Make your own peri peri, or piri piri, sauce at home with this recipe. A traditional African sauce made from African Bird's Eye chilies, perfect for making Peri Peri Chicken and so much more!
Homemade Peri Peri Sauce Recipe
If you have not tried Peri Peri Sauce, this is one you need to put on the list.
What is peri peri sauce? Peri Peri sauce is a traditional South African sauce made by Portuguese settlers to the area made with spicy African Bird's Eye chili peppers. It is also known as piri piri, or pili pili. It's perfect for any spicy food lover.
What You'll Love About My Peri Peri Sauce
- I use African Bird's Eye chili peppers for authentic, fiery flavor, though you can use other peppers available to you as demonstrated in the video recipe. This sauce delivers genuine heat that's true to its roots.
- This sauce is incredibly versatile, perfect as a marinade, dip, or condiment. Its ready to help you elevate chicken, seafood, and more with spicy zest.
- It's simple and fresh! We're using fresh ingredients and minimal fuss, a quick and easy way to spice up your meals..
You may have heard of the world's most famous brand of Peri Peri sauce - Nando's. This is a homemade version that is fairly similar.
Homemade Peri Peri sauce (or should I say Homemade Nando's?) is simple enough to make.
It requires no actual cooking, just some chopping and processing of the ingredients. It's an oil-based sauce, at least it is with our version, ideal for dipping, and it goes GREAT with chicken and seafood.
Featured Reader Comment
"I LOVE this stuff! I made it with ripe red jalapeños with a few ghost chilis thrown it to kick it up a bit. My favorite so far is on fried chicken but it's great for cooking on the grill or broiler. Great mixed with Buffalo wing sauce!" -- Bob
Let's talk about how to make peri peri sauce, shall we?
Peri Peri Sauce Ingredients
- Chili Peppers. African Bird’s Eye peppers are traditional, but you can sub with other red peppers available to you, including red bell peppers. Roasted red peppers are wonderful here. Try it with fiery habanero peppers, ghost peppers, or a mix.
- Fresh Garlic.
- Smoked Paprika.
- Fresh Herbs. Cilantro, basil (or use fresh oregano, which is more common).
- Olive Oil. Or vegetable oil.
- Lemon Juice.
- Salt. To taste.
How to Make Peri Peri Sauce - the Recipe Overview
Add all ingredients to a food processor or blender. Process to form a smooth sauce to your preferred consistency. You can strain out some of the excess liquid if you'd like, or just use it as-is.
Enjoy! Refrigerate until ready to use.
BOOM! That's it. It's an incredibly easy recipe to make.
What to Serve with Peri Peri Sauce
Peri Peri sauce goes particularly well with grilled chicken of any kind. Peri peri chicken is the most common use for it, and I love it for peri peri chicken wings or peri peri chicken on the grill.
However, it's also wonderful with seafood, such as shrimp or whitefish. Try it on grilled vegetables!
Recipe Tips & Notes
If you can't source African Bird's Eye chilies, you can sub in an equivalent amount of red peppers of your choice.
I have made this with long red cayenne peppers, red jalapeno peppers, and fingerling peppers, even red habanero and ghost peppers, all to similar results.
Traditional ingredients also call for a variety of herbs, though ours incorporates basil and cilantro. You might try oregano, tarragon, or rosemary. Nando's uses a rosemary extract for their herb flavoring.
You'll find regional differences throughout Africa and Portugal.
Storage
Peri peri sauce should keep a few months easily in the fridge, or even longer.
It's all about the acidity. To be technical, target level pH for shelf stable foods is below 4.6 pH, but should probably be lower for home cooks, around 3.5 or so, to account for errors.
It is not recommended to process sauces with oil in a water bath.
Cookbook Recommendation
If you enjoy spicy cooking, I hope you'll check out my cookbook! 75 easy recipes with big, bold flavor.
- The Spicy Food Lovers' Cookbook, by Mike Hultquist (affiliate link, my friends!)
Hot Sauce Bottles
Here is a link to some bottles I like (affiliate link, my friends!): Swing Top Glass Bottles, 8.5 Ounce - Set of 4. If you like the smaller bottles that most hot sauce makers use, here's another link: Hot Sauce Bottles, 5 Oz - 24 Pack.
