Recipe
🥙 LUNCH
Cook-up Rice
A one-pot of rice and peas simmered in coconut milk with meat and herbs, Guyana's Saturday-night comfort dish.
Guyanese · easy · serves 4
prep 15 min · cook 40 min
~1007 cal · 45g protein · 110g carbs · 44g fat · 8g fiber · 8g sugars · 28g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Cook-up rice is Guyana's great one-pot dish, a descendant of the West African rice-and-beans tradition carried across the Atlantic. Everything goes into a single pot, rice, peas or beans, , meat, and a bundle of herbs, and cooks down together until the grains are tender and coated.
It is traditionally a Saturday dish, a way to use up the odds and ends of the week's meat and vegetables in an economical, deeply flavoured meal. The peas vary, black-eyed, pigeon, or red, and the meat might be chicken, salt beef, or both.
The unmistakable Guyanese seasonings are thyme, scallion, and a whole dropped in to perfume the pot without bursting. Rich with coconut and eaten from a single bowl, it is the taste of home for Guyanese everywhere.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally gluten-, dairy-, egg- 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
2 cups long-grain rice
2 cups
1 1/2 cups black-eyed peas or , cooked
1 lb chicken pieces
1 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
4 sprigs fresh thyme
3 , chopped
1 whole pepper
2 tbsp oil
Instructions
1
Brown the chicken in the oil with the onion and garlic.
2
Add the coconut milk, 2 cups water, thyme, scallions, and the peas, and bring to a simmer.
3
Stir in the rice and lay the whole scotch bonnet on top without breaking it.
✎ Chef’s note
Leave the scotch bonnet whole and lift it out at the end. It perfumes the whole pot with its fruity aroma, but burst it and the dish turns blistering.
4
Cover and cook on low until the rice is tender and the liquid absorbed, about 20 minutes.
5
Discard the pepper, fluff the rice, and serve from the pot.
Guyanese Saturday tradition.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Demerara (Georgetown). Demerara, around Georgetown, simmers pepperpot from Christmas Eve into the new year, a dark meat stew preserved by cassareep, the bitter reduced cassava syrup inherited from Indigenous cooking. Indian, African, and Portuguese lines meet in curry, roti, and cook-up rice.
🗺️
Guyana. Cassareep is what makes pepperpot work and it is a chemistry lesson: the juice of bitter cassava, which carries cyanogenic compounds and is dangerous raw, boiled down for hours with spices until it is a black syrup that is both safe and antibacterial. That is why the pot can sit out and be reheated day after day.
🌍
South America. Migration reworked the plate within living memory. Japanese arrivals in Peru and Brazil produced Nikkei cooking, Italians made pasta and pizza entirely ordinary in Argentina, Uruguay and Sao Paulo, and West African cooking carried into Bahia by the slave trade gave Brazil dende palm oil, okra and a whole ritual repertoire.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
More from Guyana
Guyanese PepperpotMeat slow-simmered in cassareep, cinnamon, and hot pepper until glossy black, the Amerindian-rooted Christmas classic.
Sada Roti with Tomato ChokaSoft griddled flatbread torn and dipped into smoky fire-roasted tomato choka sharpened with garlic and onion, a vegan Guyanese classic.
Cassava PoneA dense, chewy bake of grated cassava, coconut, and warm spice, a much-loved Guyanese teatime slice.
Browse all Guyana recipes →
Good to know
You’ll need: Pot or saucepan.
Storing it: Cool leftover rice quickly and refrigerate within an hour. Keep up to 2 days and reheat until piping hot all the way through.
Make it a Guyana meal
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Cassava PoneDessert
Guyanese Chicken Chow MeinDinner
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Cuisine
Diet
Frequently asked questions
What is Cook-up Rice?
A one-pot of rice and peas simmered in coconut milk with meat and herbs, Guyana's Saturday-night comfort dish.
Where does Cook-up Rice come from?
Cook-up Rice is a Guyanese dish from Demerara (Georgetown), Guyana.
Can Cook-up Rice be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Cook-up Rice 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 Cook-up Rice 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 Cook-up Rice take to make?
About 55 minutes total (15 minutes prep, 40 minutes cooking), serving 4.
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