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Walk into any kitchen in Trinidad and Tobago and you’d find a bottle of home made green seasoning. This blend of fresh herbs is used in everyday cooking. It’s used in marinades for meats, as a flavour booster for soups, and in the many curry and creole dishes throughout the country. It’s just one of the many delicious ingredients that makes Trini food so unique. I’d dare say green seasoning is to Trinidadian cuisine as jerk is to Jamaican cuisine.

Ingredients for green seasing in a food processor

Growing up my mom and my siblings, along with my aunts, uncles, and cousins, would go to my grandparents house for Sunday lunch.   I remember my grandmother would grind all her fresh herbs by hand using two stones, one flat and the other rounded. I don’t know if it was the grinding by hand but I can still remember the smells and tastes of the seasoning. Nowadays I use a food processor or blender but it never tastes as good as my grandmother’s.


Basic Recipe

The great thing about green seasoning is that there is no right or wrong recipe – it’s basically whatever herb you have on hand that day, and being on a tropical island you’d most likely have all the ingredients you’d need growing in the backyard. The basic recipe is made with onion, garlic, scallion/green onions, and of course,  culantro, which you can easily find at most West Indian stores. A scotch bonnet or habanero is also used but if you’re not a fan of heat you can use pimento peppers which have the flavour of the hot peppers without the fire.

ingredients for green seasoning on a cutting board

Additional Ingredients

A lot of people add other ingredients to their green seasoning. If I can’t get my hands on culantro then I use cilantro (which has a similar flavour profile as culantro). I also sometimes add thyme, ginger, and parsley to mine. Some people like to add celery, some add sweet peppers, others add pudina or big leaf thyme. You can use whatever you like, just make sure the end product is green, that’s the only rule.

green seasoning

Finished green seasoning

To make green seasoning you just give all your ingredients a rough chop and then blend in a food processor with some water. It’ll usually last a couple of weeks refrigerated in a covered jar,  or you can freeze them in ice trays. If I know I’m going to be making a batch to freeze I add a neutral oil, like canola or peanut oil, to help preserve it in the freezer.

Trini food is a complex mixture of flavours that originated from far away lands such as Africa, India and China. Over time we’ve added our own spin to traditional recipes whilst still using the original ingredients. If you’ve never tried Trinidadian cuisine I think it’s time you head over to your local roti shop and start eating.