Peri peri chicken, also known as piri piri chicken, is a spicy grilled chicken dish that originated in Portugal and Mozambique. It features chicken marinated and basted in a flavorful peri peri sauce, which gives it a delicious spicy and tangy flavor. This African-Portuguese inspired dish has become popular worldwide, but many people don’t know how to make it properly at home.
In this article, I’ll explain in simple terms how to make peri peri chicken step-by-step so you can enjoy restaurant-quality peri peri chicken in your own kitchen.
What is Peri Peri Chicken?
Peri peri chicken consists of chicken pieces or a whole chicken marinated and basted with a homemade peri peri sauce while grilling. The peri peri sauce is made with fresh chilies, garlic, lemon, and spices. It imparts a nice spicy kick and tangy citrus flavor to the chicken.
The chicken is usually grilled over high heat to get a nice char while frequently basting it with the peri peri sauce, The charred edges combined with the spicy and acidic sauce makes for finger-licking good chicken!
While this dish originated in Africa, it became popular worldwide through the Portuguese restaurant chain Nando’s. However, you don’t need to go to a restaurant to enjoy peri peri chicken. With just a few simple ingredients, you can make this delicious chicken easily at home.
Peri Peri Chicken Ingredients
Here are the main ingredients you’ll need to make peri peri chicken:
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Chicken pieces – You can use bone-in chicken thighs, drumsticks, wings, breasts or a whole cut up chicken. Bone-in chicken holds up better on the grill.
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Fresh red chilies – The peri peri sauce gets its heat from fresh red chilies like bird’s eye chilies, red Thai chilies, red serrano or cayenne. Adjust the amount according to your spice preference.
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Garlic – Garlic provides a nice background flavor. Use about 4-6 cloves.
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Lemon juice – Lemon juice gives the sauce tanginess and helps balance out the heat. Use the juice from 1-2 lemons.
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Olive oil – Olive oil helps bind the sauce and bastes the chicken while grilling. Use 3-4 tablespoons.
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Spices and herbs – Spices like paprika, cumin, oregano, basil, parsley add depth of flavor.
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Salt and pepper – Salt and pepper seasoning.
That’s really all you need! Though you can also optionally add some onion, vinegar or Worcestershire sauce.
How to Make Peri Peri Chicken
Now let’s get into the step-by-step method to make amazing peri peri chicken at home:
Step 1: Make the Peri Peri Sauce
First, we’ll make a quick peri peri sauce to marinate and baste the chicken.
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In a blender, combine fresh red chilies, garlic cloves, 1 lemon juice, olive oil, spices like paprika, oregano, cumin and salt. Blitz until smooth.
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Taste and adjust salt, spices and lemon as needed. The sauce should taste spicy, tangy and well-balanced.
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You can make the sauce mild or extra spicy depending on your preference. For a milder sauce, remove the chili seeds.
Step 2: Marinate the Chicken
Now marinate the chicken in the peri peri sauce:
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Place the chicken pieces in a bowl or ziplock bag.
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Coat the chicken well with about half the peri peri sauce on all sides.
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Refrigerate and marinate for 30 minutes to overnight. The longer it marinates, the more flavorful.
Step 3. Grill the Chicken
Finally, it’s time to grill the peri peri chicken:
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Prepare a charcoal or gas grill for direct high-heat grilling. Clean and oil the grates.
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Grill the chicken on both sides until charred, about 6-8 minutes per side.
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Frequently brush the chicken with the remaining peri peri sauce while grilling. This bastes the chicken and results in a nice char.
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Grill until the chicken is completely cooked through, registering 165°F internally.
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Optionally garnish with chopped cilantro or parsley. Enjoy the peri peri chicken hot off the grill!
The peri peri sauce caramelizes and chars on the chicken, while also imparting lots of spicy, tangy flavor to every bite.
Tips for Best Results
Here are some tips to get the most flavorful peri peri chicken:
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Use fresh chilies – dried chilies won’t provide the same freshness and flavor.
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Cut the chicken into smaller pieces so it cooks faster and absorbs more marinade.
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Marinate for at least 30 minutes, or up to overnight for best flavor infusion.
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Use bone-in chicken thighs or drumsticks which hold up better on the grill.
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Grill over very high direct heat to get a nice char.
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Brush with sauce frequently while grilling to bastes the chicken.
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Rest chicken 5 minutes before serving so juices redistribute.
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Garnish with cilantro, parsley or lemon wedges.
Peri Peri Chicken Variations
Once you master the basic recipe, here are some easy variations:
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Use different types of fresh chilies like red serrano, red jalapeño or habanero.
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Add spices like smoked paprika, allspice, cinnamon.
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Use additional herbs like cilantro, basil, mint.
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Stir in pineapple or mango for a fruity twist.
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Add some diced onions or tomatoes to the sauce.
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Use yogurt or coconut milk for a creamy peri peri sauce.
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Marinate chicken wings, drumsticks or kebabs.
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Make peri peri shrimp, fish or tofu instead.
So get creative and try new ways of making peri peri chicken! The basic method remains the same.
