This Peruvian Chicken is roasted whole in the oven, and served with the most incredible green dipping sauce.
Pollo a la Brasa is an incredible Peruvian dish of roasted chicken served with a mayonnaise based sauce. If you want to get truly authentic, this dish was traditionally made over fire, and you can absolutely use this recipe to cook the chicken on your grill over indirect heat. We love the convenience of roasting, and decided to write this recipe specifically for roasting so you can enjoy it even without a grill. Let’s face it, the roasting pan is pretty dang convenient.
Peruvian chicken is traditionally enjoyed with a green sauce made with Aji Amarillo paste, a spicy yellow pepper paste. Now, that isn’t exactly something you can generally find in your local grocery store. You can always order it from Amazon, or you can simply omit it and have a completely Americanized version. You will be blown away by how much you love these flavors!
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How do I prep a whole chicken?
No need to be nervous about prepping a whole chicken. If you’ve never done this before, you’ll feel like a pro in no time!
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If you tend to keep your chicken in the freezer, make sure to remove it and let it thaw in the fridge. Expect it to take at least 24 hours per 5 pounds of chicken and plan accordingly.
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With your thawed chicken, make sure to remove any giblets or any other innards. Sometimes they come in a tiny bag inside of the cavity, sometimes they are loose and not in a bag, and sometimes they just don’t come with any. It all depends on the brand.
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Current food safety recommendations are that you not wash your chicken. Do pat it dry so that your seasoning will stick.
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Aji-Amarillo Paste
Aji-amarillo paste is made from aji-amarillo peppers, a hot yellow pepper native to Peru. If you are not located somewhere with access to Peruvian ingredients, you can purchase it on Amazon. For substitutions, you can use 1 whole pepperoncini or 1 habanero which have similar flavor profiles.
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Tips for Basting:
No one likes dry chicken, so basting is key to a juicy bird. Grab your turkey baster and use those juices to pour on top every 20-30 minutes as you are able. This does not need to be a high maintenance dish, so do not stress if you miss a basting. Basting 2 to 3 times while roasting should be enough. Pro tip: every time you open the oven, it loses heat. Be sure not to keep that oven open for too long while basting or you’ll slow down the cooking time.
If you like this recipe, you may be interested in these other amazing chicken recipes:
Watch the video below where Rachel will walk you through every step of this recipe. Sometimes it helps to have a visual, and we’ve always got you covered with our cooking show. You can find the complete collection of recipes on YouTube, Facebook Watch, or our Facebook Page, or right here on our website with their corresponding recipes.
What a winner! My family loved the flavor of the chicken, the crispiness of the skin and went wild over the green sauce. Yay!!!1
I’ve made this 10 plus times, it is so delicious.
This was amazing. I will definitely be making this again.
Made it as you have it . It was delicious and that skin and dipping sauce is fabulous!
Thank you for this wonderful recipe
This chicken and sauce is so, so good!! My family could not stop eating it, 4 and 6 year old included. I substituted the pepperocini and Parmesan as suggested if you didn’t have all the ingredients. I also did not read the recipe through and never basted 🤦🏽♀️ And it was still amazing! Definitely recommend and that sauce could go on anything!
I WAS GIVIN A STAND SIMILAR TO A BEER CAN METHOD. NOW I HAVE THE RECIPE TO TRY IT.YUM.
Omg this was delicious. Taste like the chicken i get from the Peruvian restaurant. I had all the ingredients in the fridge except lime so I bought some. Will definitely make again. I didnt try the sauce
Came out great. Added the lime zest and some soy sauce to the rub.
I made this fir my friends bday dinner and it was DELICIOUS! Everyone loved it. The chicken was so flavorful and fall of the bone tender. The sauce is so yummy but was a bit too spicy for the kids. Almost too spicy for me but it is just tame enough when you’re eat it with the chicken. The beat thing is it really wasn’t l complicated at all! It will be a regular meal in my house from now on.
We had this dish in San Francisco at a Peruvian Restaurant years ago. So glad to have found this site with the recipe for Peruvian chicken. What a great way to roast chicken. I rubbed the lime and spices all over the chicken and refrigerated for six hours before roasting. Slow grill/roasting made the flavors really taste just like SF. The sauce was so different and delicious. I served this dish with steamed broccoli with lemon zest and the sauce is so good with the broccoli too. Really a delicious dish!