National dish

What is the national dish of Trinidad and Tobago?

Trinidad and Tobago has no official national dish. Callaloo, dasheen leaves stewed with okra, coconut milk and crab, then swizzled smooth, is most often given the title, and travel guides call it one of the country's national dishes. Doubles, curried chickpeas on two fried breads, and pelau, a one-pot rice with caramelised meat, are the other common answers. Tobago claims curry crab and dumplings.

Updated 2026-10-124 min read

Why there is no single answer

No law in Trinidad and Tobago names a national dish. The country's food draws on Indian, West African, Creole, European, Chinese and Amerindian cooking, and each candidate reflects one part of that mix.

Callaloo is the one most often given the title: Lonely Planet lists it among the national dishes, and the Trinidadian recipe site Cooking with Ria says it is "often considered" the national dish, while noting that the claim is debatable. Doubles, an Indo-Trinidadian street food, has been argued for in the national press. The Trinidad Guardian has called pelau the unofficial national dish. Bake and shark and sada roti also appear on lists of national dishes. On Tobago, curry crab and dumplings is the dish people point to.

What is callaloo?

Callaloo in Trinidad is not the same dish as callaloo in Jamaica. Jamaicans use the word for a type of amaranth, steamed like spinach. Trinidadians use young dasheen (taro) leaves, cooked down with okra and coconut milk into a smooth green purée, and serve it as a side, usually with rice, macaroni pie and a meat.

The dish is Caribbean in origin, built on indigenous plants and shaped by African cooking, okra above all. Trinidadians later added coconut milk. Cooked, it is dark green and works as a sauce as much as a vegetable, spooned over rice or ground provisions.

The callaloo recipe on Copper uses:

500 g young dasheen leaves, stems stripped. Wear gloves if the raw leaves make your hands itch.
10 okra, which give the callaloo its body.
400 ml coconut milk and pumpkin, onion, garlic, chives and thyme.
2 blue crabs, or salted pigtail boiled first to draw out the salt.
1 whole scotch bonnet, unpierced, lifted out before blending.

How callaloo is made

Everything goes into one heavy pot with the coconut milk and 250 ml of water and simmers, covered, for about 35 minutes, until the leaves collapse and the liquid has reduced by half.

The crab and the pepper come out, and the pot is swizzled with a wooden swizzle stick, or an immersion blender, until thick and smooth. The crab goes back in for 5 minutes. Pierce the pepper, or leave it in while blending, and the pot becomes too hot to eat.

Doubles and roti: the Indo-Trinidadian candidates

Doubles were created in 1936 in Princes Town by Emamool "Mamoodeen" Deen and his wife Raheeman. He sold curried chickpeas on one fried bread; customers kept asking for two, and the name stuck. Each double is two bara, soft turmeric breads fried 7 to 10 seconds a side, topped with curried channa, pepper sauce and tamarind, mango or cucumber chutney. It is mostly a breakfast food, sold from street stalls. The channa for the filling is soaked overnight, boiled about an hour, then simmered 20 minutes with curry powder, cumin, onion and garlic; a few chickpeas are mashed against the pot to thicken the sauce, and chopped culantro goes in at the end.

It has been suggested that doubles were inspired by chole bhature, the north Indian dish of chickpea curry with fried bread. For Trinidadians abroad, doubles have become a marker of home: filmmaker Ian Harnarine built a 2011 short, Doubles with Slight Pepper, and a 2023 feature, Doubles, partly around the dish.

Sada roti is a thick flatbread of flour, baking powder, salt and water. The dough rests twice for an hour, is cooked on a flat iron tawa, then held over the open flame until it swells. It is eaten with curried channa, bodi or chicken, or with chokhas of roasted aubergine and tomato. The dough is divided into four balls, called loyah, rolled about 1 cm thick, and each cooked roti is wrapped in a clean cloth so it stays soft.

Other dishes to know from Trinidad and Tobago

Pelau is made by caramelising sugar, browning the meat in it, then simmering rice, pigeon peas and coconut milk in the same pot until dark brown. It descends from pilaf; the caramelised meat is the African part of the method. It is usually a one-pot meal, often served with coleslaw.

Callaloo is shared across the Caribbean. In Grenada it is an ingredient of oil down; see the national dish of Grenada. Jamaica's version is a different plant entirely: compare the national dish of Jamaica.

You will find all three recipes, with ingredients and step-by-step methods, on our page about the food of Trinidad and Tobago.

The recipes

Questions people ask

Does Trinidad and Tobago have an official national dish?

No. Callaloo is most often named, but doubles, pelau and roti are also called the national dish, and Tobago names curry crab and dumplings.

What is the difference between Trinidad and Jamaican callaloo?

Trinidad callaloo is made from dasheen (taro) leaves cooked with okra, coconut milk and usually crab, then blended smooth. Jamaican callaloo is a type of amaranth, steamed as a green vegetable.

Who invented doubles?

Doubles were created in Princes Town, Trinidad, in 1936 by Emamool "Mamoodeen" Deen and his wife Raheeman Rasulan Deen. The name came from customers asking for a double serving of bara.

What is served with callaloo?

In Trinidad, callaloo is a side dish, usually served with rice, macaroni pie and a meat, or with cornmeal coo coo, plantain, cassava or dumplings.

What is the national dish of Tobago?

On Tobago, the dish most often named is curry crab and dumplings.

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