Chimichurri is a tasty sauce that only takes a few pantry essentials to make. You don’t cook the sauce either. It’s made just by processing the ingredients and blending. It’s that easy!
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The traditional recipe calls for parsley, garlic, olive oil, sherry vinegar, and lots of chili, so this is a hot sauce, to say the least, but there are versions and versions of it. Some people will use this sauce to have their mouth feel like it is on fire, while others choose to season mildly with black pepper only, no chili at all.
Legend has it…
That chimichurri sauce was invented by an Irishman named Jimmy McCurry while he was traveling as a soldier in Argentina with the Indigenous troops. This happened in the early 1800s when people were fighting for the independence of Argentina.
But Jimmy McCurry wasn’t the sort of name that the Indigenous people could pronounce properly. The way they pronounced it was chimichurri, which was also how they named the sauce to credit the inventor.
There isn’t, however, any documentation to tell whether the legend is true or not, but the sauce is very much real, and in Argentina, it accompanies all meats barbecue.
Green chimichurri and red chimichurri
One thing about any cuisine is that people are always free to experiment with recipes. Chimichurri sauce has seen so many versions that anyone – into spicy food or not – can find a properly seasoned, just as tasty variation.
The following recipe is called red chimichurri, and it contains tomatoes. Another version for green chimichurri follows below. Remember to prepare the sauce at least a few hours before serving time, but preferably over night to allow a full release of the flavors and the aromas to blend entirely.
Ingredients:
- ½ bunch fresh parsley
- 8 cloves garlic, crushed
- ½ extra virgin olive oil
- ½ sherry vinegar
- 1 tomato
- 1 green or red chili pepper
- Juice of 1 lime
- ½ green bell pepper
- 3 shallots
- ½ bunch cilantro
- 4 tarragon leaves
- 5 tbsp fresh oregano
- 2 tbsp fresh thyme
- ¼ teaspoon chili powder
- salt to taste
How to: peel and grate the tomato, first dropping it into boiling water to help remove skin. Chop the herbs finely, following with chopping the peppers, the shallots, the garlic and the chili. Finally blend for about two pulses and add-in the olive oil, incorporating it into the sauce gradually. Keeps refrigerated up to two weeks in a well-sealed glass container.
Green chimichurri ingredients:
- 1 bunch Italian parsley
- 6 cloves garlic, crushed
- ½ cup olive oil
- 3 tbsp apple cider vinegar
- ½ fresh cilantro leaves
- ¼ cup fresh oregano leaves
- ¼ tsp hot red pepper flakes
- ¼ tsp fresh ground black pepper
- ¼ tsp cumin
- salt to taste
How to: roughly chop the garlic and put aside. To the parsley – holding a sharp kitchen knife at a 45° angle, shave the leaves off the stems. Then to the blending: put all the ingredients, starting with the olive oil and finishing with the parsley, into a blender and pulse on and off until the consistency is puree-like. Use a spatula to scrape down the mixture and keep on pulsing until the mixture turns a beautiful green sauce.