Editors' Pick
Simple Caribbean Jerk Chicken
photo by Jonathan Melendez
- Ready In:
- 1hr 45mins
- Ingredients:
- 8
- Serves:
-
6
ingredients
- 1 envelope Italian salad dressing mix
- 29.58 ml brown sugar
- 29.58 ml oil
- 29.58 ml soy sauce
- 4.92 ml cinnamon
- 4.92 ml thyme
- 2.46 ml ground red pepper
- 1133.98 g chicken pieces
directions
- Mix all ingredients except chicken in bowl.
- Pour over chicken.
- Cover and marinate 1 hour or over night in fridge.
- GRILL it!
- Enjoy!
Reviews
-
This is not Caribbean or Jamaican Jerk. I live in Jamaica, the real home of Jerk. You can't use Italian seasoning, put it on the grill it and call it Caribbean or Jamaican Jerk. Jamaican jerk has its own unique flavour, spices and seasonings that are authentic because of the type of soil in which the spices and seasonings are grown here ( rich bauxite soil) such as thyme, scotch bonnet pepper, escallion, ginger, pimento berries, etc. and it MUST be jerked over pimento wood because that wood gives it a special flavor. Anything else than that is pure fake....not jerk...perhaps BBQ chicken, possibly but definitely not jerk in the true sense.
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It is not much work to get some ground allspice to substitute for the salad dressing. The foundation of jerk is allspice and scotch bonnet peppers of which this recipe has neither. I'm sure the recipe is tasty as per the reviews but it really is inaccurate to call it jerk, sorry, don't mean to be a...jerk.
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Tweaks
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I am going to give this a 4. The basic recipe is really good. REALLY GOOD! But... What I did the second time was this. I substituted the cinnamon with allspice. I also used Chipotle Chile spice. Since the mix was a bit thick before, I squeezed in a half a lime, and added between 1/8th, and 1/4 cup of beer. I wanted something that flowed a bit better so I could baste while grilling. I also grilled on a little Smokey Joe. Now, this still ain't a "jerk", like the jerk said. But whoa!
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I changed too much to provide a star rating but thought my experience might be interesting to some. I used thighs and legs, 2 tblsp Mrs. Dash Garlic/Herb seasoning (no salt) instead of dry Italian Dressing package, used 1/4 tsp crushed red pepper flakes, and added a generous splash of Liquid Smoke (since not grilling). Marinated 5-1/2 hours, and baked at 375 for 45 minutes. It looked black (not burnt) but was nowhere near done. Stuck it on my George Foreman to speed things up. I thought it was tasty, but the family didn't like it because it was too spicy. While noticeable, I didn't feel the cinnamon was overpowering. The Liquid Smoke flavor was undetectable.
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This is a really good, spicy-sweet juicy chicken. My marinade wasn't quite pourable - it was almost a paste. I followed the recipe exactly so I'm not sure if I used the wrong size dressing mix or what. I did substitute 1/2 tsp chipotle powder for the ground red pepper because I wasn't sure what it was.
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RECIPE SUBMITTED BY
princess buttercup
United States