Zhug (Yemeni Green Chile Sauce)

The pounded green sauce of Yemen and Israel: coriander, cumin and cardamom ground with garlic, bird chiles and salt, then parsley and cilantro, emulsified with olive oil.

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

• ¼ teaspoon whole coriander seed
• ½ teaspoon whole cumin seeds
• ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 3 green cardamom pods, small internal seeds only, toasted (optional)
• 4 medium cloves garlic, roughly chopped
• 4 to 6 fresh Thai bird chilies, red or green, roughly chopped, or 4 dried chiles de árbol, stemmed, seeded and torn into fine pieces
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste
• 2 ounces fresh parsley and cilantro leaves and fine stems (about 2 loosely packed cups of mixed herbs)
• ½ cup (120 ml) extra-virgin olive oil

Directions

Key ingredients

Black Pepper · Olive Oil · Salt

1. Grind the coriander, cumin, black pepper and cardamom seeds in a mortar and pestle until fine.
2. Add the garlic, chiles and salt and pound them to a rough paste; the salt acts mainly as an abrasive.
3. Add the herbs a small handful at a time, pounding until no piece is larger than ⅛ inch, before adding the next handful.
4. Drizzle in the olive oil while pounding, to emulsify it into the paste, then season to taste with more salt.

Notes

Source Adapted from J. Kenji López-Alt, “Zhug (Yemenite Hot Sauce With Cilantro and Parsley),” Serious Eats (2016, modified 2025), which also gives the spellings s’chug and s’rug. He prefers bird chiles to “the more bitter, grassy flavor of the jalapeños that many recipes call for.” The Yemeni name, sahawiq, comes from a root meaning to pestle or crush. It makes about 1 cup.

The storage contradiction The recipe card says it keeps in the refrigerator “for several weeks”; the article text says “It should last up to a week in the fridge.” The shorter figure is the one to follow.

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. Zhug is raw garlic and raw herbs in oil, with no acid at all, so keep it refrigerated and use it within a week at most; the CDC’s 4 days is the more cautious figure.

The dish The Peppers and Hot Sauce section (/hot-sauce/) covers zhug and its red and brown cousins, and the garlic-in-oil rule that governs fresh herb sauces.

The photo The photograph shows a bowl of green zhug with its herbs and spices, not this exact recipe.