Piri piri chicken is the dish that connects Portugal and Mozambique through centuries of trade and migration. The African bird's eye chilli — piri piri, meaning pepper pepper in Swahili — combined with lemon, garlic, and olive oil in a marinade that then doubles as a basting sauce during grilling produces a chicken of extraordinary flavour: hot, sour, aromatic, and deeply charred at the edges. The original Nando's was built on this dish. Here is the version you make at home, which is better.
The Piri Piri Chilli
Bird's eye chillies — the piri piri variety — are small, thin-skinned chillies of significant heat (50,000-175,000 Scoville units). They are available fresh or dried in most supermarkets. The marinade for this recipe uses both the chilli's heat and its fruitiness — bird's eye chillies have a flavour complexity beyond simple heat that is essential to the dish. Fresh red chillies blended with charred dried chillies produce the most complex result.
Grilling vs Oven
Piri piri chicken is fundamentally a grilled dish — the high, direct heat produces charring that is part of the flavour. The blackened edges on a properly grilled piri piri chicken are not burnt; they are caramelised chilli and garlic paste that has developed complex, smoky flavours under direct flame. An oven at 220°C with a final blast under the grill approximates this well. A barbecue charcoal grill is the ideal.
Serves 4 · Prep 20 min + marinade · Cook 40 min
Ingredients
- 1.5kg chicken, spatchcocked (backbone removed, flattened)
- Piri piri marinade: 8 bird's eye chillies (fresh or dried), 6 garlic cloves, juice of 2 lemons, 4 tbsp olive oil, 1 tbsp smoked paprika, 1 tsp dried oregano, 1 tsp salt
- Extra olive oil and lemon for basting
Method
- Blend all marinade ingredients until smooth. Taste for heat and seasoning.
- Score the chicken's thighs and breasts with a sharp knife. Coat all over with marinade, pushing it into the cuts. Reserve half the marinade for basting.
- Refrigerate overnight or at least 4 hours.
- For oven method: Preheat to 220°C. Place chicken skin-side up on a rack over a roasting tin. Roast 35 minutes.
- Baste with reserved marinade every 10 minutes.
- Finish under the grill for 5-8 minutes until the edges are charred and the skin is deeply coloured.
- Rest 10 minutes before carving. Serve with extra piri piri sauce.
The Piri Piri Sauce to Serve
Reserve some of the marinade before it touches the raw chicken. Bring to a simmer in a small saucepan for 5 minutes to cook out the rawness. Serve alongside the finished chicken as a hot sauce. Add a splash of olive oil and a squeeze of lemon to balance. This is the sauce that Nando's charges for — it costs pennies to make and takes 6 minutes.
How hot is this?
Bird's eye chillies produce significant heat. For a milder version, remove the seeds from the chillies or reduce the quantity to 4-5. The flavour of the dish does not suffer significantly with fewer chillies — the heat is separate from the complexity.
Can I use chicken pieces instead of a whole bird?
Thighs and drumsticks work well. They take 30-35 minutes in the oven. The marinade and technique are identical.
What to serve with piri piri chicken?
Corn on the cob, coleslaw (dressed in lemon juice and olive oil rather than mayonnaise), Portuguese-style rice cooked in chicken stock, and fresh bread to soak up the sauce.
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