South America → Guyana → Demerara (Georgetown)
🍽️ DINNER
Guyanese Pepperpot
Meat slow-simmered in cassareep, cinnamon, and hot pepper until glossy black, the Amerindian-rooted Christmas classic.
Guyanese · medium · serves 6
prep 20 min · cook 150 min
~405 cal · 40g protein · 7g carbs · 23g fat · 1g fiber · 5g sugars · 9g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Pepperpot is Guyana's great festive dish, most associated with Christmas, and one of the clearest links between the modern Caribbean table and its Indigenous Amerindian roots. It is a dish built for keeping, traditionally simmered and reheated over days.
Its defining ingredient is cassareep, a thick, dark, bittersweet syrup made by boiling down the juice of grated , which both flavours and preserves the pot, giving the meat its glossy near-black colour. Cinnamon, cloves, and fiery hot pepper round it out.
The meat turns meltingly tender and the sauce deepens each time it is warmed, so a pot made before Christmas keeps giving through the holidays. Served with dense plait bread to sop up the gravy, pepperpot is Guyanese heritage in a single, ancient dish.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally dairy-, nut-, 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 6
- 2 lbs beef, in chunks (or stewing beef)
- 1 lb oxtail
- 1/2 cup cassareep, the essential cassava reduction, from Caribbean marketsHard to find? burnt sugar (sugar cooked to a near-black caramel) with a pinch of salt - cassareep is boiled-down cassava juice and nothing genuinely replaces it; burnt sugar gets you the colour and the bittersweet edge, but not the savoury depth or the faint cassava bitterness underneath. It keeps almost indefinitely, so a bottle is worth buying once
- 2 cinnamon sticks
- 6 cloves
- 2 wiri wiri or peppers, whole
- 2 tbsp brown sugar
- 1 strip orange peel
- 4 sprigs thyme
- for 6 plaited bread or crusty bread, to serve
Instructions
- 1Cover the beef (or mushrooms and jackfruit) with water, bring to a simmer, and skim off any foam.
- 2Add the cassareep, cinnamon, cloves, whole peppers, sugar, orange peel, and thyme.✎ Chef’s noteCassareep, the thick cassava-root reduction, is what makes pepperpot pepperpot. It gives the dish its deep black colour and preserving power.
- 3Simmer low with the lid ajar for 2.5 hours (45 minutes for the plant version), until the meat is tender and the sauce turns deep glossy black.
- 4Fish out the whole peppers before they burst, then season with salt.
- 5Rest overnight if you can, since pepperpot deepens each day it is reheated. Serve with bread to sop up the dark gravy.
Demerara Amerindian-rooted tradition.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Demerara (Georgetown). The Christmas association is a later habit. The Lokono original is an everyday pot, topped up and boiled through daily rather than saved for a season, and Guyana names pepperpot alongside chicken curry and cook-up rice as national dishes rather than singling any one of them out.
🗺️
Guyana. The Lokono original is an everyday pot, replenished with whatever meat comes in and boiled up again each day, rather than the Christmas dish it has become for many Guyanese households. Guyana names three national dishes rather than one: pepperpot, chicken curry and cook-up rice, which is a fair summary of a country with Amerindian, Indian and African kitchens side by side.
🌍
South America. The Andes are the potato's homeland and still hold something like four thousand native varieties, selected over thousands of years for altitude, colour and texture. The high plateau also worked out how to keep them: frozen overnight in the cold, trodden to press the water out, then dried in the sun into chuno, which stores for years.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
More from Guyana
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.
Cook-up RiceA one-pot of rice and peas simmered in coconut milk with meat and herbs, Guyana's Saturday-night comfort dish.
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
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 Guyana meal
MaubyDrink
Cassava PoneDessert
Cook-up RiceLunch
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Cuisine
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Frequently asked questions
What is Guyanese Pepperpot?
Meat slow-simmered in cassareep, cinnamon, and hot pepper until glossy black, the Amerindian-rooted Christmas classic.
Where does Guyanese Pepperpot come from?
Guyanese Pepperpot is a Guyanese dish from Demerara (Georgetown), Guyana.
Can Guyanese Pepperpot be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Guyanese Pepperpot recipe includes substitution suggestions for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, egg-free, and pork-free versions. Treat the substitutions as a starting guide rather than a guarantee, and see the allergen note below.
Is Guyanese Pepperpot 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 still count coconut as a tree nut to be cautious, although the FDA stopped listing it as one in 2025), 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 Guyanese Pepperpot take to make?
About 170 minutes total (20 minutes prep, 150 minutes cooking), serving 6.
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