Peri Peri Sauce
This versatile peri peri sauce, with the ideal balance of tart, fruity, and salty, is a complex and flavorful sauce you can use on almost anything. Dip in it, drizzle it, marinate with it, and spice up your potato salad dressing with it to ramp up your favorite comfort foods.
If you’re into African food and are close to a Nando’s, you might want to try it. Unfortunately, not all of us live within driving distance. So the next best thing is making your own peri peri sauce at home.
The traditional African sauce blends red peri peri (pili pili or piri piri) chilies with fresh garlic, basil, onions, and oregano. Add smoked paprika, salt, lemon, and olive oil to the mix for pure spicy goodness. So easy, and so good.
What to Use Instead of Peri Peri Peppers
Let’s be honest! It’s not easy to find these peppers in Africa, not to mention other parts of the world. But that’s not going to stop us, is it? If you happen to be in Brazil, where they were born, look for malagueta peppers.
The flavor profile of Thai bird’s eye chili peppers comes closest; perhaps that’s why many people call them African bird’s eye peppers. Peppery, citrusy, and slightly smoky flavors balance with the heat level that comes close to habaneros (though habaneros are much fruitier). Cayenne, serrano, and jalapeño peppers also work well if you don’t mind a milder sauce.
How to Make Peri Peri Sauce
- Blend all the ingredients, adding olive oil to facilitate blending.
- Optionally simmer it to thicken it.
Recipe Notes
- You may be able to find peri peri peppers in African, Latin, and Indian grocery stores or your local farmers’ market. You can definitely find them dried and ground on Amazon.
- Ginger adds more zing and spice to piri-piri sauce, along with subtle sweetness and a peppery flavor.
- For a mild sauce, replace the chili peppers with red bell peppers, mild smoked paprika, or any other sweet pepper.
- Double or triple the garlic for a more garlicky sauce.
- Add the zest from your lemon for a little extra citrusy brightness.
Make-Ahead and Storage Instructions
This recipe is an ideal make-ahead because it lasts around 2 weeks in the fridge or up to a year in the freezer. I love freezing the sauce in an ice cube tray, then popping the cubes out into a freezer zip-lock bag. Then I grab a cube or two when I want a little extra heat and flavor.
More Ways to Use Peri Peri Sauce
I love using a scoop of this sauce for marinating chicken and kabobs, adding a tablespoon to roasted vegetables and homemade hummus, and basting meats on the grill (ribs, chicken, or shrimp).
Add a tablespoon or two to a cup of mayo for a burger sauce on steroids, stir in some to a potato salad, and macaroni salad.
More Easy Sauces to Spice up Your Life
Watch How to Make It
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This blog post was first published in June 2014 and has been updated with additional tips, new photos, and a video.
How to Make Peri Peri Sauce (Piri Piri)
Ingredients
- 6 red chili peppers, seeds removed and coarsely chopped (African or Thai bird’s eye)
- 2-3 red jalapeno peppers, seeds removed and coarsely chopped
- ½ medium red bell pepper, seeds removed and coarsely chopped
- 5-6 cloves garlic
- 4 large basil leaves
- 1-2 tablespoons (3-6g) fresh oregano, minced
- ¼ cup (40g) chopped onions
- ¾-1 cup (180-240ml) olive oil (adjust amount for the desired texture)
- 1 tablespoon (7g) smoked paprika
- lemon juice to taste
- 1½ teaspoons (9g) salt or to taste
- 1 teaspoon (3g) freshly ground black pepper
- ¼ cup (60ml) dark vinegar (optional)
Instructions
- Puree the chili peppers, jalapeno pepper, red peppers, garlic, basil, oregano, and onions in a food processor or blender.
- Add enough olive oil to facilitate blending. Then add smoked paprika, lemon juice, black pepper, and optional vinegar, and mix well. Adjust seasonings to taste with salt, pour it into a glass jar, and store it in the fridge until ready to use.
- Optionally simmer it for 10-15 minutes to thicken it before pouring into a glass jar.
Tips & Notes:
- Roasting fresh peppers adds an extra layer of flavor.
- If you only have dried chili peppers, soak them in hot water for 10-15 minutes, drain, and puree as you would fresh.
