Once you try this easy chimichurri sauce recipe, you’ll be hooked. It’s bright, zesty, and fresh, and I find myself spooning it onto just about everything.
Chimichurri comes from Argentina and Uruguay. It is a bold, herby sauce that adds incredible flavor to almost anything. Our easy recipe is a take on the classic, and uses fresh parsley, olive oil, vinegar, garlic, and a little spice for heat.
This sauce is especially good with anything hot off the grill. Try it with grilled steak, chicken, shrimp, or fish. It also brings roasted vegetables to life and makes an excellent dip for crusty grilled bread. You can even use it as a marinade. For more ideas, see how we use it in our chimichurri chicken and chimichurri cauliflower steaks.
Key Ingredients
- Fresh Herbs: I use a generous amount of fresh parsley for the base, and a little dried oregano to make it more interesting. Feel free to experiment with cilantro or mint for a different twist.
- Garlic and Shallot: A tablespoon of minced garlic and a medium shallot give the sauce a bright, zesty kick. The vinegar mellows out their raw flavor, so it’s not overpowering.
- Chiles or Pepper Flakes: Crushed red pepper flakes are my go-to, but fresh chiles like Red Fresno, jalapeño, or serrano work great too. Just remember to remove the seeds for a milder heat.
- Olive Oil: Use your favorite high-quality extra virgin olive oil. It’s what brings the entire sauce together.
- Vinegar: I typically use red wine vinegar, but white wine vinegar or champagne vinegar is also excellent.
Find the full recipe with measurements below.
How to Make Our Favorite Chimichurri Sauce
Tip 1: Make it by hand or in a food processor. I usually chop chimichurri by hand because I like the rustic texture and seeing the herbs, garlic, and shallots in the sauce. But you can absolutely use a food processor to save time. Just pulse so everything stays textured, not pureed. If you’re short on time, the processor is your answer (watch our video to see how quickly it comes together).
Tip 2: Let the sauce sit for 20 minutes before using it. I love letting homemade chimichurri sit on the counter for a bit to let the flavors meld. This gives the shallots a moment to sit with the vinegar, sweeten, and lose their fresh, raw onion flavor.
Tip 3: This sauce is best the day you make it. This sauce is meant to taste fresh (just like when you make other fresh sauces, like basil pesto). That said, it will keep in the fridge for a few days in an airtight container, but the color will dull and the flavor will mellow. You can also freeze chimichurri in ice cube trays. The color and brightness fade a bit when thawed, but the flavor is still super tasty.
Ways to Use This Sauce
Chimichurri sauce is incredibly versatile. Here are some of my favorite ways to use it:
- With meats: Spoon it over grilled steak, baked pork chops, grilled chicken, or lamb.
- With seafood: It’s excellent with shrimp (try it with shrimp cocktail), baked salmon, halibut, or cod.
- As a sauce for vegetables: Drizzle over roasted or grilled vegetables like cauliflower, zucchini, roasted potatoes, or carrots.
- As a dip: Serve with crusty grilled bread or warm flatbread.
- With eggs: Spoon over fried, poached eggs, or scrambled eggs, or fold into omelets.
- With grains and beans: Add to cooked beans, quinoa, farro, or rice for extra flavor.
- As a marinade: Use it to marinate chicken, steak, shrimp, or tofu before cooking (just reserve some sauce to serve on top later).
More Sauce Recipes
Easy Chimichurri Sauce
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Thanks to the fresh herbs, this chimichurri sauce recipe livens up pretty much anything you throw at it, and you can use it 100 different ways. Try spooning it over steak or other cuts of beef, shrimp, chicken, pork, and vegetables (examples: chimichurri cauliflower steaks and chimichurri chicken). You can also toss it with pasta or rice. We like our sauce on the tangy, vinegary side. If you prefer things to be a bit more tame, reduce the amount of vinegar to 3 or 4 tablespoons.
