Homemade chimichurri with cilantro sauce recipe

The cilantro chimichurri recipe is an absolutely irresistible sauce perfect for your grilled meats and much more. It´s believed that this tasty seasoning was born during the nineteenth century in Argentina, but since then it has spread as a must in all barbecues in Latin America.

Variations:

As this easy recipe has spread to so many places, it´s logical that it has been adapted to the local ingredients and flavors, even this recipe is not the original, since the authentic Argentinian sauce chimichurri is made only with parsley, but I like much more this version that uses equal parts of fresh Italian parsley and fresh cilantro (I love cilantro). If you want to prepare the original version, you must double the amount of parsley and omit the cilantro. The amount of garlic, chili, and salt that I recommend in the recipe is what seems perfect to me, but you can add more or less according to your preferences.

Diference between chimichurri, salsa verde and pesto

As there are 3 green sauces, sometimes it can be a bit confusing, but let’s go by parts: pesto is Italian and is made based on basil, olive oil, and garlic, grinding all the ingredients until a thick paste is obtained. So it will never be spicy.

On the other hand, salsa verde (green sauce) and chimichurri are two spicy sauces from South America, which are made of green herbs: fresh parsley and/or fresh cilantro and spices. The most significant difference is that the salsa verde usually has regular onion or red onion (and a lot) and on the other hand the texture of both sauces is different: the chimichurri contains herbs and spices finely chopped in oil, giving it a flavor that with this mixture we can flavor the grilled meat or whatever you want in your barbecue.

Storage:

This flavorful chimichurri sauce should ideally be consumed one day after preparation so that the spices release much flavor as possible into the oil. Store it in a mason jar or airtight container, taking care that a layer of at least half an inch of oil remains over the mixture of fresh herbs.

Refrigerated in this way it can be kept in perfect condition for 2 weeks. You can also freeze it in an ice cube tray for 3 months. To use, simply leave a frozen cube in a small bowl at room temperature until melted.

Pro Tips:

1. The most important thing when preparing any chimichurri, is to chop EVERYTHING by hand, as fine as possible, but never use a mini food processor, since we would bruise the leaves.

2. We must remove the leaves of cilantro and parsley from the stems and while we are doing it, throw them in a bowl with cold water and lemon juice, lime juice, or ice, so the leaves will be more turgid and easier to chop.

3. After peeling the garlic we´ll break it into 2 parts along to remove the “stem” inside, this will make its flavor softer, and then we can chop it.

4. The classic sauce should be made with red wine vinegar that will give it an acidic touch, if you don´t have it, the second option is lemon juice, and the third is apple cider vinegar or another clear vinegar, like white wine vinegar. Never use balsamic vinegar.

Uses of chimichurri with cilantro:

This simple sauce is perfect to baste all the meat dishes from a simple grilled flank steak to what makes her famous, on the barbecue: beef, chicken, lamb, and pork. This versatile sauce can also be used as salad dressing (mixed with plain greek yogurt)  and for these all meats or fish as a sauce, like in this easy baked salmon.