Peri-Peri Sauce (Kiano Moju)

A blended peri-peri sauce of Fresno chiles, garlic, lemon, oregano, smoked paprika and cayenne with olive oil, written as the marinade and table sauce for roast chicken and potatoes.

Untested: not yet made in this kitchen. It is here for the Peppers and Hot Sauce pages and is adapted from the source named in the Notes.

Ingredients

• 4 Fresno chiles, stemmed
• 4 garlic cloves, peeled
• 1 lemon, zested and juiced (¼ cup juice)
• 3 fresh oregano sprigs, plus leaves to garnish (or 1 teaspoon dried oregano)
• 2 teaspoons kosher salt, such as Diamond Crystal
• 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
• ¼ teaspoon ground cayenne
• ½ cup extra-virgin olive oil

Directions

Key ingredients

Olive Oil · Salt

1. Blend the chiles, garlic, lemon zest and juice, oregano, salt, smoked paprika and cayenne to a rough paste.
2. With the blender running, stream in the olive oil. Reserve ¼ cup of the sauce for serving and use the rest as a marinade (see Notes).

Notes

Source Adapted from the sauce in Kiano Moju, “Oven Roasted Peri Peri Chicken and Potatoes,” NYT Cooking (2026). The salt has no quantity in the source’s ingredient list; the 2 teaspoons above are the amount its method puts into the sauce.

Using it the source’s way Toss 3 pounds bone-in, skin-on chicken legs (or drumsticks and thighs) and 2 pounds Yukon Gold potatoes, cut into ½-inch wedges, with 2 to 3 teaspoons more kosher salt and all but the reserved ¼ cup of sauce. Marinate 30 minutes at room temperature or up to 8 hours refrigerated, then roast at 450 °F for 35 to 45 minutes. Serve with the reserved sauce. The whole dish serves 6 to 8.

The pepper Fresno chiles stand in for the African bird’s eye pepper. Moju’s headnote says peri-peri chicken “can trace its origins to Mozambique”; the record supports only that the sauce came from within the Portuguese Empire.

Refrigerate it, and why Garlic and other fresh aromatics can carry botulinum spores, and oil shuts out the air those spores need to be kept from, so a garlic-and-oil sauce at room temperature is the textbook botulism hazard (garlic in oil caused outbreaks in Vancouver in 1985 and New York in 1989). The CDC’s advice for homemade oils made with garlic or herbs is to refrigerate them and throw them away after 4 days; UGA Extension gives the same 4 days for non-acidified infused oils. This sauce is raw garlic in oil with some lemon juice; the source gives no keeping time, so keep any extra refrigerated and use it within 4 days.

The dish The Peppers and Hot Sauce section (/hot-sauce/) covers piri-piri and pilipili, the Portuguese Empire, and Nando’s.

The photo The photograph is a stand-in: bottles of piri-piri sauce for sale in Mozambique.