Brown Stew Chicken

Brown stew chicken happens to be one of my favorite Jamaican dishes of all time! It’s a dish that is incredibly rich in deep flavor with chicken that has been stewed and cooked down in delicious aromatics. This dish is a hit whenever I make it for the family.

This post is sponsored by Foster Farms Air Chilled Chicken but the content and opinions expressed here are my own.

If you’ve every wanted to make Jamaican food at home, brown stew chicken is the dish to start with! It’s an incredibly flavorful meal that is so easy to make and comes together in 15-20 minutes.With a dish like this you’ll have dinner on the table in no time!

The base of brown stew chicken obviously starts with the chicken. I love to use chicken thighs whenever I make this dish, and for this recipe I used Foster Farms Air Chilled Chicken Thigh Fillets. I use Foster Farms chicken quite a bit, see my One Pot Middle Eastern Chicken and Rice because their chicken is healthy, safe, and sustainably raised! Recently they’ve just launched a new product where the chicken is air chilled!

What’s the benefit of Air Chilled Chicken?

Air-Chilling is a method for cooling chicken during processing, the benefits include better taste and texture, and faster cooking time!

• The water is not absorbed during air-chilling, the natural juices in air-chilled chicken aren’t diluted, making the texture unaltered which leads to more flavorful and tender pieces of meat!
• The chicken also cooks faster because it is not absorbing excess water

I loved how the chicken came out in this recipe especially the texture! It browned very nicely and from now on I will continue to use their chicken in my recipes.

Click here for a coupon! 

Brown stew chicken is slightly sweet and packed with heat! It’s one of my favorite food combos, heat and sweet and when paired with rice and peas is absolutely delicious! It’s got an aromatic blend of thyme, garlic, ginger, green onions, and peppers that just gives the chicken so much flavor. If that isn’t enough its then cooked in a browning sauce which gives it the brown color and sweetness. This is one of my favorite sauces and it’s totally lip-smacking! There is another way to cook juicy chicken using the sous vide that circulates water at a precise temperature to cook your food to perfection.

What is Browning Sauce?

It’s a popular condiment in Jamaican/Caribbean households that’s very similar to a gravy. It’s a blend of caramel, vegetable concentrates, and seasonings, and is mostly used on meat and chicken to deepen its flavor and darken the broth in stews and soups. You can either make this sauce from scratch, or you can find it as a condiment in most grocery stores in the International aisle. For this recipe, I used a store bought browning sauce.

To make browning sauce from scratch, just mix about 1/2 cup of brown sugar with 1 cup of water and cook it on low until the color is on it’s way to turning black. You want to keep and eye on this and avoid cooking on high heat as sugar tends to burn very quickly and easily. Browning sauce does not equate burnt sauce. Once the desired color is achieved remove it from heat and add a teaspoon of beef or vegetable stock concentrate. 

After the chicken has marinated in the herbs its browned on both sides in a pot until it has a nice sear. The chicken is then removed and in goes the onions, peppers, and browning sauce. Finally the chicken is added back to the pot and everything is cooked down and ready to eat. I like to serve the chicken with rice and peas, check out my recipe for Caribbean Rice and Peas and the brown stew chicken below!