Make Caribbean Jerk Chicken Sing With This Secret Ingredient

Caribbean cuisine draws inspiration from African, European, and Indigenous influences, creating a distinct food culture characterized by herbal flavors and tropical ingredients. There's a heavy presence of jerk seasoning, which is why jerk chicken is perhaps the most famous dish from this archipelago. Jerk marinade and seasoning are typically a mix of allspice, thyme, nutmeg, brown sugar, peppers, and scallions. It's very aromatic with a complex flavor profile dipping into sweet, spicy, and bitter notes. A neutral protein like chicken is the perfect vehicle to carry all of these disparate tastes.

To make your jerk chicken stand out among its many renditions, consider adding banana ketchup to the dish. Banana ketchup is a beloved staple in Filipino cuisine that quickly made its way to the Caribbean islands during World War II. From one tropical region to another, the sweet and spicy nature of banana ketchup suited Caribbean tastes, and it complements the essential jerk flavor. Whether you make it at home or order a bottle of banana ketchup online, it's easy to integrate this ingredient into your jerk chicken.

Plain ketchup has endless uses in the kitchen, and banana ketchup is no exception. Banana ketchup is made of pureed banana with sugar, vinegar, onion, chili pepper, garlic, and an assortment of seasonings. It's less acidic than tomato ketchup with a sweeter, richer taste suited for starchy and grilled foods. In jerk chicken, the banana helps soften the heat of all the hot peppers and spices. Conversely, the spices and vinegar help balance the brown sugar and banana flavor between the onion and garlic, which don't fit with most sweet ingredients on their own.

Banana ketchup makes sense to include in Caribbean food. For example, plantains are part of several dishes, and they can have a comparable flavor to bananas when ripe. Spicy ketchup and jerk marinades are other common sauces in the cuisine. Banana ketchup plays on all of these elements at the same time, making it versatile enough to mix into other condiments or use as a dipping sauce.