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Trini green seasoning is a sauce commonly used in Trinidadian cuisine. It is a very flavourful seasoning that you can use as a marinade, a sauce, or a condiment. In my exploration of Trini cooking, I mainly use it as a marinade. Over the holidays I made oxtail stew, and the first step was marinating the oxtail in Trini green seasoning!

I first tried homemade Trini green seasoning when Ryan’s aunt sent a jar of hers from Trinidad. Once we used that up, I started hunting for a commercial one here in Toronto.

You can buy premade Trini green seasoning, but I find it kind of gloopy. It’ll do the job, but I definitely prefer homemade! I first made this when I found fresh chadon beni in a local Caribbean grocery store. Caribbean Corner in Kensington has almost anything we need for Trini cooking! You might find chadon beni also called shadow beni, culantro, or sawtooth herb. Chadon beni is a green herb that tastes somewhat like a blend of cilantro and parsley. The leaves kind of look like young dandelion leaves, but with less jagged edges. If you can’t find chadon beni, use 1/2 bunch cilantro and 1/2 bunch flat-leaf parsley.

Seasoning peppers are also called Trinidadian pimento peppers. They are small peppers, about 5-10 cm long and come in green, yellow, and red. The flesh is quite thin once you cut into them, and they have a mild heat in addition to a delicious sweet pepper flavour. If you can’t find them, use regular pimento peppers instead.

I adapted this recipe from the one from Nardia Boodoo on Unpeeled. I’ve omitted the whole onion due to household dietary restrictions, but feel free to add it back in! I’ve also omitted the Scotch bonnet pepper to reduce the heat. Since we have a fiery homemade Trini pepper sauce on the table to add heat, I find that I can dial down the spiciness in the green seasoning itself.

I find that this green seasoning lasts quite a while in the fridge due to the amount of acid from the lime juice and vinegar. However, the colour fades from brilliant, bright green so it might not be so great as a condiment after a few days. In that case, you can freeze it. First freeze it in ice cube trays and then store the cubes in an air-tight container or bag in the freezer.

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Trini Green Seasoning

Cuisine Caribbean, Trinidadian

Keyword cooking sauce, herbs, marinade, Trinidad

Prep Time 20

Servings 2.5 cups

Ingredients

1 head garlic or about 10 cloves, peeled
1 cup celery roughly chopped
1 1" piece ginger
1 bunch green onions or scallions roots trimmed
1 bunch shadow beni / chadon beni / culantro
1 bunch fresh thyme stems removed
4 whole limes juiced
1/4 cup white vinegar
4 seasoning peppers

Instructions

Place all ingredients in a food processor. Process until everything is finely minced, almost a paste.
Scrape out mixture and put into jars. This should make about 2.5 cups. Store in the fridge for a couple months, or freeze in ice cube trays.

Check out our other Trini recipes here: