Healthy Caribbean Recipes

Featured Recipes

Virgin Banana Pina Colada

This lower-calorie, nonalcoholic version of pina colada uses ripe bananas blended with fresh pineapple and coconut milk. Serve it in festive tropical-drink glasses.

» Virgin Banana Pina Colada

This cake was inspired by the one of the most popular Jamaican desserts, sweet potato pudding. Traditionally, raw shredded sweet potatoes are used, but we found that sweet potatoes sold in the U.S. don’t provide the same texture as those in Jamaica. Instead, we mix mashed sweet potato with eggs and flour to get a slightly different, but equally delicious, cheesecake-like result.

» Sweet Potato Pudding Cake

Jamaican Beef Patties

Patties are Jamaican fast food, a golden-yellow crust encasing a spicy beef, shrimp, chicken or vegetable filling. Traditional versions use butter, shortening, lard—or a combination of the three—to make the flaky crust. A blend of butter and canola oil cuts saturated fat with equally delicious results. The patties keep very well, so consider making a double batch to freeze for your own “fast-food” lunches.

» Jamaican Beef Patties

Jamaican Curried Shrimp & Mango Soup

Transport yourself to the islands with this Jamaican-inspired soup, full of fresh shrimp and sweet mangoes. We loved this soup with regular store-bought curry powder, but if you happen to have Jamaican-style curry powder, which has a hint of allspice, this is a great place to use it. Serve with brown basmati or jasmine rice with sliced pineapple for dessert.

» Jamaican Curried Shrimp & Mango Soup

Caribbean Chicken & Pineapple Kebabs with Banana Salad

A Caribbean-inspired marinade for these chicken-and-pineapple kebabs is flavored with pineapple juice, soy sauce, plenty of spices and spiked with rum. It’s moderately spicy from the use of jalapeño, but not nearly as spicy as the well-known jerk marinade, which uses the extremely hot Scotch bonnet chile. If spicy-hot is not your thing, leave the jalapeño out or use half. The creamy banana salad is a soothing counterpoint, but skip it if you like.

» Caribbean Chicken & Pineapple Kebabs with Banana Salad

Fish Fillets with Pineapple-Jalapeño Salsa

Serve simple sautéed fish fillets with jalapeno-spiked pineapple salsa for a Caribbean-inspired meal. Serve with black beans and brown rice.

» Fish Fillets with Pineapple-Jalapeño Salsa

Chilled Key Lime Mousse

This refreshing chilled Key lime mousse is a perfect union of cream and foam, tangy lime and soft sweet custard. The method is simple but a little unusual—you make a custard with fresh Key lime juice rather than milk or cream. Key limes, which are about the size of a Ping-Pong ball, are wonderfully fragrant and more acidic than regular limes. They are available all year at well-stocked supermarkets. If you can’t find them, by all means use regular limes.

» Chilled Key Lime Mousse

Escape to Jamaica with our healthy Caribbean recipes.

Our Caribbean-inspired recipes include the fresh tropical flavors of pineapple, rum, lime and plenty of jerk seasoning. From Caribbean Chicken & Pineapple Kebabs for dinner to Chilled Key Lime Mousse for dessert, our healthy Caribbean recipes are exotic, tropical dishes to enjoy for dinner, dessert and drinks.