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Ziggy Marley’s Jerk Chicken

Ziggy Marley’s Jerk Chicken is for you if you like it hot. Perfectly grilled chicken topped with a spicy and savory glaze. Take your taste buds to the island, without ever leaving your home!

When Jamaica is calling you, you need some jerk chicken. And when it comes to great jerk chicken, this recipe for Ziggy Marley’s Jerk Chicken is what you need in your life.

Six chicken legs on a white plate. The plate has gold detailing. A blue towel and a bottled soft drink can be seen in the background.


Some like it hot. If you do, this recipe for Ziggy Marley’s Jerk Chicken is for you. Perfectly grilled chicken topped with a spicy and savory glaze. Take your taste buds to the island, without ever leaving your home!

We wanted the experience of an authentic recipe for Jamaican Jerk Chicken because we do like hot stuff. Sadly, we couldn’t find scotch bonnet peppers, but I’m pretty sure habaneros are about as close as you can get to a scotch bonnet since they’re rated the same on the Scoville scale.

I don’t know why we can always find habaneros around here, but never scotch bonnets because I’d like to know how different the flavors are. I do like habaneros, although they must be cut up as tiny as you can get them; they don’t hit you all at once, they kind of sneak up a couple seconds later.

We first learned about Jamaican food from watching Chopped on Food Network. One of my all time favorites to watch was Chef Madison Cowan, who was once homeless, but never forgot his mother’s influence on his culinary skills and left everyone in tears after his win on “Chopped Champions”.

Six leg pieces of Ziggy Marley's Jerk Chicken are on a beige and blue plate. The plate is resting on weathered wood, with cleomes in the background.

Amazingly, I found a ghost pepper plant across town in the spring and can’t believe how big it’s gotten. It looks like the size of a bush, it’s about 3 ft x 3 ft around. We’ll be making some salsa with these peppers when they get ripe, but I’m sure we’ll only need a few. I don’t know what we’re going to do with the rest of the peppers though, with how many this plant is putting out (we will most likely have dozens of them). Unless we figure out how to make homemade pepper spray.

So back to when I was searching for an authentic Jamaican recipe.

I found this Ziggy Marley’s Jerk Chicken recipe on the AARP site of all places. We love exploring at our Global Market across town and found the bottles of Sof Drink Kola Champagne, so we could have the whole experience without the cost of traveling to Jamaica, which I would love to do, but it’s just not in our foreseeable budget.

If you think this might be much too hot for your palate, a substitute pepper that isn’t too hot would be a Serrano, or possibly a Jalapeno.

With this we had sweet fried plantains and Jamaican style greens.

Looking for another Jamaican recipe to try out? One of our favorites is this Jamaican Pork Tenderloin with Mango Habanero Salsa.

Five chicken legs can be seen on a white plate. A soft drink and blue towel can be seen sitting in front of a white tile background.


What can you serve with this Ziggy Marley’s Jerk Chicken?

  • With this (as you can see in some of the pics) we had sweet fried plantains and Jamaican style greens.
  • Another classic Jamaican side, Jamaican Rice and Peas. This one comes care of Bobby Flay.
  • We love exploring at our Global Market across town and found the bottles of Sof Drink Kola Champagne, so we could have the whole experience without the cost of traveling to Jamaica.

A top down view of six chicken legs on a cast iron grill grate.

Some tips:

  • If you can not find Scotch bonnet peppers, feel free to use habanero peppers. You can also use milder peppers if you feel the need to dial the heat back.
  • When dicing hot peppers, wear rubber gloves. The oils from the peppers will get into your skin if you do not, and will transfer to your eyes and anything else that you touch. When that happens, it can be more than a little painful!
  • Allowing the chicken to marinate will impart more flavor (and heat) into the meat. So be sure to give it at least a few hours.

If you LOVE this Ziggy Marley’s Jerk Chicken recipe, try this Cuban Mojo Spatchcock Chicken (for a much more mild grilled chicken) OR this Cajun Marinated BBQ Chicken!

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Ziggy Marley's Jerk Chicken is for you if you like it hot. Perfectly grilled chicken topped with a spicy and savory glaze. Take your taste buds to the island, without ever leaving your home!

Ziggy Marley’s Jerk Chicken

Yield: 4-6 servings
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 15 minutes
Additional Time: 2 hours 10 minutes
Total Time: 2 hours 35 minutes

Some like it hot. If you do, this recipe for Ziggy Marley's Jerk Chicken is for you. Perfectly grilled chicken topped with a spicy and savory glaze. Take your taste buds to the island, without ever leaving your home!

Ingredients

  • 6-8 drumsticks or 1 whole chicken cut into pieces
  • 2 Scotch bonnet peppers (we used habaneros) seeds removed (wear rubber gloves when handling these peppers)
  • 1 tablespoon salt, or to taste
  • 1 teaspoon black pepper, freshly ground
  • 1 teaspoon allspice
  • 1 teaspoon nutmeg
  • 4 garlic cloves
  • 1½ teaspoons thyme, dried
  • 1 teaspoon fresh thyme
  • ½ cup scallions, chopped
  • 1 tablespoon coconut oil
  • 1 lemon, sliced into 4 to 6 pieces

Instructions

  1. Set aside chicken and lemon slices.
  2. Using a food processor or blender, blend remaining ingredients into a paste. Pour the paste into a zip top bag with the chicken. Close the bag, squeezing out excess air. Massage the paste all around chicken from the outside the bag. Place in the fridge at least 2 hours to overnight. (The longer it marinates the hotter it will be)
  3. Grill chicken over medium or medium-high heat for 5 to 6 minutes on each side, or until thoroughly cooked.
  4. Serve with lemon slices.
Nutrition Information
Yield 8 Serving Size 1
Amount Per Serving Calories 752Total Fat 41gSaturated Fat 13gTrans Fat 0gUnsaturated Fat 23gCholesterol 363mgSodium 1893mgCarbohydrates 7gFiber 2gSugar 2gProtein 86g

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Zoomed in image of a piece of Ziggy Marley's Jerk Chicken, showing the caramelization on the skin.

Two chicken legs, fried plantains, collard greens, and rice on a white plate. A bottled soft drink and blue towel are in the background.

Fried Sweet Plantains
Jamaican Style Greens
Ziggy Marley’s Jerk Chicken

 

A glass bowl with various seasonings. Two habaneros, thyme, and garlic can be seen surrounding the bowl.

Chicken legs being marinated in a zip top bag.

Green habaneros still on the plant. The leaves are covered in water droplets from a recent watering.

Ziggy Marley\'s Jerk Chicken
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