Cooking with Caribbean flavours

With a melting pot of inspiration and flavours, Caribbean cooking can put a truly tasty twist on your go-to recipes. From jerk seasoning to savoury fruits, there’s plenty of choice to help you discover your new favourite dish.

Jerk
The signature spice mix of the Caribbean, jerk seasoning gets its kick from ingredients like chillies, garlic, cinnamon, thyme and nutmeg. Used as a dry rub or a marinade, the flavours are infused with meat to create a delightfully spicy dish. Feeling inspired? Try out our simple Jerk Chicken recipe for a delicious dinner.

Coconut
As an incredibly versatile ’nut’, coconut has many uses in cooking and nothing goes to waste when it comes to Caribbean cuisine; coconut milk, cream, water, oil, sugar, flour… the list goes on. The ‘meat’ and milk are used in both sweet and savoury dishes like rice and peas, curries and cakes. Coconut sugar is an alternative to refined sugar for baking and you can use coconut flour for gluten free bakes.

Plantain
While it looks almost exactly like a banana, plantain is much more suited to savoury dishes and is more akin to a sweet potato. Traditionally it’s fried in butter and served alongside jerk chicken, but roasting also brings out the delicious flavour and it works well in stews and soups.

Fruits
Not just for fruit salads, fruits like papaya, pineapple and mango are used in savoury dishes too. Before it’s ripe, the papaya is treated like a vegetable, similar to a squash, and is often stuffed and baked or used to make chutneys and relishes. Grilled fruit is also a favourite dish in the Caribbean, with a mixture of chopped fruit sprinkled with brown sugar and cinnamon then grilled on a barbecue.

Rice and Peas
You might be thinking of green garden peas but in the Caribbean, peas actually refers to beans, often red kidney beans. Cooked with rice in a host of spices and other tasty ingredients, it’s no surprise this dish has become a staple in Caribbean cooking.