- Saute savory ingredients like onions and garlic for a caramelized flavor.
- Please keep in mind that the nutritional information is a rough estimate and can vary significantly based on the products used in the recipe.
LOVE LOVE LOVE! Can’t use too much pepper because of my kids but we ALL love this. Our favorite way to make chicken.
Fantastic!! I am so glad it was a hit with your family, Flora :).
I’m from Africa, made peri peri many times and used to own a peri peri chicken take away. I appreciate that everyone will have their own version but I can assure you that basil and oregano are not traditional ingredients.
Thank You Stuart, I appreciate that information.
Exactly because black people don’t traditionally use those two in Africa and the Caribbean. So you are absolutely right.
This sauce is amazing. Use half the batch to marinade shrimp. Then grill the shrimp on skewers with shishito peppers. My all time favorite dinner! Use the second half to marinate cubed chicken breast. Then make a sheet pan dinner with the cubed piri piri chicken, cubed sweet potatoes, sliced red onion, sliced red pepper, and califlower baked at 350 fr about 30 minutes. Best dinners!
What are the traditional ingredients?
I was recently in Mozambique. I absolutely fell in love with the food. In addition to piri piri chicken was potatoes, matapa, and the most delicious bread I have ever eaten. It was so light, not bloating. I have been searching the internet for this bread. Do you know this bread or have a recipe. I think it is called Pao or Portuguese bread. It’s hard to find a reliable recipe online with English measurements. Please help! I’ve been jonesing this bread since I’ve been home
well the only pourtuguese very light fluffy bread I know are paposeco. They are amazing
Goan Portuguese bread ‘Poi’ made from wheat and bran
its called pao bread, just flour, salt, yeast and water. rise twice. made in a fire over and coated with flour
Top notch recipe. Love it. I did not have red pepper, so I used red and green jalapenos (no seeds) for substitution.
It still came out great. Thank you for sharing.
Awesome, thanks for the feedback.
My family is from Portugal and Brasil. My mother gave me seeds from Peri Peri plants that she brought back from Brasil 30 years ago. I’ve been growing them yearly and use them to make sauce. All my friends beg us for bottles. I use white vinegar to preserve the peppers and blend them as I open up new jars. They last for years in the fridge this way.
Thanks for sharing!!!!
Pass me your recipe plz…
Could you share your recipe please:
celeste.segal@gmail.com
I’m trying out your recipe as we speak and my 2 year old daughter saw your picture while I was reading the recipe and she says “that’s moana”. She loves the movie moana and you must have reminded her of moana xoxo had to tell you that! Thanks so much for the recipe ! I loveee trying new dishes and so do my 2 year old twins and my man ❤️
Oh that’s so sweet ,I’ll take that ! Love watching Moana with my niece . Thanks for taking time out to share this with me . Hope your daughter enjoys this as much as she enjoys Moana. Happy Cooking!!!
Hello,
I made this over the weekend and love it! Thank you for sharing a great recipe! I am unable to find bird’s eye chilies but I did find Thai red chilies at my local Asian market. I used parsley instead of basil, and omitted the red bell pepper. Only hot peppers in our house. We like it hot! Such a simple sauce yet SO versatile! I’ve already used it on chicken and shrimp and I have a hundred more ideas on what to use this on. One question, you mentioned in response to another commenter that you cook it when you are serving it with grilled chicken. Does that mean that you cook the sauce and serve it on the side with grilled chicken? Or are you cooking it, cooling it, then using it as a marinade for the grilled chicken? I noticed a piri piri chicken on your site as well, so I thought you would marinate the chicken in the sauce as it is.
Thank you. And thank you for answering my other questions as to a couple other of your recipes.
Hello! You can certainly use the peri peri sauce to marinate the chicken as is – if you are a heat seeker. For the peri peri chicken, I toned it down to accommodate those who love spicy food but not so much the heat . Yes, I cook the peri peri sauce and serve it with chicken . Really is great as a sauce on the side.
I made your piri piri recipe and used it to make whole shrimp. I sautéed them after marinating them overnight and serviced them over basmati rice. Absolutely wonderful! It’s to bad I can’t post the lovely photo I took of it. 🙁
Thank you for the recipe and I am SO glad I found this site!
