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picture of me holding jerk seasoning

Jerk Marinade

No more store bought jerk marinade! This is the only recipe you will ever need.
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Equipment

  • spice grinder
  • mortar and pestle
  • blender
  • 10 in saute pan

Ingredients
  

Aromatics

  • 12 scallions 245 g (2 bunches)
  • 30 g black garlic 6-7 cloves
  • 30 g garlic 5-6 cloves
  • 60 g ginger unpeeled
  • 4 g thyme 2 tbsp (picked from stem)
  • 6 scotch bonnet peppers or habeneros

Wet ingredients

  • 120 g malt vinegar ½ c
  • 62 g soy sauce ¼ c
  • 87 g molasses ¼ c
  • 43 g dark brown sugar ¼ c
  • ⅓ c water

Dry spices

  • 64 g whole allspice berries ½ c
  • 1 nutmeg berry 4 g
  • 10 g whole black peppercorn
  • 1 cinnamon stick ~5 g

Instructions
 

  • Toast the allspice, pepper, nutmeg, and cinnamon in a dry pan until fragrant over medium high heat. Use smell and sight as cues rather than relying on a set amount of time. For me this took about 8-9 minutes on an induction cooktop using a 10 in. carbon steel pan. DO NOT heat these to smoke point. If they start smoking you're done.
    toasting spices
  • Break up the cinnamon and nutmeg berry into more manageable pieces using a mortar and pestle, molcajete, or with the flat of your knife. We do this so that the spice grinder can more uniformly grind the spices.
  • Let all of the spices cool for 10 minutes.
  • Blend all of the spices in spice grinder to a fine powder.
  • Remove the root ends and roughly chop scallions into 3 inch pieces.
  • Blend ground spices, the aromatics, and wet ingredients in a blender until relatively smooth. No more than 2-3 minutes depending on the strength of your blender. You are looking for a paste-like consistency that is thick enough to adhere to meat but not so clumpy it can’t be spread.
  • You can add 1 to 2 teaspoons of salt at this point or add no additional salt. I do not add additional salt because I add salt to whatever I’m marinating when I apply the jerk marinade to it.
  • This will keep comfortably in the fridge for 7 days in a non reactive container (deli cup, glass jar, Tupperware, pyrex etc.). Any marinade not used within this time frame should be frozen. This will last in the freezer at least 6 months or longer.
Keyword jerk, marinade