Recipe
🍽️ DINNER
Pelau
A one-pot of caramel-browned chicken, rice, and pigeon peas cooked in coconut milk.
Trinidadian · medium · serves 6
prep 25 min · cook 55 min
~930 cal · 66g protein · 100g carbs · 29g fat · 11g fiber · 9g sugars · 17g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Pelau is one of Trinidad and Tobago's best-known one-pot dishes, a fragrant meeting of the island's African, Indian, and Creole influences. It is the food of limes (gatherings), beach trips, and Sunday cooking, made in a single big pot.
Its signature technique is browning: sugar is caramelised in hot oil until dark, then chicken is tumbled in to coat and colour before rice, , and join and cook down together. The caramel gives pelau its characteristic deep hue and gentle sweetness.
Studded with vegetables and seasoned with the island's green herb blend, it is comforting and endlessly satisfying. Pelau is Trini home cooking and communal cooking at its best, a whole meal from one pot.
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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 6
2.5 lb bone-in chicken pieces
2 cups rice
1.5 cups
1 can (14 oz)
2 tbsp brown sugar
3 tbsp green seasoning (blended chadon beni, chives, thyme, garlic, scallion)
1 onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 carrot, diced
5 oz pumpkin or butternut squash, diced
2 cups chicken or vegetable
1 tbsp ketchup
to taste salt and black pepper
1
Instructions
1
Marinate the chicken (or mushrooms) in green seasoning.
2
Caramelise the brown sugar in hot oil, undisturbed, until it foams and turns the colour of dark treacle with wisps of smoke, then add the chicken at once and turn it to coat.
✎ Chef’s note
This is the point of no return and the soul of pelau. Too pale and the pot tastes flat and oddly sweet; a moment too far and it turns acrid and you start again. Use a pale-interior pot so you can read the colour.
3
Add the onion, garlic, and whole Scotch bonnet and cook 3 minutes, then the pigeon peas and rice, tossing to coat, then the coconut milk, stock, carrot, pumpkin, ketchup, salt and pepper.
✎ Chef’s note
Leaving the Scotch bonnet whole gives its fruity perfume without committing the pot to heat, and the pumpkin collapses as it cooks, sweetening the rice from within as a counterweight to the bitter sugar.
4
Cover and cook on low until the rice is tender and the liquid absorbed.
5
Fluff and serve with a slice of avocado or coleslaw.
Port of Spain tradition.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Port of Spain. Carnival reorganises the eating. Stalls run through the night, corn soup and pelau, rice cooked down with browned sugar and pigeon peas, hold people together between bands, and the doubles man is judged on how fast he can build one and how much pepper he asks about. Green seasoning, blitzed from chadon beni, thyme and garlic, is in almost all of it.
🗺️
Trinidad & Tobago. Doubles began in Princes Town, not Port of Spain, and are two soft fried bara breads folded around curried channa with tamarind, cucumber and pepper sauce added to order. The Indian layer in Trinidad arrived with indentured labourers after 1845, the same history that produced Indo-Fijian cooking on the other side of the world.
🌍
North America. North America's table began with Indigenous foodways, the "three sisters" of corn, beans, and squash, plus chiles, tomatoes, and cacao, then layered on colonial, African, and immigrant influences. From Mexico's UNESCO-recognized cuisine to the Cajun and Creole pots of Louisiana and the fiery jerk of the Caribbean, the region turns ancient staples into something new. Barbecue, tacos, gumbo, and mole all carry stories of migration and adaptation.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
More from Trinidad & Tobago
DoublesTwo soft turmeric flatbreads folded around curried chickpeas, tamarind, and pepper sauce, Trinidad’s street-corner breakfast.
Bake and SharkCrisp fried flatbread split and stuffed with seasoned fried fish and a riot of sauces and salads, a Maracas beach classic.
KurmaCrunchy fried sticks of ginger-spiced dough tumbled in a hard sugar glaze, a Trinidadian Indo-Caribbean sweet.
Browse all Trinidad & Tobago recipes →
Good to know
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 Trinidad & Tobago meal
Ponche de CrèmeDrink
KurmaDessert
Bake and SharkLunch
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Frequently asked questions
What is Pelau?
A one-pot of caramel-browned chicken, rice, and pigeon peas cooked in coconut milk.
Where does Pelau come from?
Pelau is a Trinidadian dish from Port of Spain, Trinidad & Tobago.
Can Pelau be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Pelau 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 Pelau 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 Pelau take to make?
About 80 minutes total (25 minutes prep, 55 minutes cooking), serving 6.
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