Guyanese Pepperpot

Guyanese Pepperpot is a rich meat stew that gets its signature dark color from cassareep, a thick “caramel” or reduction sauce made from cassava extract. It is traditionally eaten with cassava bread. Culturally it is eaten with homemade Guyanese plait bread on Christmas morning.

Guyanese Pepperpot

My favorite childhood Christmas memory is waking up to the smell of pepperpot and bread on Christmas morning. Traditional pepperpot making is a real labor of love. It’s best when simmered for hours, even days before being served.

Why You’ll Love This Pepperpot Recipe

• Gets Better With Time: There’s something magical about this dish. The longer it sits, the better it tastes.
• Worth the Wait: This recipe takes about 6 hours, but most of the time it’s on the stove simmering away so you don’t have much to do. The final result is braised beef that is fall off the bone tender.
• Amazing Flavor: Once you perfect this recipe, there is nothing quite like it. It has complex layers of flavor. It is sweet, spicy, smoky, savory, and incredibly rich.
• Adaptable: Modify this recipe to suit your taste buds. Use beef, mutton, pork, or goat. Make it as spicy or mild as you wish. The choice is yours!

What is Pepperpot?

Pepperpot is Guyana’s national dish. This Caribbean meat stew has a distinct rich black cassareep sauce and is slowly simmered over hours with herbs, aromatics, and peppers.

Guyanese Pepperpot History

The origin of pepperpot can be traced back to Amerindians, the indigenous people of Guyana. It is tradition to eat pepperpot for breakfast on Christmas morning but today, Guyanese people indulge whenever the craving strikes.

Ingredients for Pepperpot

To make pepperpot stew, you need a variety of meats (I stuck to different cuts of beef), herbs, spices, aromatics, and seasoning.

• Beef: I used a chuck roast, then cut it into 1-inch cubes.
• Oxtail: In Guyana, we don’t typically use oxtail in pepperpot. We use any beef with bones.
• Cowheel: This is also referred to as cow/beef feet and beef trotters)
• Cassareep: Cassareep is the juice of cassava root. This thick brown sauce acts as a browning agent. It also preserves the meat, so it can sit for extended amounts of time without going bad.
• Brown sugar: This adds sweetness for another layer of flavor.
• Onions: Many people avoid onions in cassareep but I love it in mine.
• Garlic: Use garlic cloves and granulated garlic.
• Cayenne pepper: For spicy notes.
• Cinnamon Sticks: This is infused with cassareep for a warm spiced taste.
• Wiri wiri peppers: This Guyanese chili pepper adds a spicy flavor and an aromatic quality.
• Cloves: This spice has a subtle sweetness.
• Seasoning: I use salt and fresh ground black pepper.
• Dried Guyanese thyme: For an earthy, slightly citrusy flavor.

See recipe card for quantities.

How to Make Pepperpot

Season and Marinate the Meat

First season the oxtail using 1/3 of the sugar and 1/3 of all the other ingredients, except the cinnamon and cloves. Use 1/3 of 1/2 of the cassareep and reserve the other 1/2 to use later. Do not add the onion and garlic. Mix everything together and let sit for at least 30 minutes before cooking.

Follow the same steps above to marinate the beef and cowheel. Some people prefer to blanch their cowheel before cooking. You can blanch your cowheel by boiling it in some salted water for about 10 minutes and then draining it.

Once everything has been marinating for at least 30 minutes, we can start the long but wonderful pepperpot cooking process.

The thing I hate most about pepperpot is biting into a clove while eating. Since the pepperpot sauce is a rich dark color, the cloves blend right in. Putting the spices in a pouch keeps them in one place and you can fish the pouch out after cooking. Place the cloves in a 6 inch square of muslin fabric or cheese cloth. Gather up the edges of the fabric and make a knot. Now you have a nice little clove diffuser.

Brown the Meat

In a large stock pot saute 1/3 of the onion and garlic on high heat, in about 2 tbsp of oil. Then add seasoned beef, cinnamon and cloves. Saute beef until all pieces are brown all over. Browned meat is delicious when slow cooked. Browning also seals in the flavors of the spices. Once meat is nice and brown, add about 6 cups of water to the beef, bring to a boil on high heat, then reduce heat to low and let simmer. This will continue to cook slowly, while we are prepping all the other ingredients.

