Sauces
Chimichurri
Argentina’s green steak sauce: hand-chopped parsley, oregano, garlic and chilli in red wine vinegar and olive oil, loosened with a salt brine as Francis Mallmann makes it.
- Serves 6
- Prep 15 min
- Rest 30 min
- Argentine
Method
Make the salmuera (brine): stir the salt into the hot water until it dissolves, then leave it to cool.
Chop the parsley by hand as finely as you can; a food processor bruises it and turns the sauce into a purée. Put it in a bowl with the oregano, garlic and chilli flakes (if you use dried oregano, pour the cooled brine over it first and leave it for 5 minutes to soften).
Stir in the vinegar, then the olive oil, then the brine. Season with pepper and taste: it should be sharp, garlicky and herby, with a little heat.
Leave for at least 30 minutes, or better overnight in the fridge, for the flavours to come together. Stir and spoon over grilled steak, sausages (choripán) or vegetables.
Tip: tap a step to tick it off as you cook.
Serve with: Perfect Steak
- Perfect Steak: cuts and cooking guide
- Sirloin Steak (US: New York Strip Steak)
- Rump Steak (US: Top Sirloin Steak)
- Fillet Steak (US: Filet Mignon)
- T-bone Steak (US: T-bone or Porterhouse)
- Rib-eye Steak (US: Ribeye Steak)
More sauces for steak: Peppercorn Sauce, Béarnaise, Diane Sauce, Chimichurri, Steakhouse Sauce, Blue Cheese Sauce, Horseradish Cream, Garlic and Herb Butter, Maître d’Hôtel Butter.
Chef’s notes
- Keeps for up to a week in a covered jar in the fridge. Bring it back to room temperature and stir before serving (the oil sets when cold).
- Red chimichurri (chimichurri rojo) adds 1–2 tsp sweet or smoked paprika.
- Argentine cooks also brush it on meat as it grills, or use it as a marinade.
About this dish
Chimichurri is the sauce of the Argentine and Uruguayan asado (barbecue). Its ancestors are the vinegar, garlic, oregano and chilli adobos (marinades) and the salmuera (salt brine) used on meat in 19th-century Argentina; the name is not documented until the mid-20th century, appearing in print in the 1950s.
Where the name comes from is disputed. The popular stories that it is a corruption of "Jimmy McCurry" (an Irishman said to have made it), "Jimmy’s curry" or "give me curry" (British prisoners after the invasions of 1806–07) have no contemporary evidence. Linguists more often suggest the Basque tximitxurri, "a mixture of things in no particular order", reflecting the many Basques who settled in Argentina and Uruguay; the Spanish Royal Academy still lists the origin as uncertain (Wikipedia; BBC Travel).
Francis Mallmann, Argentina’s best-known chef, insists the basics are olive oil, salmuera, red wine vinegar, parsley and oregano: "If you want to make it with strawberries, call it something else" (Reuters interview).
How this recipe was developed
A composite of Francis Mallmann’s brine method and Serious Eats’ dried-oregano version, written in our own words.
- Salmuera (brine). Francis Mallmann whisks a cooled salt brine into the sauce; it seasons evenly and loosens it.
- Dried oregano softened in liquid. Daniel Gritzer (Serious Eats) hydrates dried oregano and chilli first.
- Hand-chopped parsley. both sources chop rather than blend.
- Rest before serving. Mallmann rests it for a day; we suggest at least 30 minutes.
Sources we compared (ratings as shown on each site on 1 November 2026):
- Francis Mallmann: Seven Fires: Grilling the Argentine Way (Artisan, 2009), via New York Magazine
- Serious Eats (Daniel Gritzer): Chimichurri Sauce
- History: Reuters: Mallmann grills the Argentine way
- History: Wikipedia: Chimichurri: etymology
- History: BBC Travel: Chimichurri: the Argentinian sauce eaten as a ritual
- History: El recopilador de sabores (Jorge Luis Ferrari): Chimichurri: periodización de su historia
This is an original Cookeryonline recipe written in our own words. Ingredient choices and techniques are credited above; no source text has been copied.