Homemade Piri Piri Sauce

Spicy Piri Piri Sauce makes a fabulous marinade for grilled chicken, pork or fish. Brush extra on as you grill too! 

After a long day of surf and sun in the Algarve, on the southern coast of Portugal, we were starving. The smoky aroma of a charcoal grill wafted through the open windows of our car, making all our tummies rumble. With a decisive turn of the wheel, my husband pulled up along side the ramshackle hut. We claimed a rickety table where we could watch the grizzled grill guy do his thing. 

He had a basin of whole chickens, which were split open at the backbone, marinating in spicy piri piri sauce. His grill was a simple mesh grate over a huge brick pit filled with glowing charcoal. As he cooked the chickens, he basted them liberally with more piri piri sauce. Best chicken we ever put in our mouths. Seriously.

Many times since that holiday almost 23 years ago, I’ve made piri piri sauce and used it to marinate and baste a variety of meats. Our favorite is chicken, followed closely on by whole fish. The aroma of piri piri sauce being licked by flames from an open charcoal fire is always a great reminder of a beautiful country and a wonderful family holiday in Portugal.

Homemade Piri Piri Sauce

Piri piri sauce makes an excellent marinade for chicken, pork, fish or shrimp. Use more piri piri sauce for basting as you grill the meat and fish. This recipe makes 2 1⁄4 cups or 532ml. 

Ingredients

2.5 oz or 70g hot chili peppers

6 cloves garlic

1⁄4 cup or 60ml fresh lemon juice

1⁄2 cup or 120ml apple cider vinegar 

1⁄2 teaspoon flakey sea salt

11⁄2 cups or 355ml extra virgin olive oil

Method

Cut or pull the stems off of your chili peppers. Put the peppers, garlic, lemon juice, vinegar and salt in your blender.

Blend until until you achieve a homogenous liquid, occasionally scraping the inside of the blender down. Add in the olive oil and blend again.

Marinate chicken and pork for at least one hour or even overnight. Seafood should be marinated only 20­-30 minutes before grilling. Enjoy! 

Welcome to the 16th edition of the 2024 Alphabet Challenge, brought to you by the letter P. Many thanks to Wendy from A Day in the Life on the Farm for organizing and creating the challenge. Check out all the P recipes below:

• Culinary Cam: A Parade of Pickles, Including Pickled Chard Stems 
• Faith, Hope, Love, & Luck Survive Despite a Whiskered Accomplice: Creamy Potato Salad with Crunchy Fennel 
• Blogghetti: Easy Peanut Butter Chocolate Swirl Bark 
• Food Lust People Love: Homemade Piri Piri Sauce 
• A Messy Kitchen: Layered Berry Panna Cotta
• Mayuri’s Jikoni: Palak Paneer Paratha 
• Jolene’s Recipe Journal: Parsley Pesto 
• Karen’s Kitchen Stories: Pork Carnitas (Instant Pot) 
• Sneha’s Recipe: Puneri Batata Vada 
• A Day in the Life on the Farm: Southern Potato Salad 
• Faith, Hope, Love, & Luck Survive Despite a Whiskered Accomplice: Creamy Potato Salad with Crunchy Fennel 

Here are my posts for the alphabet challenge, thus far:
A: Anchovy Deviled Eggs
B: Spicy Braised Ginger Pork Belly
C: Cecilie's Favorite Coleslaw
D: Cajun Chicken Eggplant Dressing
E: Everything Pizza Tartin
F: Baked Chicken and Feta Meatballs
G: Grape Juice Jigglers
H: Crispy Bacon-wrapped Chicken Hearts
I: Raspberry Rhubarb Ice Cream
J: Java Dry Spice Mix Chops 

K. Korean Barbecue-style Meatballs 

L. Easy Lamb and Fresh Tomato Curry 

M. Fresh Mint Sauce 

N. Miso Butter Noodles 

O. Spicy Orange Braised Short Ribs 

P. Homemade Piri Piri Sauce - this post!

Pin this Homemade Piri Piri Sauce!

.

