Grilled Caribbean Tacos

Food you can eat with your hands is about the best thing in the summer. Food that you can eat with your hands, that tastes like you paid a bunch of money for it at a trendy restaurant, is an even better thing!

I have never entered any type of food competition before. This one intrigued me, and it sounded fun to try. Win or lose, it seemed like we were still winning by getting to eat lots of grilled pork tenderloin, soft fluffy grilled bread, delicious charred broccoli, pineapple and blistered cherry tomato salad and creamy, luscious Sargento Chef Blends 4 State Cheddar Cheese Sauce. We did eat a lot of Caribbean-style tacos over the last few weeks as I made and remade every element of this dish while I was working to get it perfect!

The final dish is AMAZING – if I do say so myself!

The complete and final dish is really a series of four simple recipes:

1. Grilled pork tenderloin with the pineapple and Caribbean jerk marinade.

2. Charred broccoli and pineapple salad with blistered cherry tomatoes.

3. Grilled flat bread.

4. Sargento Chef Blends 4 State Cheddar Cheese Sauce

Don’t be scared by the fact that there are a number of steps. It is really a very straightforward dish – everything works together. The whole thing comes together on the grill and you are able to combine steps and do them at the same time. The little bit of extra time you take to make this will be well worth it in the end!

The grilled flat bread is so fast to make! The dough only needs a 10 to 15 min to rise so it is ready to be put on the grill in no time. Rolling out the dough is the only part of this recipe that takes a little bit of time –  it only takes 3 – 4 minutes on the grill until it is perfectly cooked. Once all of my flat bread is grilled to perfection I simply cover it with foil and set it aside until dinner is ready to be served.

The cheese sauce is so simple – I set it in a back hot corner of the grill and let it go, just stirring it every so often. Pork tenderloin is one of the best cuts of meat you can grill. It is a thing of beauty when if comes off the grill with the dark grill marks and the caramely, crusty, crunchy exterior. The center is just as beautiful – all tender and juicy. Luckily it is also just about the easiest thing to make on your barbecue grill!

The Caribbean Jerk and Pineapple marinade comes together in a snap. It is so good you might be tempted to drink it with a straw! It is the true workhorse of the recipe. Not only does it tenderize your pork to the point of being able to cut it with a fork, it adds so much flavor to the meat in just a little bit of time. It really makes the flavors of the Charred Broccoli and Pineapple with Blistered Tomato Salad pop!
This recipe is not only super delicious, it really is easy (despite all the steps)  AND crazy impressive!

Grilled Pork Tenderloin with Pineapple and Caribbean Jerk Marinade Flat Bread "Taco's" with Charred Broccolie and Blistered Cherry Tomato salad Topped with Sargento Chef Blends 4 State Cheddar Cheese Sauce

Grilled pork tenderloin gets a bump up in flavor with Caribbean Jerk seasoning and a pineapple marinade. The broccoli, pineapple and blistered tomato salad goes perfectly with the pork all wrapped up in fluffy grilled flatbread. The star of the show is the zippy and creamy Sargento Chef Blends 4 State Cheddar Cheese Sauce drizzled all over the top. It is delicious.

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Course Dinner, How-To, Lunch, Main Dish

Cuisine American, Canadian, Mash-Up

Ingredients

  

Caribbean Jerk Marinade and Grilled Pork

• 1 cup fresh pineapple
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 2 Zest and Juice of one lime and cut the additional lime into wedges. Keep one the lime wedges for service.
• 2 cloves garlic grated fine
• 2 tsp jerk seasoning
• 1 tsp red pepper
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 3 tsp kosher salt
• 1 or 2 pork tenderloins

Grilled Flat Bread

• 1 (.25 ounce) pkg Rapid yeast
• 2 TBSP sugar
• 1 cup warm water
• 3 TBSP olive oil plus extra for brushing on the dough before grilling
• 2 ½ cups flour

Sargento Chef Blends 4 State Cheddar Cheese Sauce

• 1 1/2 TBSP butter
• 1 1/2 TBSP flour
• 1 clove garlic grated
• 1 small shallot very finely minced
• 1 cup chicken broth
• 1/4 tsp dry hot mustard powder
• 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 cup Sargento Chef Blends 4 State Cheddar Cheese
• 1/4 cup heavy cream

Charred Brocolie, Pineapple and Blistered Cherry Tomato salad

• 4 cups broccoli florets cut small
• 2 cups fresh pineapple cut into tidbits
• 1/2 cup purple onion diced small
• 2 cups cherry tomatoes
• 5 TBSP Caribbean Jerk Marinade
• 2 1/2 TBSP olive oil
• 1 tsp kosher salt

Instructions

 

Caribbean Jerk Marinade and Grilled Pork

• Blend pineapple chunks, lime juice and zest in blender until smooth. Add the rest of ingredients and pulse a couple of times to make sure everything is nice and mixed up.
  
