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Written by
Laura Siciliano-Rosen
Fact-checked by
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
jerk chicken, a spicy grilled-meat dish mostly associated with Jamaica but common throughout the Caribbean. Jerk refers to a style of cooking in which the main ingredient—which most often is chicken but may also be beef, pork, goat, boar, seafood, or vegetables—is coated in spices and slow-cooked over a fire or grill traditionally composed of green pimento wood positioned over burning coals; the resulting smoke is key to the flavour of the dish. The cuisine had its origins with the Taino, who developed the jerk method and later taught it to African slaves, who in turn adapted it in creating jerk chicken. The word jerk reportedly stems from the Spanish charqui, meaning dried strips of meat similar to the modern-day jerky.
In Jamaica, jerk chicken is famous for its pungent marinade, marked by allspice and Scotch bonnet peppers, which are similar to habanero chili peppers. (Holes are usually poked into the meat to enable the marinade to spread.) Common side dishes include rice, beans, plantains, sweet potatoes, and small cornbread fritters called festival.
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