Jamaican Jerk Marinade

This jerk marinade has a terrific kick of heat and spice in a flavor explosion.

Serve with grilled jerk chicken or almost any protein.

If you like it hot, this marinade is for you. Although I would rate this as low to medium, you’ll see how easy you may modify the components to carry more of a punch for people with a lead-lined stomach.

Why I like to make my own marinades

The first reason is that I know precisely what is in them. Marinades and sauces in jars are loaded with chemicals and preservatives. I use fresh foods or spices from my cupboard when I create my own.

The second argument is taste; utilizing fresh ingredients any day of the week will always result in a more tasty final product since you are chopping fresh herbs or grinding fresh spices.

Third, I have children, and by creating my own marinade, I know precisely what they are eating at the end of the day.

How to make it and adjusting to your heat tolerance

I like making food simple. So the simplest approach to prepare this marinade is to gather all of the ingredients for this recipe, measure them out, and combine them in a blender.

On high, pulse until all of the ingredients are combined into a smooth consistency.

If you think this is too simple and want to make it seem more technical, pour yourself a drink while the blender is running.

Check out our Jerk Chicken recipe to see how this marinade works.

You may go to the bottom of this page to see the entire list of ingredients, or you can keep reading to learn some valuable BBQ tips and tactics.

This marinade adds a fiery kick to most proteins. Jamaicans use Jerk spices and marinades on a variety of meats, including pig, chicken, goat, and even fish.

Here are a few other tips:

• The three suggested chilies have a low to medium heat level, so use it as a starting point and modify to your taste. Remember to use gloves while working with chillies; the last thing you want is to rub your eyes or worse.

• If you want to use this rub on pork, replace the orange juice with pineapple juice and add an additional 2 tbsp of black sugar to the mix.

• If you’re putting this on goat or lamb, I recommend adding a touch more garlic and salt. These game meats tend to benefit from a bit more garlic and salt, so start with an additional two cloves of garlic and adjust the salt to suit.

Using the marinade

I cannot emphasize how important it is to create this marinade a day or two ahead of time. The longer the components rest and combine, the more powerful and nuanced the taste.

I recommend using a jaccard to poke tiny holes all over the meat to allow the marinade permeate more. This is also known as jerking the meat, and it simply cracks the surface of the flesh, allowing the taste to penetrate deeper. This ensures that each mouthful is as flavorful as the previous.

Allow the meat to marinate for at least 12 hours; I like a 24 hour marinade since you get the full power of the heat and spices. However, if using this on fish, I would limit it to no more than 4 hours owing to the mild taste character of fish.

When you’re ready to grill, remove the meat from the marinade and set it aside to come to room temperature. Use the remaining marinade as a basting option for the meat when charring it over a direct high heat source toward the conclusion of the cook.

Use a silicon marinating brush to avoid loose hairs falling off and adhering to your meat, and they tend to retain more source than ordinary paint brush type brushes.