Spicy Grilled Leg of Lamb

This spicy grilled leg of lamb is butterflied, marinated with garlic, lemon zest and za’atar and cooked up juicy and tender, perfect for a barbecue party!

Everybody loves a good leg of lamb roast but when it’s grilling season, who wants to be indoors with the oven on? This spicy grilled leg of lamb starts with a butterflied leg, making it quicker to cook that a traditional roast. And all those seasonings and the touch of flame from the grill make it more delicious. 

In case you haven’t figured it out by now, our family loves lamb. We eat it in stews, roasts for family, roasts for only two, in shish kebabs and murtabak and stuffed naan, just to mention a few of our favorites. We are also fond of slow cooked lamb shoulder and rack of lamb. Honestly, there’s nothing that says Sunday supper at our house like a beautiful rosemary and garlic spiked leg of lamb roasted to a golden brown with roasted potatoes.

But when temperatures start to rise and I am loath to turn the oven on, this spicy grilled leg of lamb is our favorite way to cook it. Removing the bones, in other words, creating a butterflied leg of lamb, opens the meat up so you can add marinade both inside and out. The result is a perfect spicy grilled leg of lamb. 

Spicy Grilled Leg of Lamb

I’ve made this recipe several times with lamb legs of varying sizes. If yours is bigger, simply increase the ingredient amounts for the marinade accordingly. I only give the weight of my most recent leg as a guide. The one before this was twice this weight! 

Ingredients

1 leg of lamb (about 2.6 lbs or 1.2 kg) - bone, sinews and gristle removed

For the marinade:

2 large cloves garlic

1 teaspoon kosher or coarse grained sea salt

1/2 teaspoon whole peppercorns

2 tablespoons za’atar (a Middle Eastern spice mix)

Juice and zest one lemon or lime

2 tablespoons olive oil

Method

Crush the peeled garlic with a mortar and pestle, along with the salt, peppercorns, za’atar and lemon (or lime, I use either depending on what's in the fridge) zest, until you have a fine paste. 

Add in the lemon (or lime) juice and olive oil and whisk to combine. 

Spread the marinade over your butterflied leg of lamb on both sides.

Pop it into a Ziploc bag and try to squeeze all the air out before sealing. Refrigerate for at least one hour or until you are ready to grill the lamb. This step can even be done the day before if you are prepping for a barbecue party. 

When you are about ready to grill, remove the lamb from the refrigerator and get the grill fired up and ready to go. We have a charcoal grill so, once lit, it takes about 20 minutes for the coals to start turning grey.

Cook the spicy grilled leg of lamb to your desired degree of doneness. We like it pretty pink inside so that takes about 12-15 minutes a side. My apologies for no actual grilling photos. In the dark outside, when we finally got around to grilling this time, they would not have been helpful. Plus only YOU know how rare (or not) you like your lamb. 

Leave to rest for about 10 minutes then slice the spicy grilled leg of lamb thinly to serve. 

Since it's summer, I suggest a side salad as an accompaniment. If you really need potatoes, how about a pumped up potato salad? (I wanted to call this Pimp My Potato Salad but my daughter wouldn't let me. It's so good!)

Enjoy! 

It's Sunday FunDay and I am hosting! Our theme is Summer Grilling because who doesn't love a little smoky flavor and cooking outside. Check out the great recipes we are sharing below: 

• Basque Pipérade with Grilled Tuna Steaks from Culinary Adventures with Camilla
• Grilled Eggplant with Garlic and Parmesan from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Spicy Grilled Leg of Lamb from Food Lust People Love
• Stuffed Pizza Burgers from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Tandoori Gobi - Cauliflower Made On Gas Stove from Sneha’s Recipe
• Tandoori Masala - Spice Mixture from Mayuri's Jikoni
• Tequila Lime Chicken from Amy's Cooking Adventures
• Vietnamese Lemongrass Pork Kebabs from Palatable Pastime

We are a group of food bloggers who believe that Sunday should be a family fun day, so every Sunday we share recipes that will help you to enjoy your day. If you're a blogger interested in joining us, just visit our Facebook group and request to join.

Pin this Spicy Grilled Leg of Lamb!

 .