This bright Brazilian condiment Is generally made with olive oil and herbs. Crushed green olives provide a natural, unprocessed oil! Made with fresh parsley and oregano, this spicy condiment is hard to beat.
Resist the urge to put this in a blender. Use a mortar pestle to make it correctly.
Use a tentative approach to your ingredients and use half what is specified then adjust to your taste. I use a red habanero in my sauce but a Fresno or mini red bell pepper would be fine.
Castelvetrano pitted olives work best for texture as they have the mildest of flavor.
Try this on my any vegetable steak! I feature this on my beet steaks but this is great on Charred Cauliflower Shawarma wraps.
Check out the info section for variations.
Chimichurri sauce with green olives
Pure olive oil is a key ingredient to a chimichurri sauce. I use castelvetrano olives instead and crush them along with the parsley, oregano and garlic. I
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Equipment
- Mortar and pestle or something to crush herbs with
Ingredients
- 1/2 Cup Castelvetrano pitted olives Any green olive works
- 1 Tbsp Red wine vinegar May use apple cider, champagne or umeboshi plum vinegars
- 1 Tbsp Lemon juice
- 1/2 Cup Fresh parsley- chopped Yield after chopping
- 1/3 Cup Fresh oregano - chopped Yield after chopping
- 2-4 Cloves Fresh garlic - chopped
- 1-2 Small red chilies This is more for color than heat. Use peppadews, bell, fresno or red habanero.
- 1 Tsp Himalayan salt crystals
- 1/2 Tsp Coarse ground pepper
Instructions
- Remove leaves from stems then finely chop the herbs.
- Mince garlic and add to herbs. Use 1/2 and add more if desired after tasting.
- Remove stem, seeds and membrane from peppers. Chop fine using only 1/2 specified. Add more if desired.
- Use a grinder to grind Himalayan salt crystals if available. Otherwise just use regular ground Himalayan salt.
- Generally chimichurri is made with vinegar but no lemon. I divide the vinegar in half and use lemon juice for a little added brightness.
- Finally chop and crush the olives. It is best to do this in the mortar pestle to preserve the natural oils.
- Move remaining ingredients to a mortar pestle and crush the ingredients together.
- Taste and add more garlic or peppers as desired.
- Allow to marinate at least 15 minutes. Two hours to 24 hours is best for flavor.
Notes
This is a SnapPea Sheep recipe - but frankly this is a very classic recipe. You can find this recipe or variation just about anywhere.
Some variations are to add other herbs like mint, dill, cilantro. Dill, parsley and mint do together surprisingly well. So does mint and oregano! I add the herb combinations to different salads.
A gremolata is a different take on a chimichurri. It is parsley, lemon zest and garlic.
Preserved lemons or lime take herbs to a new level. Check out my simple recipe for them here.
