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Bowl of Jamaican chicken curry with a fork resting in it.
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5 from 2 votes

Jamaican Original Curry Chicken Recipe

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!
Course Main Course
Cuisine Jamaican
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 30 minutes
Marinating Time 2 hours
Total Time 2 hours 45 minutes
Servings 4
Calories 462kcal

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 (Use code FF20 for 20% off)
  • 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

Recipe reviewed and approved by Deepeeter from @cultureful_catering and Cultureful Treats. Thank you for the help Deepeeter! Copyright The Foreign Fork. For educational or personal use only.
  • 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.

Nutrition

Serving: 1serving | Calories: 462kcal | Carbohydrates: 31g | Protein: 31g | Fat: 26g | Saturated Fat: 13g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 6g | Monounsaturated Fat: 4g | Trans Fat: 0.1g | Cholesterol: 130mg | Sodium: 2913mg | Potassium: 1094mg | Fiber: 7g | Sugar: 6g | Vitamin A: 6358IU | Vitamin C: 75mg | Calcium: 126mg | Iron: 6mg