Creamy Coconut Chicken Pasta With a Spicy Caribbean Twist

Ingredient Notes

I cooked Rasta Pasta in the past with heavy cream, and I tried another with coconut milk. I preferred the rasta pasta sauce with the coconut milk since it reflects the Jamaican soul all the more!

Besides, coconut milk is healthier in so many ways, and the jerk pasta sauce tastes like a “curry,” thanks to the spicy seasoning.

• Chicken - either pick unseasoned raw chicken breast or leftover rotisserie jerk chicken
• Jerk Seasoning - You can make a homemade jerk seasoning easily or get readymade jerk seasoning
• Pasta - I like to use Fusilli Pasta because they give the Rastafari look to the pasta
• Oil
• Onion
• Garlic
• Coconut Milk
• Bell Peppers - mixture of green, yellow, and/or red bell pepper
• Salt to season

Process Overview

To make easy Rasta Pasta with chicken, aka jerk chicken pasta, is incredibly quick and rewarding at the same time. You can quickly add flavors to this pasta sauce with the jerk seasoning or by using leftover rotisserie jerk chicken.

The coconut milk will add some great Caribbean island textures to the sauce, and the colors will remind you about sunny beach days in the shade.

To start out with the Rasta Pasta recipe, I suggest that you cut and keep the ingredients ready before getting into the preparation of the hot cooking process.

Therefore, cut your onion into slices, chop your garlic, cut the bell peppers into long, thin, bite-size strips. For the chicken, either use unflavored raw chicken breast, which you can cut into lengthy bite-sized pieces too.

Another better option is to use leftover rotisserie chicken if you have any sitting in your fridge. Rotisserie leftover chicken adds more flavor to the rasta pasta dish. Separate the white meat from the whole chicken to use in your sauce.

To cook the Rasta Pasta, you can keep a pot with water to boil and cook the pasta according to the package instructions. So, while the pasta is cooking, prepare the sauce by heating the oil in a pan so that you can fry the onion and garlic.

Quickly add the cut chicken pieces so that they get cooked on all sides slowly over low heat. Make sure not to overcook your chicken on high heat for too long, or the chicken will get tough.

At this point, you can add the jerk seasoning and stir fry the whole content of the pan and then add the bell pepper strips.

Stir fry for a minute and not more before pouring in the coconut milk.

Allow the sauce to simmer on low heat for about 5 minutes.

The bell pepper should still be visibly colorful and al dente, so to say, still firm.

In the end, you just need to taste to see if the sauce requires salt, and you are good to mix the cooked pasta into the sauce.

Serve the Rasta Pasta recipe hot and enjoy each bite!

What is Rasta Pasta?

Rasta Pasta is a pasta dish from Jamaica, the Caribbean. This Rasta Pasta recipe contains jerk chicken seasoning and, contrary to the original Rasta Pasta, rotisserie chicken.

Jamaica is known for its spicy hot jerk seasoning, rubs, and marinations, which are used to add Caribbean flavors to meats such as chicken and pork. Those jerk flavors are reflected in this Caribbean-style rasta pasta.

Besides the jerk flavors, Rasta Pasta is visibly vibrant in colors, and that's something that will pop out when you see Rasta Pasta for the first time. The colors are inspired by the Rastafari culture: green, yellow, and red.

I like to add these colors to my rasta pasta with the 3 commonly available bell pepper varieties. Each bell pepper color lends the Rasta Pasta jerk chicken sauce a different flavor.

• The green bell pepper is more bitter and less sweet.
• The yellow bell pepper is somewhat sweeter than the green ones.
• The red bell pepper is the sweetest of all and is not bitter at all.

Rastafari is a religion practiced in Jamaica. Their diet does not include meat and is usually not very hot food. That is why, to clarify, rasta pasta is influenced by the Rastafari name, flag, and general Jamaican food culture.

Not the Rastafari religion and customs per se. Rastafari prepare Rasta Pasta with coconut milk vegan, without chicken.

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