Peri Peri Sauce: How to Make this Unique and Spicy Sauce

Peri Peri sauce is a versatile hot sauce with a hint of sweetness. This sauce can be used as a marinade for chicken or shrimp, spicy topping, or even a spread if you can take the heat! This sauce is super popular throughout Portugal and Southern Africa, but it’s murky origin story is likely out of Mozambique.

Despite Portugal’s small size now, they have an imperialistic, seafaring history which colonized many nations. Because of this, Portuguese is the 9th most popular language spoken today and their capitalistic, spice seeking past helped create the Peri Peri multicultural sauce that we know to day. So one good thing from conquering land that didn’t belong to them, I guess? Not sure those who fought in the coups to regain their independence would agree with that but, I digress.

Peri Peri is usually made with birds eye chili which was native to South Africa. During the 16th century, when Portugal was solidifying it’s roots in African nations like Mozambique, many Portuguese settled in this area. This is when the Portuguese tradition of cooking chicken with lemon mixed with the indigenous people’s use of the pepper, and boom peri peri sauce is born. So yeah, a tasty sauce with a super complicated origin story.

Anyway, enjoy this history and spice rich peri peri sauce marinated on chicken or even stirred into hummus for a nice spicy treat that will get you thinking about imperialism and manifest destiny.

Makes about 1 cup. After it cools, you can store this in airtight container for a few weeks in the refrigerator.

Tools:

This peri peri sauce recipe will need my favorite tool, a blender or a food processor to blend the sauce. Because of this, all of the ingredients only need a rough chop.

Ingredients:

1/2 red onion, chopped

1 red pepper, chopped

1 tomato, chopped

3 cloves of garlic, chopped

3 birds eye or red Thai chilis, chopped

Juice and zest of one lemon

1/4 cup of red wine vinegar

1 tablespoon of paprika

1 teaspoon of oregano

2 teaspoons of salt

1 teaspoon of pepper

Instructions:

1. In a medium sauce pan over medium/low heat, add all ingredients and bring to a simmer. Reduce the heat to low. Allow to simmer for 25 minutes and remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly.
2. Once it is slightly cooled, add the mixture to a food processor or blender and blend until smooth. The peri peri sauce is ready to use and/or store.