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The easiest recipe to make Aji Verde (Peruvian Green Sauce) at home! Toss a few ingredients and fresh herbs into the blender and just blend until smooth. Serve with Pollo a la Brasa, French fries, rice, beans, and more!
I finally cracked it.
My local Peruvian restaurant makes the best aji verde. It’s complex, loaded with umami, and has speckles of cilantro running through it.
Think about a sauce that has spicy peppers, loaded with umami, fresh herbs, a pop of acid, and a creamy base. The sauce has balance and goes with so many things. It’s my favorite condiment to use with Peruvian chicken, to dip my French or yuka fries, and even as a drizzle as salad dressing and over bowls.
Typically the sauce is made with green aji Amarillo paste or chilis. But since this isn’t an ingredient easily found outside of Peru and other parts of South America, we swap it for an easier-to-find ingredient.
And let me just say this, if you can toss a bunch of ingredients into a food processor or blender, then you can make this sauce!
Ingredients for Peruvian green sauce
- Peppers: Traditionally, you want to use unripe Aji Amarillo to make the green sauce. These are a staple ingredient in Peruvian cooking and an ingredient that I use to make Lomo Saltado with French fries. We typically use Jalapeños or serrano peppers when making them in the US because it’s already difficult to find ripe Aji Amarillo, and even harder to find the unripe kind!
- Cilantro leaves and stems: Adds a vibrant green color and earthiness to the sauce that balances out all the other ingredients. You’ll want a small bunch or roughly 1 cup of stems and leaves. Typically Huacatay (Peruvian black mint) is also used to make aji verde sauce. It had a unique flavor that it similar to both regular mint and fresh tarragon. Since it’s difficult to find outside of Peru, we use cilantro as a standard substitute.
- Green onions: A small quantity of green onions gives this sauce all the flavor of an onion, without the bite.
- Garlic clove: the pungent ingredient is standard when it comes to a restaurant-quality Peruvian aji verde.
- Mayonnaise: This is what gives Peruvian green sauce its signature creamy texture. Blending it with the peppers helps reduce the spice punch. Feel free to use any brand of mayo you typically have on hand. Although if you’re looking for a new one to try, this is my absolute favorite.
- Queso Fresco: While not all Peruvian Aji Verde recipes call for this ingredient, my local restaurant does use it. It adds umami to the sauce and is a source of sodium. Feel free to replace the queso fresco with cotija cheese or even parmesan cheese if that’s what you happen to have on hand.
- Lime Juice: The acid from the limes works beautifully to add brightness to the cilantro and the peppers. The vinegar and lime juice cut through the richness of the mayo and give the sauce a balance of flavor.
- Distilled White Vinegar: Adds a bit more complexity to the sauce.
- Adobo seasoning: This has nothing to do with chipotle peppers. Adobo seasoning contains black pepper, garlic powder, turmeric, and salt among other ingredients.
- Olive Oil: Helps add a hint of richness to the sauce.
Instructions for making Peruvian Green Sauce Recipe
- Combine the ingredients. Add the jalapeño peppers, cilantro, green onions, garlic, mayo, queso fresco, lime juice, vinegar, adobo, and olive oil to the bowl of a food processor.
- Pulse the sauce. Instead of letting it run in the blender until smooth, I like to pulse the sauce so that it has a bit of texture – that’s how my local restaurant makes it and that’s how I like it. Feel free to let it run if you’d like but I find it becomes quite runny if you do that.
- Adjust to preference. I typically find this to be the perfect balance and usually don’t need to add anything else. But feel free to taste and adjust the salt, lime or vinegar to your preference. Serve with prepared protein or however, you like!
FAQs about this recipe
Aji Verde is served with a wide variety of things. You can serve this with pollo a la brasa, Lomo Saltado, French fries, potato wedges, yuka, and much more.
it’s a combination of peppers, acid, creamy mayo, fresh herbs, and umami from queso fresco. It’s a well-balanced sauce that’s delicious over so many different dishes.
Other homemade sauces:
- 5 Minute Creamy Avocado Dip
- Lebanese Garlic Sauce (Toum)
- Homemade Chimichurri Sauce
- Halal Cart White Sauce
- How to Make Spinach Pesto
Aji Verde (Peruvian Green Sauce)
Equipment
Ingredients
- 2 jalapeño peppers deseeded if preferred mild
- 1 cup cilantro leaves + stem roughly chopped (lightly packed)
- 2 green onions greens only
- 3 cloves garlic
- ½ cup mayonnaise
- ¼ cup queso fresco crumbled
- 1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
- 1 teaspoon white vinegar
- ½ teaspoon adobo seasoning such as Goya
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
Instructions
- COMBINE: Add the ingredients for the sauce in the food processor or a blender.
- PULSE: Pulse to help break down the cilantro and the other ingredients until it’s somewhat smooth.
- ADJUST: Taste and adjust with more seasonings as desired. Serve with homemade Peruvian Chicken or Lomo Saltado.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Like This? Leave a comment & rating below!
WOW this was delicious! I didn’t have adobo or the cheese, I just used salt, pepper, paprika and onion powder. I also used ACV instead of white vinegar. Best green sauce I’ve ever had!
Can this be adjusted to use aji amarillo paste?
Sure! I wouldn’t be able to make recommendations on how much, but you could definitely add a bit if you’d like.
I am going to attempt this w/o cilantro just to see what it tastes like. I am one of those people who HATE it. It doesn’t taste like soap to me as I’d rather eat soap than cilantro lol. Would there be an alternative or just leave it out but would I need to make any adjustments on the wet ingredients?
Hi Meredith! I’ve only tested the recipe as written so unsure if you’d need to make some adjustments for the wet ingredients. That said, I would use a little parsley or basil to give it some flavor if you’d like. Probably not a cups worth, but maybe int the ballpark of ⅓ cup!