Peruvian-Style Roast Chicken with Green Sauce
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Enjoy tender, juicy Peruvian-style roast chicken drizzled with a spicy and irresistibly good green sauce.
This is my take on Pollo a la Brasa, the delicious roast chicken made popular by so many Peruvian restaurants. The chicken is first marinated in olive oil, lime juice, garlic and spices, and then oven-roasted until tender, juicy and crisp-skinned. The accompanying green sauce, which gets its color from cilantro and jalapeño peppers, is spicy, creamy and downright delectable. You can put it on virtually everything, and it even doubles as a fabulous dip or salad dressing.
What you’ll need to make Peruvian-Style Roast Chicken
Before we get to the recipe, a few words on buying a whole chicken. In the poultry department, you’re likely to find birds labeled “broilers,” “roasters” and “fryers.” These labels are based on the weight of the bird, and are meant to suggest a method of cooking. This recipe calls for a four-pound chicken, which is typically considered a “fryer.” This might seem strange since we’re roasting but don’t worry about it — all of these chickens can be used in recipes interchangeably.
How to make Peruvian-Style Roast Chicken
Begin by making the marinade. Combine the lime juice, olive oil, salt, pepper, sugar, paprika, cumin, and oregano in a blender or mini food processor.
Blend until smooth.
Using your fingers or a wooden spoon, loosen the skin over the breasts and legs of the chicken.
Spoon 2/3 of the marinade under the skin.
And rub the rest over top. Place the chicken in a bowl and refrigerate at least 6 hours or overnight.
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees, and set the chicken on a rack in a roasting pan. I like to tuck the wings underneath the bird and tie the legs together so the bird holds its shape.
Roast the chicken for 20 minutes, until the skin is golden, and then turn the heat down to 375 degrees and roast for about an hour and ten minutes more. Let the chicken rest, covered with foil, for about 20 minutes before carving.
While the chicken marinates, make the green sauce (recipe adapted from the Serious Eats Food Lab by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt).
Simply combine the mayonnaise, sour cream, cilantro, jalapeños, garlic, lime juice salt and pepper in a blender or food processor.
And process until smooth. With the motor running, drizzle in the olive oil. It will seem thin at first but, don’t worry, it will thicken up as it sits.
Keep in mind that the heat in the sauce comes from the ribs and seeds in the jalapeño peppers. I use about half of the seeds and ribs for a medium-hot sauce. If you’re worried about the heat, you can always leave them out at first and then blend them in to taste. (Also, be sure to wash your hands well after handling hot peppers, and do not touch your eyes while working with them.)
Transfer the sauce to a bowl and refrigerate until ready to serve. Garnish the sauce with a sprig cilantro, if desired, and serve with the roasted chicken.
Note: The green sauce in this recipe is adapted from one of my favorite columns, the Serious Eats Food Lab by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt.
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Peruvian-Style Roast Chicken with Green Sauce
Enjoy tender, juicy Peruvian-style roast chicken drizzled with a spicy and irresistibly good green sauce.
Ingredients
For the Chicken
- 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- ¼ cup lime juice, from 2 limes
- 4 large garlic cloves, roughly chopped
- 1 tablespoon kosher salt
- 2 teaspoons paprika
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 tablespoon cumin
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 2 teaspoons sugar
- 4 pound whole chicken
For the Green Sauce
- 3 jalapeño chili peppers, seeded if desired (I use about half the seeds for a medium-hot sauce), and roughly chopped (see note)
- 1 cup packed fresh cilantro leaves
- 2 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
- ½ cup mayonnaise, best quality such as Hellmann's
- ¼ cup sour cream
- 1 tablespoon fresh lime juice, from one lime
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ⅛ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Instructions
For the Chicken
- Combine all of the ingredients except the chicken in a blender or mini food processor, and blend until smooth. Remove the giblets from the inside of the chicken and pat the outside of the chicken dry with paper towels; place in a bowl, breast side up with the legs facing you. Using the handle of a wooden spoon or your fingers, loosen the skin from the flesh over the breasts and legs, being careful not to tear the skin or push all the way through (you want the marinade to stay inside the bird). Spoon about ⅔ of the marinade evenly underneath the skin, and spread the remaining ⅓ evenly over the skin. Marinate the chicken in the refrigerator for at least 6 hours or overnight.
- Adjust the oven rack to the lower-middle position, and preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Line a roasting pan with aluminum foil for easy clean-up. Spray a rack (preferably a v-shape) with non-stick cooking spray and place the chicken on top. Tie the legs together with kitchen string. Roast for 20 minutes, until the skin is golden. Turn the heat down to 375 degrees, and continue to roast for about an hour and ten minutes more, or until the juices run clear when you cut between the leg and thigh. (Keep an eye on it -- if it's browning too quickly, cover it loosely with foil.) Tent the chicken with foil and let rest for about 20 minutes. Tilt the chicken over the roasting pan to release the juices, then transfer to a cutting board. Carve the chicken and serve with green sauce.
For the Green Sauce
- Combine all of the ingredients except the olive oil in a blender or food processor and blend into a smooth sauce. With the motor running, open lid and slowly drizzle in olive oil. It will seem very runny at this point but, don't worry, it will thicken up as it sits. Transfer the sauce to a bowl, cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.