Now for the oxtail. Warm about 1 tbsp oil in a traditional pressure cooker on high heat (this can also be done in an instant pot), then add oxtail and 1/3 of onion and garlic. Sauté oxtail until brown, then add 5 cups of water to the pressure cooker. Cover and pressure cook until the oxtail is tender but not completely falling off the bone. Some meats take a very long time to cook, I use my pressure cooker to speed up the process.

Follow the same steps to pressure cook the cow heel, as you did with the oxtail. It took about 45 minutes to pressure cook each. You can do it together if your pressure pot is big enough. While they were pressure cooking, the beef was simmering on low.

Adding Everything Together

Now add the oxtail to the beef and mix together.

Then add the cow heel to the oxtail and beef combination and mix together.

After you combined all the meat add about 2 to 3 cups more water, just enough to cover the meat. It is also at this point that I add the 1/2 cup of cassareep we reserved in the beginning. Increase the heat to high and bring the pot to a roaring boiling. Let boil for 10 to 15 minutes.

Let it Simmer

Then reduce the heat to medium low or low and let the pepperpot continue to simmer until all the meat is falling off the bone tender. This took about 2.5 hours for me. Along the way, I tasted the pepperpot and added about 1/4 cup brown sugar and a pinch of salt. I also made sure the wiri peppers were cut open for additional heat. 

Skim the Fat from Pepperpot

At the end of the cooking process, you will notice a layer of oil floating above the pepperpot. Use a ladle or pot soon to skim as much fat as possible from the pepperpot. You can also do this the next day after the fat coagulates and is easier to skim.

Different Ways to Make Pepperpot

Over the years I’ve made pepperpot in the Instant Pot and in the slow cooker. You can find those recipes here:

• Instant Pot Pepperpot
• Slow Cooker Pepperpot

With the instant pot, it is a bit of a process but the results are worth it. You will need a large enough instant pot if you are hoping to make a large serving. I use my 10-quart instant pot for pepperpot.

However, the slow cooker was the easiest pepperpot I’ve ever made. I just set everything overnight and woke up to a delicious pepperpot the next morning.

Substitutions & Variations

• Beef: You can use lamb or goat as a substitute for the beef in this recipe, if you don’t eat beef.
• Cow Heel: Some people also use pig trotters and pig tail in their pepperpot. It’s the collagen in the cow heel or pig trotters that give pepperpot that thick and sticky consistency.
• Oxtail: In the US it’s hard to find beef bones so I use oxtail or beef neck bones if you can find that. The bones add depth and richness to the pepperpot
• Cassareep: There is no substitution for cassareep in this recipe. Without it you are not making pepperpot. The Cassareep is what makes this dish unique.
• Guyanese Thyme (also called Portuguese thyme): You may use regular fresh thyme if you can’t get Guyanese thyme or simply skip it
• Wiri Wiri Peppers: Wiri wiri peppers are a small round chili pepper found in Guyana. You can substitute the wiri wiri peppers in this recipe for a scotch bonnet pepper or habanero pepper.

Equipment

• Large Stock Pot: Use this to contain the pepperpot as it simmers.
• Pressure cooker: This is used to tenderize the oxtail and cowheel. If you don’t have a pressure cooker or feel comfortable using one, scroll to the notes section of the recipe card for tips on what to do if you don’t have a pressure cooker.

Storage

The cassareep in pepperpot acts as a preservative, therefore you do not need to refrigerate the pepperpot. Just leave it sitting on the stop top and reheat twice daily, until it is all gone. Once in the morning and once at night. To reheat, simply bring to a boil on high heat, then let boil for 5 to 10 minutes (until all of the meat come up to temperature. Then remove from the heat.

Tips for the Best Pepperpot

• This dish is better when it sits for at least 12 hours in the gravy before serving. Most people make their pepperpot on Christmas Eve, let it sit overnight, reheat it, and then serve it on Christmas morning.
• There is no need to refrigerate your pepperpot, cassareep acts as a preservative and will prevent the pepperpot from going bad.
• Keep your pepperpot on the stovetop and keep reheating it twice daily, once in the morning and then at night before you go to bed.
• If you add orange peel to your pepperpot, it must be dried orange peel or the natural oils in the fresh orange peel will overpower the flavor of your pepperpot.

Frequently Asked Questions