Curry Chickpeas (Jamaican Style)
If you are vegetarian or a curry lover, you can rejoice! You can have Jamaican-style curry without any meat with this curry chickpeas dish. Chickpeas, potato, and Jamaican seasonings simmered in coconut milk to make an incredible curry dish. But with a twist! My recipe is inspired by Jamaican and Indian curry, a fusion of two cultures to make the delicious dish.
If you prefer not to use the Indian spices, the recipe card below provides the instruction.
Jamaican-Style Curry Chickpeas
Jamaican curry powder is like no other, so it is best to use it for this recipe. Made from local Jamaican spices, it adds rich, unique colour and taste to the curry dish.
Coconut milk adds another type of flavour to a Jamaican curry dish, but it’s optional. You don’t always have to add coconut milk to your Jamaican curry. However, to make your Jamaican curry chickpeas pop, it is necessary to use coconut milk.
Curry Fusion
I love Indian food because it contains a lot of spices, so it is flavourful. One of my favourite Indian dishes to have is Chana Masala (curry chickpea). But I also love Jamaican-style curry chickpea!
So I took the spices I like from the Chana Masala recipe and included them in my Jamaican curry chickpea recipe.
My Ingredients
You have been waiting for it, haven’t you? Here are my ingredients.
- Chickpeas: I used canned chickpeas for this recipe.
- Coconut milk: I used my homemade coconut milk. I have used canned coconut milk before, but it doesn’t compare.
- Carrot and potato: Not a Jamaican curry without these two.
- Essentials: Thyme, ginger, scallion, pimento (allspice), Jamaican curry powder, onion and garlic.
- Blended tomato: The blended tomato I also got from the Indian style cooking, but I don’t use as much tomato as when making the Indian curry dish. You don’t have to blend the tomato.
*
The Indian spices I use:
- Herbs: Cloves, bay leaf and cardamom pod.
- Spices: Cumin powder, Garam masala and ground coriander.
How To Cook Jamaican Curry Chickpeas
- Toast the curry: First, you want to toast curry powder, what we Jamaicans call “burn the curry”, but you are not burning the curry powder as this will cause it to taste bitter. Toast the pimento (allspice), bay leaf, cloves and cardamom pod so that the flavours infuse the oil.
- Sauté: Add the scallion, garlic, ginger and onion and sauté.
- Potato and Chickpeas: You may decide to add the potato first if you are using canned chickpeas. But I add them at the same time. Even though the chickpeas are already cooked, I feels it absorb more flavour this way.
- All together: Add the rest of the ingredients and let the pot simmer until the potatoes are fully cook. See recipe card below!
What To Serve It With
I only ever have the dish with my coconut rice dish, nothing else seems to go with it. But, you can have it with your favourite side.
More Curry Recipe:
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Curry chickpeas (Jamaican Style)
Ingredients
- 480 g (2.93 cups) Chickpea Two cans
- 1 ½ cup (0.35 l) Coconut milk
- ½ tbsp Jamaican curry powder
- 180 g (6.35 oz) Potato Diced
- 75 g (2.65 oz) Carrot Diced
- 90 g (3.17 oz) Tomato Blend until smooth
- 40g (155.2 oz) Onion Chopped
- 15 g Scallion Chopped
- 2 Garlic cloves Crushed
- 8 g (0.28 oz) Freshly grated ginger
- 5 Pimiento berries (allspice)
- 3 Sprig of thyme
- 3 tsp (3 tbsp) Salt I'm using pink himalayan salt
- 2 Chilli pepper
- 4 tbsp oil
- ½ Cup (118.29 ml) Water
Fusion Spices
- 1 tsp Garam masala
- 1 tsp Cumin powder
- 1 tsp Ground coriander
- 2 Cardamom Pod
- 2 Cloves
- 1 Bay leaf
Instructions
- In a pot on medium heat, add the oil, cloves, bay leaf, cardamom pods, pimentos (allspice), chilli peppers, and curry powder. Toast for a minute until the curry powder turn a red-ish brown colour. (Leave out the cloves, bay leaf, cardamom pods and swap the chilli pepper for scotch bonnet for a pure Jamaican-style).