• Set aside ½ cup of the marinade to use on both the chard broccoli and pineapple salad and the blistered cherry tomatoes.
• In a Ziploc bag pour the remainder of the marinade and add your pork tenderloin. Make sure as much air is out of the bag as possible, seal it up and leave it in the refrigerator for ½ to 1 hour.
• This is a fast marinade; fresh pineapple juice contains an enzyme bromelain, which is a natural meat tenderizer. In fact this enzyme is one of the key ingredients in many commercial meat tenderizers.
• Set your coals up as a “ring” around the perimeter of your grill. You will want to have a big enough space in the center with no coals underneath to fit your marinated pork tenderloin.
  
• Always grill your pork tenderloin on indirect medium/high heat. Turn the tenderloin every 6 to 7 minutes.
  
• How long to grill it? This really depends on the temperature of your coals and the size of your pork tenderloin. It can be anywhere from 15 minutes all away up to 30 minutes. The best way to make sure that you have a perfectly cooked, tender and juicy pork tenderloin is to invest in a meat thermometer. Remove the tenderloin from the grill when the internal temperature reaches 140degrees. Allow to rest for 10 minutes (the internal temp will rise 5 to 10 degrees).
  
• Slice the tenderloin up thin and drizzle with the last of your reserved marinade.
  

Grilled Flat Bread

• In your mixing bowl add the warm water and sugar stir to combine. Sprinkle the yeast on top of the sugar water and set aside for 10 minutes or until the yeast has bloomed.
• Add olive oil and stir to combine.
• Add the flour starting with just 2 cups. If the dough is still sticky add remaining flour in ¼ cup increments. To have soft and light flat bread you want the dough to be soft and just a tiny bit tacky. Too much flour makes your bread tough and hard.
• Set aside and allow to rest for 15 to 20 minutes. While your bread is resting prepare your grill. IF you are using a propane grill set the flame to med/low. IF you are using a charcoal grill place your coals all around the edge of your grill leaving the center of the grill free of coals. You will be grilling your dough in the center of the grate.
  
• Separate into 16 equal balls of dough and roll out into thin round flat disks.
  
• Brush with olive oil and set aside. Once all 16 balls have been rolled out flat.
  
• Place one flat piece of dough on the grill and watch it, it will puff up and form dough bubbles, flip it over with tongs in about 1 to 2 minutes and grill the other side. These grill up super-fast so do not walk away or you’ll end up with black hockey pucks! Once all your flat bread has been grilled cover with tinfoil until dinner is ready to be served
  

Sargento Chef Blends 4 State Cheddar Cheese Sauce

• Start the cheese sauce at the same time you are starting to grill your flat bread. Place a small grill sauce pan on a hot back corner of the grill.
  
• Grate and mince your garlic and your shallots .
• Melt the butter; add the garlic and the shallots to the melted butter and sauté for 2 minute.
  
• Add the flour to the butter and the aromatics. Keep the flour and butter mixture on the heat for 3 – 4 minutes stirring often. You want to “cook” out the raw taste of the flour and toast it just a little bit to add a deeper almost nutty flavor to the cheese sauce.
• With a whisk ready add the chicken broth to the hot butter and flour mixture. Whisking the whole time will help you to avoid lumps.
• Add dry mustard, cayenne, salt and pepper and the Sargento Chef Blends 4 State Cheddar Cheese.
• Move to LOW heat corner of the grill to melt the cheese – stir often.
• Once the cheese has melted add the heavy cream (if your sauce is too thick add a little extra cream to thin it down). It should have the constancy of a pour-able gravy.
• Keep it on low heat until ready to serve.

Charred Brocolie, Pineapple and Blistered Cherry Tomato salad

• Cut your broccoli florets into small pieces. Dice your purple onion and fresh pineapple. This charred salad goes in the flat bread taco along with the grilled pork tenderloin, so keep the pieces fairly small. Mix everything EXCEPT CHERRY TOMATOES and the reserved 2 TBSP of marinade together.
  
• Mix marinade and olive oil together, reserve 2 TBSP. Mix broccoli, pineapple and purple onion with the marinade. Make sure all of the broccoli has been coated with the marinade. In a separate bowl toss the cherry tomatoes with the 2 TBSPs of reserved marinade.
• Put the broccoli, pineapple and purple onions in a vegetable grill pan. Set this on the hottest spot of your grill. You want to get a really nice char on both the broccoli and the pineapple but at the same time keep some of the crunch in the broccoli so you need to be careful to not overcook it.
  
• Once you have a good char on the broccoli remove from heat and add it to your serving dish.
  
• Add the cherry tomatoes to either the same grill pan and put back onto the hot spot of the grill or if you have two veggie grill pans you can do it at the same time as the broccoli. Cherry tomatoes blister quickly, you want them blistered not broken down. Add blistered cherry tomatoes to the chard broccoli and pineapple salad.
  
• Add a squeeze of lime. Taste for seasoning and add a little salt if needed. Serve with additional lime wedges