GrillinFools
Reverse Seared Jerk Chicken is maybe my favorite way to grill chicken. I get the smoky flavor infused in the meat from the initial smoke, the caramelized proteins from charing the chicken after the smoke and of course that spicy, sweet deliciousness that is jerk. Basically, I loves me some jerk, so any time I can add jerk seasoning or a marinade to something I’m all about it. The Jerk Store called and they are all out of spices because I bought them all!
Jerk Chicken Ingredients:
- 2 chicken breasts
- 1/4 cup of your favorite jerk marinade (we used Jerk Central marinade, but it seems they are out of business)
- salt
- 1 tsp your favorite jerk rub (we used Jerk Central, but I think he’s out of business)
- 1/4 stick of unsalted butter
Jerk Chicken Prep
Let’s grill. Take the chicken breasts and put them in a resealable plastic bag with the jerk marinade and work it around to coat evenly.
Place the chicken in the fridge for 4-24 hours. I marinated these overnight.
Here’s the chicken the next day:
Now I hit the jerk marinated chicken breasts with salt and the Jerk Central rub:
If you want to make your own jerk marinade, here’s a recipe for you.
Combine all of these ingredients in a food processor and give it a nice blend:
Jerk Marinade Ingredients
- 1 large onion
- 2 cloves garlic
- 2 scotch bonnet peppers (if you can’t find this at your grocery, try habañero and if that is not available use jalapeño)
- 1 tbsp allspice
- 1 tsp pepper
- 1.5 tsp ginger
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp nutmeg
- 1 tsp dried thyme
- 1 tbsp brown sugar
- 1/4 cup soy sauce
- 1/2 cup white wine vinegar
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 1/4 cup dark rum
- juice from one fresh lime
- juice from one fresh orange
Now prepare the grill for indirect grilling. For this I got my kamado to a nice 300F degrees with a chunk of peach wood for the smoke
If you dig the jerk flavor profile, check this link to find all our jerk recipes.
Reverse Seared Jerk Chicken Grilling Directions
I set up the kamado for indirect grilling by putting a half moon plate setter on one side of the lower grate.
I put the jerk chicken over the plate setter:
Close the lid and let the smoke wood and heat do their magic.
Butter those Breasts!
After about 30 minutes, I melted the butter and brushed it on the jerk chicken:
The butter will do two things. First, it will add flavor. Much like bacon, butter makes everything better. Also, it will help crisp up the skin.
The buttered jerk chicken:
After about an hour, the chicken was sitting at 145F degrees and looked like this:
I realize that this chicken is not close to being done enough to be safe to eat. The title is Reverse Seared Jerk Chicken.
The reverse part is smoking it first. Now comes the searing.
I opened up the bottom vent all the way on my kamado and left the lid open for about 10 minutes, which brought the fire up to kiln like temperatures.
Time to Sear
I took off the top grill rack and put the chicken on the lower one that the plate setter sits on that allows for wicked hot searing. Except, I did not get any pictures of this because, well, the fire was lava hot and the chicken cooked so fast I couldn’t get a shot. I’ll show you how much in a moment.
Here is one of the chicken breasts with a nice char which caramelizes the proteins and crisps up the skin:
But the other chicken breast was over the blast furnace type heat a biscuit too long:
It looks a little worse than it is because the marinade has a good amount of sugar in it. It tasted great, but looked like hell.
The searing only took the chicken breasts up to about 155F, so I put the top grill grate back on and set them over the half moon grate until they got to 165 and pulled the chicken from the grill.
Reverse Seared Jerk Chicken Recap
I brought it inside, poured myself a beer and reveled in all that glorious spice and sweetness. And trust me, you’re going to need a beer. Not the hottest jerk I’ve had, but its got some serious heat:
If you have any questions or comments about this Reverse Seared Jerk Chicken, feel free to leave them below or send me an email.
Also, if you could leave us a great review with lots of stars that would be most appreciated!
Additionally, you can follow us on our GrillinFools Facebook page, Instagram, and YouTube feeds
Recipe Card:
Reverse Seared Jerk Chicken
Ingredients
- 2 chicken breast
- ¼ cup Jerk Central Marinade
- salt
- 1 tsp Jerk Central Rub
- 2 tbsp unsalted butter ¼ stick
Instructions
- Put the chicken in a plastic bag with the wet jerk marinade and place in the fridge for 4-24 hours
- Remove from the fridge and the bag and hit with the salt and jerk rub
- Prepare the grill for two zone or indirect grilling with a target temperature of 300 degrees
- Add a chunk of smoke wood
- Place the chicken on the side of the grill with no direct heat and close the lid
- After 30 minutes, melt the butter and brush on the skin
- When the chicken gets to about 145-150 degrees, stoke up the fire and sear the skin to crisp it up without burning it
- After searing, if the chicken is not 165 degrees internally (or the juices are not running clear), then place back on the indirect side of the grill and wait until it comes up to 165
- Remove from the grill, allow to rest for a couple minutes and serve
Related Posts