Watch Us Make the Recipe
You Will Need
2 cups packed parsley leaves and tender stems (50g)
3 to 4 garlic cloves, 1 tablespoon minced
1 medium shallot, minced
½ teaspoon dried oregano
½ to ¾ teaspoon fine sea salt
½ to 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes or 1 jalapeño or Fresno chili pepper, finely chopped
½ cup extra-virgin olive oil (120ml)
¼ cup to ⅓ cup red wine vinegar, adjusted to taste (60-80ml)
Directions
1To make by hand: Mince the garlic and shallot, and then add to a medium bowl. Finely chop the parsley, then add to the bowl along with the oregano, salt, red pepper flakes, olive oil, and red wine vinegar. Stir, taste, and season with more salt or red pepper flakes if needed. Let the sauce stand at room temperature for 20 minutes before serving.
2To make in a food processor: Pulse the garlic and shallots until minced. Add the parsley, oregano, salt, and red pepper flakes, pulsing until finely chopped. Scrape down the sides, then pour in the olive oil and vinegar. Pulse a few more times to combine, but avoid over-processing for the best texture. Finally, taste and adjust the seasonings to your liking.
Adam and Joanne's Tips
- Serving: The sauce is excellent the day you make it, but it will last a few days in your refrigerator (you might notice the color of the parsley dulls slightly).
- Freezing: Divide the sauce between ice cube trays, then freeze until hard. Pop the ice cubes out and store them in an airtight container for 1 month. Thaw overnight in the fridge. As they thaw, the color of the parsley dulls slightly, but the sauce still tastes great.
- Oregano: Use 2 teaspoons chopped fresh oregano leaves as a substitute for dried.
- The nutrition facts provided below are estimates.
this wa sgood but i also added crystlaized lemon to it and omg it took it over the top very bright very yummy. Used it on everything !!!
I love you idea to add the lemon! Lovely.
So, someone mentioned they put red wine instead of the vinegar in chimichurri sauce. The recipe also calls for canned ancho chilies in adobo sauce.
Interesting. I love red wind vinegar, but not sure about wine, itself. The acho chilies would add a nice heat, though!
I use apple cder vinegar. Tasty and healthier
I used parsley and cilantro (corriander), balsamic vinegar, salt, oil, dried oregano, dried chilli flakes. blend in the ninja then add garlic to the sauce in a bowl. I used “minced garlic” out of a jar. It was perfect on steak, tonight I am doing spaghetti meatballs so will definitely use sauce as a garnish as you would pesto.we use ninja containers also for smoothies etc so I like to keep garlic until later since the “hummus incident”. Baking soda got most of the smell/taste out though. good to know it keeps a few days in the fridge
So glad you figured out the best way for you!
I can seem to find the best way to store and how long it keeps for??
The sauce is excellent the day you make it, but it will last a few days in your refrigerator (you might notice the color of the parsley dulls slightly).
Hiya, I’ve just made this delicious sauce, it’s standing in the fridge for now but I agree with Cindy too much red wine vinegar but I did add more garlic as I love the garlic plus I’ve added more red peppers so next time I’ll reduce the vinegar by half to see if it improves the taste plus maybe less olive oil too to suit my pallet.
So happy you gave our recipe a try! Thanks for coming back, Sue.
Made this last night. It was delicious and this is an easy recipe to doctor up with a little more garlic, spice or herbs, based on personal preferences. I now have a new condiment in my repertoire. I actually spread this on the black bean burgers and it was great. Will try this on eggs as well. Thanks
Wonderful! I love spooning this over just about everything. Glad you are experimenting, too.
Good basic recipe but too much vinegar…the parsley & pepper add enough bite so next time will use either lime juice or cut the vinegar way back
Hi Cindy, We do add a tip that some may find the vinegar too “hot.” It’s going to depend on your vinegar and what you serve it with. For example, if you spoon this over a hearty, grilled and fattier steak, the extra punch from vinegar will probably be needed. If you are going with chicken, you might want to hold back.
I just made this and it worked out so well for me! Delicious on top of my tri-tip lunch and I can’t wait to try it on other things. So easy and straight forward to follow your instructions! Thank you!
So glad you enjoyed the recipe, Megan! Thanks for coming back.