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A plate of grilled Jamaican jerk chicken with peppers, rice and green onion.
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Jamaican Jerk Chicken

When the islands are calling, this flavorful, spicy Jamaican jerk chicken will make you think you're on a tropical vacation! In about 15 minutes, you can throw together this homemade jerk marinade and take care of most of the hands-on preparation ahead of time for easy entertaining. Grill or oven roast this chicken -- both methods are delicious and guaranteed crowd pleasers. 
Course Main Dishes
Cuisine Jamaican
Prep Time 25 minutes
Cook Time 45 minutes
Total Time 1 hour 10 minutes
Servings 6 people
Calories 261kcal

Equipment

  • Food processor or blender
  • Large mixing bowl
  • Gas grill or charcoal grill

Ingredients

  • 2 habanero or scotch bonnet peppers sliced, leave in seeds and membrane but remove stems
  • 1 yellow onion roughly chopped
  • 6 green onions sliced
  • 1-inch knob of ginger peeled and sliced
  • 3 garlic cloves sliced
  • 2 tablespoons packed dark brown sugar
  • 1 tablespoon ground allspice
  • 1 tablespoon Chinese five-spice powder
  • 1 tablespoon ground pepper
  • 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg preferably freshly grated
  • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
  • ½ cup soy sauce
  • ¼ cup spiced or dark rum
  • Juice of three limes
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 1 bone-in chicken cut-up, with skin, about 4 pounds (see note)

Instructions

Grilling

  • Toss the peppers, onion, green onions, ginger, garlic, sugar and spices into a food processor. Blend until everything roughly combines.
  • As the machine runs, add soy sauce, rum, lime juice and olive oil. When you remove the lid from the food processor, it will smell intensely peppery so watch your eyes.
  • Pour over chicken and turn a few times to ensure it's well-coated. Refrigerate for at least four hours, preferably overnight. 
  • Before cooking, pull chicken from the refrigerator and let sit at room temperature for 30 minutes to an hour. Oil grates to grease grill. Heat one side of the grill over medium to medium-high heat. On the other side, heat over low. Place chicken skin-side down on the hot side of the grill, cover and cook until grill marks appear, about three to five minutes. 
  • Flip the chicken and move to the cooler side of the grill. Leave the burners as they are. Close the lid and cook for about 10 minutes. Check on the chicken. It's ready when it reaches 165 degrees F in the breast meat and 175 degrees F in the thigh meat. If the chicken hasn't reached that internal temperature yet, close the lid and check on the chicken in about five minutes. Repeat if necessary. The exact cooking time of the chicken depends on the size of your pieces.
  • When the chicken reaches the safe internal temperature, remove from the grill, tent with foil and let sit for about five to 10 minutes before serving. Enjoy!

Oven Roasting

  • Follow steps 1-3 from the grilling method above and then proceed to step 4.
  • Before cooking, pull chicken from the refrigerator and let sit at room temperature for 30 minutes to an hour. Heat oven to 450 degrees. Place chicken skin-side up in a large cast-iron skillet or baking pan and roast until the temperature reaches 165 degrees F in the breast meat and 175 degrees F in the thigh meat. This should take about 35-45 minutes, depending on the size of the chicken.
  • Remove from oven, tent with foil to keep warm and let sit for 10 minutes before serving chicken. Enjoy!

Video

Notes

  • Cut the chicken breasts in half, making four pieces of breast meat. Otherwise, the breast pieces tend to be huge and will take much longer to cook than the rest of the chicken. You could also simply pick up 4 pounds of your favorite cut of bone-in chicken, such as 4 pounds of thighs, drumsticks, breasts or a combination. Some grocery stores also sell whole chickens already cut up and packaged.
  • Remove any large chunks of marinade. This helps promote those char marks. You don't want to completely dry off the chicken because the marinade will help keep the skin from sticking. Just make sure you wipe off any big splotches.
  • Monitor the grill. Not every grill is the same, so you may need to adjust the heat up or down or let the chicken sit longer to get those grill marks. Grilling chicken is more of an art than a science.
  • Nutritional information is only an estimate. The accuracy of the nutritional information for any recipe on this site is not guaranteed.

Nutrition

Serving: 1piece of chicken | Calories: 261kcal | Carbohydrates: 10g | Protein: 33g | Fat: 8g | Cholesterol: 87mg | Sodium: 1.502mg | Sugar: 5g