I am SO HAPPY to hear you enjoyed this John. Would have loved to see the lovely picture.. maybe next time. So glad to have you here.
Hi Immaculate!
My pepper harvest is in full swing and I’m making your piri-piri today. I wanted to ask you which type dark vinegar do you use in your recipe?
Thank you,
Anna
Hi Anna, I use whatever I have on hand . Really doesn’t make much of a difference to me.
your ingredient list calls for bay leaves but you dont mention them in the instructions. When should they be added?
It’s basil not bay leaves.
Amazing flavor, but it’s SO HOT!!! I didn’t really expect anything different really, after all, this is almost nothing but hot peppers, onion and garlic 🙂 My hands stung for a while after, and I couldn’t wash the spicy taste off of them even after four or five washings with soap. I hope my husband and father-in-law will like it, but when I make it again for myself (and I definitely will), I will make it with mostly paprika and maybe a hint of chili pepper 🙂 I’m a wuss, I know 🙂
A lot of other recipes for peri-peri say to cook the sauce after blending. Have you tried that? I wonder if it would taste very different…
Yes, it does taste different. I usually cook it when serving with grill chicken.
I am a wuss too! So I do the same thing. When am making it for my self . Just a hint of chili pepper. But when am stressed the hotter the better. Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts with us.
Hello! A friend gave me a Portugal Hot Pepper plant this spring and it has lots of peppers that are just starting to turn red now! I’ve read that this variety has medium heat and a touch of sweetness. I think it would be good in a piri piri sauce. I’m also growing jalapeño peppers and later this summer will have Trinidad Perfume peppers (sweet and citrusy but no heat). Would adding something sweet ruin the flavor of this recipe? I like a more mild hot sauce, but am trying to slowly raise my heat tolerance. 🙂
The purist will say No. But I say Why Not. I have before. Annd loved it! But it wasn’t well received by others(Heat Seekers). If you do let me know how it works out for you.Thanks
I absolutely love peppers and grow so many varieties that I can’t count them all. ***helpful hint*** Stop by the market and purchase a giant bottle of cheap/plain mustard. In the U.S.A. we call it hot dog mustard. Be sure to set the mustard in the fridge so it will be very cold. When your hands begin that all too familiar burn submerge each hand into a bowl of the mustard. It feels so wonderful.
I start out wearing gloves, but they never last long because the peppers always seem to melt them. ha!
Thanks for sharing Annabella!
Try lemon juice on your hands to take the spiciness away.
absolutely sensational, used Ghost chilli and only needed 2 as mine are extremely HOT
AWESOME!!!!!
Hey There!
All the recipes I have read didn’t have this many pepper additions. Is there any tasteful rhyme or reason to this? Also will or is there a big taste difference if you use garlic powder over real garlic?
Thanks
Hi Rai! When making pepper sauce , you add according to your heat tolerance. Some more, some less- adjust to taste. There will be a subtle difference not overwhelmingly.
Hi Immaculate,
I am a huge fan of african cuisine and came across your blog searching the web.
I have to say that it made my day. This sauce is by far the best I have ever tried. Really.
Can’t wait to try your other recipes! Greetings from Spain! 🙂
Hi Guillermo.
You made my day too! Thanks for taking the time to comment – SUPER EXCITED you dig African food and you are here. Can’t wait to see what other recipes you try!
I’m sooooo psyched to find this recipe! I had a Cameroon friend who made this for me for years, then she moved out of state about 3 years ago, I have been looking for it ever since. Now I can make my own! Thanks!
Thanks for this!
How long will this last in the refrigerator?
The longest I have kept it is 2 weeks so cannot say for sure.
One teaspoon fresh ground pepper. Is it black pepper or which kind of pepper
1 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper.
This comment belongs to your later post about mangoes. If you can find them, try champagne mangoes – much the sweetest I’ve found but not often available.
Thanks Niki, I will be on the look out .
Westindya, I am so glad you here and taking the time to comment . Let me know how it works for you,
just discovered your blog! oh, what i’ve been missing! absolutely making the piri-piri this weekend. we call them “bird peppers” where I’m from and I am happy to find this awesome hot sauce recipe!
cheers!