Amazon Affiliate links, my friends! As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
If you enjoy this recipe, I hope you'll leave a comment with some STARS. Also, please share it on social media. Don't forget to tag us at #ChiliPepperMadness. I'll be sure to share! Thanks! -- Mike H.
Peri Peri Sauce Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 pound red chilies chopped – African Bird’s Eye peppers are traditional, but you can sub with red peppers available to you
- 4 cloves garlic chopped
- 1 teaspoon smoked paprika you can sub in other chili powders
- 1/2 cup chopped cilantro
- 1/4 cup chopped oregano (I enjoy fresh basil as a substitute)
- 1/2 cup olive oil or vegetable oil
- Juice from 1 lemon
- Salt to taste
Instructions
- Add all ingredients to a food processor or blender. Process to form a smooth sauce to your preferred consistency.
- Enjoy! Refrigerate until ready to use.
Video
Notes
Nutrition Information
This sauce is gluten free.
This recipe was updated on 3/19/25 to include new photos and a video. It was originally published on 2/10/16.
Rudi says
a great sauce I've made on many occasion when I have excess chilli available and need to put it to good use.
Mike H. says
Happy to hear it, Rudi!
Bonita says
I’ve had Piripiri sauce at Nando’s and at Portuguese people’s places. I have never noticed it to be particularly spicy, but this appears to be very spicy to me. Am I missing something here?
No rating as I haven’t tried it yet. BTW, if I do try it, how long should you marinate your chicken in it? Or is it a dipping sauce?thanks
Mike Hultquist says
Hi, Bonita. Nando's makes different heat varieties, from mild to hot, depending on the peppers used. I used HOT chilies here, but you can adjust it to use milder peppers to your preference. I mention this in the notes section. I also change the herbs a little with my version, which I enjoy. It's not EXACTLY Nando's, but more traditional. See my Peri Peri Chicken Recipe here for using it as both a marinade and finishing sauce: https://www.chilipeppermadness.com/recipes/peri-peri-chicken/. I hope you enjoy them both.
David says
Hi Mike, I have an abundance of serrano chillies left can I ferment these before making this sauce?
cheers from Spain
Mike H. says
Hi David, yes, definitely! Fermenting could add even more complexity and depth to the flavor.
Jeff says
Just found Birds Eye chilies but they are dried … planning on deseeding them but how much should I use given that they are not fresh?
Thanks!
Mike Hultquist says
Jeff, dried pods are 1/4 the weight of fresh, so you can use 4 ounces dried for this recipe, or make a smaller batch.
Anita Ingham says
Have just subscribed to your site as I am growing lots of different chillies and am looking for tasty ways of using and preserving. The piri piri looks right up my street but would love to preserve this in jars..you have no instructions other than you mention water bath..I have a pressure canner but am a novice and am overwhelmed by worries of botulism where oil is included. Could you give instructions please.
Mike Hultquist says
Anita, it is not recommended to home can foods that contain oil. FYI. I've amended that statement to make it clear. You can, however, freeze this sauce for longer keeping. Otherwise, I would just keep it refrigerated and it should last a few months. I appreciate it.
Diane says
I made this recently and it’ll be in our dinner rotation for sure. The sauce is full of flavour
Can the PeriPeri sauce be frozen? I don’t want to waste a drop of it, it’s that’s good
Mike H. says
I appreciate it, Dianne! And yes - you can absolutely freeze it!
Mike Anderson says
I live in South africa. I make chilly source using homegrown pepperdews and birds eye . do you remove the seeds or blend them in. I take most of the seeds out and boy it is still hot enough but with the pepper dew flavour . I really enjoy your recipes. thank you Mike
Mike Hultquist says
Thanks, Mike. I usually leave the seeds in, though it depends on the peppers. I deseed dried pods, as the seeds there can be bitter. You can remove them if you'd like. The heat doesn't really reside in the seeds themselves, but in the whitish innards of the peppers, which winds up getting removed when you remove the seeds. FYI. Many people like to remove the seeds because they tend to float around in the sauce.