How to Make Chimichurri Sauce (Authentic Argentinian Recipe)

Pull everything together before you start crushing. You need fresh flat-leaf parsley, dried oregano, four garlic cloves, red chili pepper flakes, smoked paprika (pimenton de la Vera if you can get it), whole black peppercorns, coarse salt, two bay leaves, red wine vinegar, and a good extra-virgin olive oil.

The traditional Argentinian way uses a mortar and pestle to crush everything by hand. A small electric blender works if you don't have one, but you'll lose the rustic texture that gives real chimichurri its character. The herbs should still look like herbs, not green paste.

Peel four garlic cloves, slice each one down the middle, and pull out the green germ in the center. The germ is the bitter, sharp part of garlic and it shows up loud in any sauce that doesn't get cooked. Pulling it out gives you cleaner, sweeter garlic flavor.

Drop the cleaned cloves straight into the mortar. Set the mortar on a folded towel to keep it from sliding around when you start grinding.

Add a teaspoon of coarse salt and a teaspoon each of black peppercorns and red chili pepper flakes to the mortar with the garlic. The salt is the secret here. It works as an abrasive that helps break the garlic down fast, so you're not just spinning slick cloves around the bowl.

Grind in firm circular motions until everything turns into a coarse fragrant paste. Keep your face back from the bowl. Crushed garlic and chili release sharp fumes that hit hard and fast if you're hovering over it.

Once the garlic paste is broken down, add two teaspoons of smoked paprika and two tablespoons of dried oregano. The smoked paprika brings a low woody warmth that balances the sharpness from the raw garlic and chili. Without it the sauce tastes flat and one-dimensional.

Mix the spices through the paste with the pestle until the color is uniform and you can smell the oregano lifting off the bowl.

Pour in two tablespoons of red wine vinegar and stir it through the paste. Red wine vinegar is traditional, but apple cider vinegar or sherry vinegar work too. Skip the balsamic. It's too sweet and too dark for chimichurri and you'll end up with the wrong color and the wrong flavor.

No vinegar on hand? Fresh lemon juice gets you close in a pinch. Stir until the paste loosens into something closer to a wet slurry.

Now stream in about 100 ml of extra-virgin olive oil, pouring it in slowly the way you would for a vinaigrette. A steady thin stream helps the oil emulsify with the vinegar instead of separating right away. Keep stirring with the pestle as you pour.

At this point you have your chimichurri base. The base can live in the fridge for up to a week. Add the parsley fresh just before you plan to eat, never days ahead.

Wash a big bunch of flat-leaf parsley and pat it dry. Chop it finely with a sharp chef's knife using the French technique: keep the tip of the knife on the board and rock the blade up and down through the leaves, gathering and re-chopping until the parsley is uniformly fine.

Don't bother stripping leaves one at a time. The small tender stems are flavorful and chop in fine with the leaves. Strip out only the thick lower stems.

Stir the chopped parsley into the sauce. Tear two bay leaves and lay them on top to infuse rather than chopping them in. You want the subtle bay flavor without leaving dry leaf shards in someone's bite.

Let the finished chimichurri rest at room temperature for at least one to two hours before serving so the flavors meld. Pull the bay leaves and spoon the sauce into a small bowl or gravy boat to bring to the table. Spoon it over grilled steak, chicken, or fish. Leftovers keep in a sealed jar in the fridge for a few days, but chimichurri is at its best the day you make it.