- Note: Be sure to wash your hands well after handling hot peppers, and do not touch your eyes while working with them.
- Note: The nutritional information does not include the green sauce.
Pair with
Nutrition Information
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- Per serving (4 servings)
- Calories: 614
- Fat: 43 g
- Saturated fat: 10 g
- Carbohydrates: 7 g
- Sugar: 3 g
- Fiber: 1 g
- Protein: 49 g
- Sodium: 694 mg
- Cholesterol: 340 mg
This website is written and produced for informational purposes only. I am not a certified nutritionist and the nutritional data on this site has not been evaluated or approved by a nutritionist or the Food and Drug Administration. Nutritional information is offered as a courtesy and should not be construed as a guarantee. The data is calculated through an online nutritional calculator, Edamam.com. Although I do my best to provide accurate nutritional information, these figures should be considered estimates only. Varying factors such as product types or brands purchased, natural fluctuations in fresh produce, and the way ingredients are processed change the effective nutritional information in any given recipe. Furthermore, different online calculators provide different results depending on their own nutrition fact sources and algorithms. To obtain the most accurate nutritional information in a given recipe, you should calculate the nutritional information with the actual ingredients used in your recipe, using your preferred nutrition calculator.
Gluten-Free Adaptable Note
To the best of my knowledge, all of the ingredients used in this recipe are gluten-free or widely available in gluten-free versions. There is hidden gluten in many foods; if you're following a gluten-free diet or cooking for someone with gluten allergies, always read the labels of your ingredients to verify that they are gluten-free.
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My kosher salt is big crystals. Does it need to be ground ?
Hi Sandy, It doesn’t need to be ground — use it as is.
In the picture showing the marinade ingredients in the mini food processor, what is the white stuff in the upper left?
Hi Wanda, That’s chopped garlic 🙂
I made this again last weekend and did it with chicken pieces on the grill. OMG. It was outrageous. It is toe-to-toe with the honey, lime, sriracha chicken. The green sauce is wonderful. I don’t like cilantro and substituted Italian flat leaf parsley and a few basil leaves. Delicious. We used sauce over grilled salmon the next day too, fab.
Love this idea, Jen!
I Love cilantro, but I like the idea of trying different herbs…
Maybe greek style with lemon instead of the lime and fresh mint? And perhaps a wee bit of fresh dill?
Thanks for the tip!
This is an execellent recipe . I really like many of your recipes . I cook this all the time and is always a hit . I serve this recipe with Oven baked saffron rice .
As I am a beginning cook, it took me ages to make this roast chicken dish. I had started with a chicken the size of a pony that my dad’s farming friends in Lac la Biche had provided. This chicken was frozen like an iceberg in my freezer all winter until the moment of discovery last week when I took it out.
I put it on the counter for a day but it didn’t seem to be thawed. I was afraid we would get food poisoning thawing out the bird for days on end on the kitchen counter so I put it in the fridge. I had to do other stuff and did not get around to the bird until days later.
Then I wanted to make the marinade. I did not have cumin, paprika or oregano in the house. My mum gave me the cumin and paprika (she has ten million spices at her place) and I bought the oregano plus the other ingredients for the marinade plus the sauce.
Finally I had the marinade made and I put the bird in the fridge overnight yesterday. It was roasting day today. I did it. The chicken was beautiful but the dipping sauce was extra hot. I didn’t follow your good advice about deseeding. As a result we have fairly hot dipping sauce.
I thought this was a very good recipe. I will use the left over chicken to make a chicken pot pie (without a crust as I don’t know how to make a good pie crust).
I would use the rest of the chicken for a chicken soup but no one in the family likes my chicken soup. Actually I am a very bad cook but this recipe was so good that the chicken was eaten.
Although older boy said he preferred Sobey’s rotisserie chicken, younger boy who is a picky eater, ate this chicken. I will make it again but this time I will use less chilli for the dipping sauce.
If you have a good chicken pot pie recipe, I’d love to try it.
The Peruvian chicken looks delicious , but the recipe don’t say amount of the ingredients.
Hi Nelly, Click on the recipe tab at the top of the post or scroll all the way down beneath the step-by-step photos.
Delicious! It was also family friendly. The kids really enjoyed the green sauce with the chicken.
What a wonderful recipe! I followed it completely – no changes. 🙂 I served the Peruvian Chicken as suggested by you: Mexican Pilaf with a side of your French Green Beans. The Green Sauce that went with the chicken was delicious! These are the first three recipes I have ever followed from your website, and I am super impressed! Thank you for your terrific work. Looking forward to trying some of your amazing looking desserts. 🙂 Bisous from Belgium!
This recipe is absolutely perfect. I followed all of the instructions exactly, but I used the rotisserie of my grill to cut the chickens (double the recipe). The results were fantastic and better than the abundance of Peruvian restaurants in the northern Virginia area. Your family will beg you to cook this dish frequently. Thank you for posting!!!
I really, really like this recipe. I used cut up, bone-in chicken parts so it’s easier to cook and they turned out very well. Super tasty! I’m not a fan of chicken breast because to me it’s dry when cooked but it came out moist. I can’t remember how long I had it in the oven because I really wanted the inside to be done and not bloody. The sauce is great also. I only added a bit of jalapeño because I was afraid it will be too spicy but I’ll definitely add more next time.