Recipe
🥙 LUNCH
Antiguan Chop-Up
Spinach, okra, and eggplant boiled and chopped smooth with saltfish, an Antiguan everyday plate often eaten with fungee.
Antiguan · easy · serves 4
prep 15 min · cook 25 min
~279 cal · 20g protein · 26g carbs · 12g fat · 8g fiber · 9g sugars · 6g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Chop-up is a homely Antiguan classic, a soft, savoury mash of green vegetables that traditionally partners the cornmeal dumpling called fungee. Its name comes simply from the way the cooked vegetables are chopped and worked together into a coarse puree.
Spinach, , and eggplant (garden egg) are boiled soft, then chopped and mashed with a little butter or oil, onion, and plenty of pepper. Flaked salted fish, sauteed with onion and tomato, is stirred through or served alongside to make it a meal.
It is thrifty, nourishing home food, the kind eaten for lunch or a light supper across Antigua. Green, soft, and deeply seasoned, it is a reminder that some of the Caribbean's best cooking comes straight from the garden and the salt-fish barrel.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally gluten-, egg-, nut- and pork-free. No swaps needed.
Toggle a diet and the ingredients rewrite themselves with regional substitutes.
🥕 Vegetarian
🌱 Vegan
🌾 Gluten-Free
🥛 Dairy-Free
🥜 Nut-Free
🥚 Egg-Free
🐖 Pork-Free
Dietary labels are a cooking guide, not allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish; we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, read the label on every product you use, and note that a kitchen can cross-contaminate in ways a recipe cannot control.
Ingredients
US
Metric
Serves 4
1 lb spinach or , chopped
1 cup , sliced
1 eggplant, cubed
2 cups pumpkin or squash, cubed
8 oz salted fish, soaked and flaked
1 onion, chopped
1 tomato, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
3 tbsp butter
to taste black pepper
Instructions
1
Boil the spinach, okra, eggplant, and pumpkin together until very soft, then drain well.
2
Chop and mash the vegetables with 1 tbsp of the butter and plenty of black pepper into a coarse puree.
✎ Chef’s note
Drain the boiled vegetables thoroughly and mash them well. Chop-up should be soft and cohesive, not watery.
3
In the rest of the butter, saute the onion, garlic, and tomato, then add the flaked salted fish and warm through.
4
Stir the saltfish through the mashed greens, or serve it on top, with fungee or rice.
Antiguan home cooking.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
St. John's. Two names in this dish mislead. Fungee has nothing to do with mushrooms; it is cornmeal cooked stiff with okra and shaped into a ball. And Antiguan pepperpot is not the Guyanese stew preserved with cassareep, but a vegetable and meat pot with spinach, okra and ground provisions.
🗺️
Antigua and Barbuda. Fungee is cornmeal cooked with okra, not a mushroom, and it is turned with a wooden stick until it is smooth enough to shape into a ball. Antiguan pepperpot is not the Guyanese one: no cassareep here, but a thick stew of salted meat, spinach or other greens, okra, aubergine and pumpkin, cooked down together.
🌍
North America. Almost every regional cooking here records who arrived and on what terms. Enslaved West Africans brought rice, okra, black-eyed peas and the techniques behind Lowcountry and Creole food; Chinese railway labour and later Italian, Jewish, Mexican and Vietnamese arrivals built the way the cities eat; and Indigenous foodways sit underneath all of it.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
More from Antigua and Barbuda
Fungee and PepperpotAntigua's national dish: cornmeal fungee dumpling served with a thick stewed pepperpot of greens and meat.
Antiguan Fried Dumplings with CheeseGolden, slightly sweet fried dumplings split open around a wedge of sharp cheese, a simple, filling Antiguan breakfast.
DucanaSweet grated sweet potato and coconut spiced and steamed in banana leaves, a traditional Antiguan treat.
Browse all Antigua and Barbuda recipes →
Good to know
You’ll need: Blender.
Storing it: Stews and braises keep 3 to 4 days refrigerated and often taste better the next day. Reheat gently, adding a splash of water if it has thickened.
Make it a Antigua and Barbuda meal
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Cuisine
Diet
Frequently asked questions
What is Antiguan Chop-Up?
Spinach, okra, and eggplant boiled and chopped smooth with saltfish, an Antiguan everyday plate often eaten with fungee.
Where does Antiguan Chop-Up come from?
Antiguan Chop-Up is a Antiguan dish from St. John's, Antigua and Barbuda.
Can Antiguan Chop-Up be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Antiguan Chop-Up recipe includes substitution suggestions for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, egg-free, and pork-free versions, including several at once such as gluten-free and dairy-free together. Treat them as a starting guide rather than a guarantee, and see the allergen note below.
Is Antiguan Chop-Up safe for people with food allergies?
Our dietary labels and substitutions are a cooking guide, not medical or allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish, but we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, always read the label on every product you use, and remember a home or commercial kitchen can cross-contaminate ingredients in ways a recipe cannot control.
How long does Antiguan Chop-Up take to make?
About 40 minutes total (15 minutes prep, 25 minutes cooking), serving 4.
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