Easy Chimichurri - The Versatile Sauce for Steak, Seafood & Veggies

Recipe: Chimichurri Recipe »

Fresh, punchy and ready in under 5 minutes, this homemade chimichurri sauce is the ultimate all purpose condiment. Made with parsley, garlic, olive oil, red wine vinegar and a few special twists, it's perfect for steak, chicken, seafood and vegetables or sandwiches. This classic Argentine sauce is even better the next day too (and is plant based too)!

About Chimichurri Sauce

Get ready for the best ever condiment you can add to your food! Chimichurri is an Argentinean and Uruguayan sauce made with parsley, red wine vinegar, garlic and olive oil. It is utterly delicious and packs a real flavour punch and is made in less than 5 minutes with easy to find ingredients.

Where did chimichurri originally come from? Chimichurri comes from Argentina, home to some of the best steak in the world. It is often served at asados or parrilladas where it is served as a finishing sauce at the table. Nowadays a lot of steakhouses serve this as a fresh, delicious steak sauce.

What can I use chimichurri on? Any savoury dish really - I'm serious! Add it to fish, grilled scallops, lobster, prawns, chicken, lamb, steak, garlic bread and roast vegetables. You can also add it to dips like hummus or tzatziki. In fact I can't think of a single dish that doesn't go well with chimichurri apart from dessert!

How long can chimichurri last in the fridge? Store chimichurri in an airtight container or jar in the fridge. It is best eaten 1-3 days after it is made. It can last for up to 1 week in the fridge.

Video How To Make Easy Chimichurri

Video: How to Make Chimichurri in 5 minutes

Ingredients For Chimichurri

Parsley - Use flatleaf parsley for chimichurri as it has a better flavour than curly parsley which can be bitter and is mainly used for decorative purposes. I often make chimichurri if I have half a bunch of parsley left. Tip: to keep parsley fresh for longer, place the parsley stalks in 1cm or 1/2 inch of water (ensuring no leaves sit in the water) and cover the whole bunch with a plastic bag like a freezer bag. Secure shut with an elastic band. Store in the fridge for up to 2 weeks.

Mint leaves - This is my addition and not part of a traditional chimichurri but I find that this really lifts the flavour of chimichurri and gives it a bit more complexity.

Garlic cloves - I love garlic so I use 4 cloves but you can use 2 if you don't want it as garlicky.

Oil - Extra virgin olive oil or a flavourless oil (eg grapeseed, sunflower) works here. If you put this in a food processor do not use olive oil and the chopping blade action can release the polyphenols in olive oil resulting in bitterness.

Orange juice - Again this is my addition but I find it adds balance to the chimichurri.

Red wine vinegar - Red wine vinegar is the classic vinegar. I've also made this with sherry vinegar as my store had run out of red wine vinegar!

Chillies - Optional, use small red chillies if you want a spicy sauce.

Tips For Making Chimichurri

1 - Chimichurri is best eaten the day after it is made to give the flavours time to meld and for the garlic to mellow and take on the flavour of the herbs, oil and vinegar.

2 - Some people dislike adding onion to their chimichurri, I just don't add it because I love my chimichurri like this. I have spend a bit of time in South America and I love this chimichurri.

3 - My chimichurri has a couple of things that make it different: it uses mint leaves to brighten it and orange juice just to add a subtle sweetness to balance the savouryness.

4 - While I love using my food processor for this (and really, if you're time poor, I'm not going to tell you how to do it) but the best texture for chimichurri is one with hand chopped parsley and mint. 

If you love chimichurri make sure to try salsa verde or this Green Goddess dressing next.

Chimichurri Recipe

An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott

Recipe Overview

Preparation time: 5 minutes (best made 1 day ahead of time)

Cooking time: 0 minutes

Makes: 3/4 cup of chimichurri

Ingredients Needed

• 3/4 cup parsley (28g/1oz weight leaves only)
• 1/8 cup mint leaves (5g/0.2oz weight leaves only)
• 2-4 garlic cloves, peeled
• 1/4 cup/60ml/2flozs extra virgin olive oil
• 40ml/1.4flozs orange juice
• 30ml/1floz red wine vinegar
• 1-2 small red chillies (optional), finely chopped
• 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Step-By-Step Instructions

Step 1 CHOP - Remove the leaves from the parsley and mint. Chop finely and place in a bowl. Crush or mince the garlic into the bowl.

Step 2 MIX - Stir in the oil, juice, vinegar and chilli if using with salt and pepper. Mix well and store in the fridge ideally for 1-3 days or up to 7 days.

Personal Note

I know I keep going on about how versatile chimichurri is but it was a life saver when I was on the Antarctic cruise. I'm not sure why but while the food was usually quite well prepared, it completely lacked seasoning. 

Maybe it was on purpose so that you could season your own food and maybe low salt diets were a big thing on board. The new friends I made on the cruise and I would often have to really season our food. And more often than not, the salt grinders were empty probably from everyone seasoning their food en masse!

Until one day one of my friends discovered that they made a great chimichurri. And every single day at every single meal we asked for more chimichurri. It got to the point where I think we completely depleted their supply of chimichurri along with salt!

So tell me Dear Reader, do you like chimichurri? Do you travel with sauces or condiments to add flavour to food?