FAQs
Here are answers to some common questions about making peri peri chicken:
Can I use dried chilies instead of fresh?
It’s best to use fresh red chilies to make the peri peri sauce. Dried chilies won’t provide the same freshness, flavor and moderate spice level.
What’s the best chicken cut for peri peri chicken?
Bone-in chicken thighs, drumsticks and wings hold up the best on the grill. Boneless breasts can dry out quickly. Whole chickens or quarters also work well.
Do I have to grill it? Can I bake it?
Grilling over high heat is ideal to get that charred smoky flavor. But you can also bake the chicken in the oven at 425°F, basting it with sauce every 10 minutes.
How long does the marinade need to be?
Aim for a minimum of 30 minutes marinade time. For best results, marinate for several hours or overnight in the refrigerator.
Can I prepare the sauce and chicken ahead of time?
Yes, you can make the peri peri sauce up to 5 days ahead and refrigerate it. Marinate the chicken for the full time then grill it just before serving.
Enjoy Restaurant-Style Peri Peri Chicken at Home
With this easy method, you can now make tender, juicy and flavor packed peri peri chicken just like the restaurants serve. Adjust the spiciness to your personal tastes. This African-Portuguese inspired chicken dish will be your new favorite meal to grill up any night of the week.
Peri Peri Sauce. Garlicky, spicy, lemony, tangy and utterly addictive. This bright, fresh, fully-flavoured version hits all the right notes.
2020 Update below. Peri Peri Chicken Wings & Chicken Burger!
My confession is that I had never tried peri peri sauce before. It is a sauce that originated in Portugal and then went on a long trip to several parts of Africa where it also became incredibly popular.
Peri Peri Sauce is at the centre of the incredible success of the Nando’s restaurant franchise which has been an overwhelming success in many parts of the world and particularly in the UK where it is now ingrained into the modern day culinary culture there. People seem to be addicted to “going for a Nando’s”, once or twice a week in many cases.
Not in my neck of the woods.
There is no Nando’s restaurant franchise any where near where I live but I had the opportunity to try it on a recent visit to Ottawa and began to understand the addictive nature of peri peri sauce on flame grilled chicken.
As always happens in these cases, I determined to make my own version of the sauce, attempting to equal or better the flavour of Nando’s famous chicken. I bought a couple of bottles of their sauce to take home as a way to compare my peri peri sauce version to theirs, side-by-side.
There are a LOT of recipes online for peri peri sauce and I read and tried several of them before tweaking my own recipe to get the flavour just right.
First of all, I had little hope of finding the authentic Bird’s Eye Chilis here in St. John’s, so I substituted small Thai red chilis which are more readily available most places. They are only about half as spicy as the peri peri chilis but I used a fair amount of them and it worked well.
Since I wanted to bottle my sauce after cooking it quickly, I used roasted red peppers as a base for the sauce along with grilled onions to boost the smoky flavour, add a little sweetness, and give the sauce more body so that it would be more brush-able.
Tasting Nando’s sauce from the bottle, like many commercially prepared sauces, I found it overly salty. I cut back a lot on the salt in the recipe, figuring that people would be doing their own seasoning on the chicken before cooking anyway.
This also worked particularly well and I was absolutely delighted with the outcome of my experiment.
The kids loved it, particularly Noah who, like me, is more inclined toward spicy foods. The real surprise though was Spouse! She doesn’t normally like things that are particularly spicy but she declared this to be the best chicken I had ever made!
That’s quite something to say considering the hundreds of chicken recipes that are present on this website!
Nando’s offers their sauce in several versions from medium heat to extra hot but the good news is you can make it just how you like it, simply by adding more or less of the small thai red chilis to the recipe to easily control the heat level.
Since I bottled this such last week, we have had the peri peri chicken twice and even had peri peri chicken burgers using boneless skinless chicken breasts for a quick dinner idea. I guess our family obsession with peri peri chicken is well underway.
My latest obsession with this very flavourful and spicy sauce is to use it on grilled chicken wings. I have been using it on them all summer and absolutely loving it!
In that case I forgo any marinating beforehand and start grilling the wings to seal the skin on both sides after seasoning with only a little salt.
I grill them over medium high heat, so as not to cook them too quickly and I begin brushing on the sauce and turning them every 4-5 minutes. I like to get a good 3 coats on each side for maximum peri peri sauce flavour.
At last sitting I paused to take a couple of photos before polishing off the entire plate above myself. They are THAT addictive! Even writing about them now makes me want them again!
We have also been enjoying this sauce on marinated grilled chicken breasts which make most excellent chicken burgers. You’ll definitely want to try that idea.
2021 update: Most recently, I have been using this sauce on grilled centre loin pork chops. They are some of the best chops I’ve ever eaten. Absolutely delicious.
I only took a quick shot of the chops on my phone but will replace it with a better one next time.
One of my new favourite ways to use to use this peri peri sauce is again on grilled shrimp, this time as part of a delicious surf and tyrf dinner! Surf and Turf is now one of my Fathers Day traditions and this version is poutstanding!
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