Peri peri sauce originates in African and peri peri means pepper pepper in Swahili. This marinade and sauce combines sweet red peppers with spicy Bird’s eye peppers, along with garlic, vinegar, paprika, herbs, and lemon to form a super tasty marinade, which is also combined with a bit of mayo and used a sauce for serving.
I used chicken breasts here, but you could also use thighs or bone in chicken. This would be amazing grilled, but I did mine with my broiler oven technique that mimics the grill indoors, just with a little less smoked flavor. I prefer the grill, but then there isn’t time, the oven works great too.
I served this with yellow rice and a simple salad on the side. I could use this sauce as a dip for so many things. It has everything I love – it is vinegar based so it has some tang, strong garlic flavor, and deep pepper flavor and spice from the two peppers. I think this chicken would also make an amazing sandwich with the sauce and some coleslaw or lettuce. YUM!
Peri Peri Chicken
Ingredients
For the marinade/sauce:
- 1 whole red bell pepper
- 5 African or Thai bird's eye chiles sub any hot red pepper if you can't get these
- 8 garlic cloves
- 1/4 cup distilled white vinegar
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 2 tsp chopped oregano fresh or 1/2 tsp dried
- 2 tsp paprika I used 1 tsp smoked and 1 regular
- 1 tsp dried rosemary
- 2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp sugar
- 1/4 cup chopped parsley
- juice of 1/2 lemon
- 2 bay leaves
- mayo optional, for making the dipping sauce
For the chicken:
- 4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
- oil spray
Instructions
- To make the marinade, combine everything but the mayo and bay leaves in a blender and blend until smooth.
- Pour into a sauce pan and simmer with the bay leaves for 10 minutes. Remove the bay leaves and separate 1/2 of the marinade for the chicken and 1/2 to use for the sauce. If you want to add mayo (this is optional) add a few tbsp of mayo the 1/2 the sauce and refrigerate until you will serve.
- Add the other 1/2 marinade to a ziploc bag with the chicken and marinate a few hours up to overnight. I did mine overnight. When you are ready to cook this, you can cook on the stove top, grill or in the oven.
- I like to use my oven on the broiler setting to get a similar char to the grill. Heat the broiler on high and place chicken on a sheet pan lined with foil and sprayed with oil spray. Move your oven rack up close to the broiler, but not right against it. Broil the chicken for 5-10 minutes per side until you get some nice char and it is also at least 165 in the thickest part of the breast. Don't overcook.
- Allow to rest for 5 minutes then serve over rice with the sauce.