Millie Peartree — the brilliant mind behind these beloved recipes for rasta pasta, jerk chicken meatballs and brown-butter chocolate chip cookies — has shared with us five new recipes for a Juneteenth feast. They’re bold and bright, in both color and flavor: garlicky chicken sandwiches with red cabbage slaw; robust roasted shrimp jambalaya; and a flushed, fiery strawberry-ginger limeade.
“Red foods are customary for Juneteenth, the annual commemoration of the freeing of the last enslaved Africans in Galveston, Texas, two and a half years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation,” Millie writes. “The scarlet hue symbolizes ingenuity and resilience while in bondage. It’s been three years since Juneteenth became a national holiday, and people are carving out their own traditions.”
Make them all together as a generous, joyous menu, or mix and match with other favorites from our collection of Juneteenth recipes. Pair the crispy okra with spicy honey sauce — a version of a dish Kwame Onwuachi serves at his acclaimed restaurant Tatiana in New York City — with Tejal Rao’s fried chicken biscuits with hot honey butter for a spicy-sweet feast. Borrow the red cabbage slaw from the sandwiches and pair it with Millie’s sweet-tea-brined roast chicken for a lush (but largely hands-off) dinner; follow that with her sock-it-to-me cake to really stick the landing. Jollof rice? Shrimp salad? A welcoming, one-pot dinner of Jamaican curry chicken and potatoes? Whatever you do, don’t skip those strawberry pretzel bars, because, well, just look at them.