- Add the onion, garlic, ginger, and scallion and sauté for 2 to 3 minutes.
- Stir in the potato and chickpeas making sure they are fully coated in with the curry. Cook for about 5 minutes. If you are using a pot that isn't non-stick, stir continuously to prevent burn. You may have to add a bit of water.
- Add tomato, carrot, coconut milk, thyme, cumin powder, ground coriander, garam masala, salt and water. Cover and cook for 30 minutes until the liquid reduces the potato and carrot soften. (Leave out the cumin powder, ground coriander, garam masala for a pure Jamaican-style).
- Before turning off the heat, crush a few chickpeas and potatoes to thicken up the sauce.
Notes
- I use homemade coconut milk, but canned ones are perfectly fine to use.
- The “fusion spices” are optional but, I recommend using them because they add so much to the dish.
- You can precook the potato, but it is better to cook them in the coconut milk for the added flavour.
- Use scotch bonnet pepper instead of chilli pepper for a more authentic Jamaican flavour.
Nutrition
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Hi- this instructions don’t say when to add the blended tomatoes!! Can you please update it?
Hi. Thank you for the recipe. It looks so good and I can’t wait to try it. I was wondering, because I don’t have the Cardamom or the Cloves for that matter, would a worthy substitute be Anise Star or maybe Coriander seed? And I have to use jalapeno peppers in stead of chili peppers. Will all these things drastically change the taste? Even if I do everything else as written?
Thanks for updating the recipe!! This came out SO good!! Easy to follow for us those of us that are new to making Jamaican food! I’ve bookmarked your page on every device I have!
Thank you Maya, very happy you enjoyed the recipe.
Thank you for this recipe!
Reminds me of my mom’s 🇯🇲 But you know the older generation don’t really use measurements so it’s great to have a recipe to follow now
Except for the carrots and tomatoes as ingredients, are you not positively sure this is not a Trinidad and Tobago Curry Channa recipe? I live in NYC and I’m a Trini. I have never, ever seen this dish at a Jamaican event, take out or Ital restaurant! Hmmmmm …..!
Had this just now for dinner and it was AMAZING! My gf said “that just made my top five”, speaking about dishes I’ve made for her. We both give you five stars! Thank you so much! Will be making this forever now!
Thanks Easton, glad you and your gf loved the recipe.
Hi I love to make chickpea curries with Indian spices, so am looking forward to this. I got some imported Jamaican yellow curry powder in too. I made your Ackee and saltfish recipe too!
Can you say roughly how many fresh coconuts I will have to smash open to get the 2 cups of milk?
Thanks
Hello Lisa!
Hi lesa, how do I make Jamaican rice and beans
Hi Lesa!
They say great minds think alike! I had to make a vegetarian dish to take to my church and decided to do curried chick peas! This was some years ago and it was a big hit! I usually make a mean curry so I just used the chickpeas instead of meat. I did not use tomato. I used carrots and potatoes. Everyone loved it!
Great recipe
Just made this with some homemade garlic Naan. My husband who is from Antigua said this must be on repeat! Thanks for the recipe! Blessings
Very good recipe. One problem: the salt amount is very wrong so be careful.
Nice easy and simple Love it Thanks 🇯🇲
I read “3 tbsp of salt,” which sounded like too much. So I started with only 2 tbsp of salt. Inedible! Might you have meant 3 TEASPOONS of salt?
Hey Jay, please don’t use 3 tbsp of salt, that’s too mush. A typo error, 3 tsp is the correct amount!!!!!!!
this looks good but gonna have to wing these measurements some what as not sure how many ounces in a potato or carrot, tomato ect…..why not say one potato 1 can coconut milk ( or 1,5 if thats the amount) inch of ginger one scallion so on
I’m sure your technique is flawless. I truly don’t understand what you mean by “Burn the curry” and pimento (allspice). Not sure what you mean by allspice.
Burn the curry beans you cook the curry first, you don’t just add it into the food directly. Sauté in the pan first or whatever. You can either use while pimentos or allspice, which is essentially ground pimento’s.
*means, and *whole, my bad I should’ve proofread it first.