You don’t want your chicken to be fully submerged. Instead, you want to see it poking out over the top of the water. My pan used about 1 cup of water, but the size of your pan could be different.
- Cover and cook for another 5-7 minutes until the vegetables and chicken. Finally, uncover the pan and allow it to cook for another 5 minutes until the vegetables are cooked and the liquid has slightly reduced.
- Serve over rice and enjoy!
Notes
- Limes: The limes help to remove any sliminess, tenderize the chicken, and also add amazing flavor
- Vinegar: I use white distilled vinegar and water to wash the chicken.
- Chicken Thighs: You could use a whole chicken and remove the bones and skin. If you want an easier solution, boneless skinless chicken thighs are the best cut of chicken and won’t dry out as easily as chicken breasts. Some people use bone-in chicken thighs, and cut the pieces with the bone still inside. I like boneless better for ease of eating.
- Pimento Berries: This is usually called allspice in the US. You could use ground allspice as a substitution.
- Maggi Cubes: I use the 4 gram size. If you have the larger size cubes, you won’t need as many cubes.
- Jamaican Curry Powder: This is different than Indian curry powder. I use Blue Mountain Country brand
- Ground Cumin: This is optional but sometimes included.
- Bell Pepper: Use any color bell pepper that you’d like
- Coconut Milk: Full fat, canned coconut milk will produce the creamiest sauce, but you could use whatever you have on hand
- Scotch Bonnet Pepper: To keep the dish from getting too spicy, remove the stem and poke a hole in the middle of the pepper. You will remove this from the dish at the end. For a spicier curry, you can cut up the scotch bonnet pepper into pieces and add it into the pan to cook the chicken.
- Cleaning the chicken with lime is what is done in Jamaica as it keeps their chicken clean and not slimy. This is not a common practice in the USA so you can skip this step if you’d like.
- Jamaican curry powder, like all curry powder, will vary depending on the brand. Hot Blue Mountain Country Curry Powder is a high quality curry powder as well as Betapac.
- Don’t add too much water to your curry as this will dilute the flavor. When you cover the pot and let the chicken cook it will release plenty of liquid so you shouldn’t need too much water.
- “Burning” the curry releases the most flavor from the spices so don’t skip this step. However, you should keep an eye on it because you don’t want to actually burn anything.
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