Recipe
🍽️ DINNER
Frango Piri-Piri
Butterflied chicken grilled under a lemon-garlic piri-piri baste, the original of a dish the world now queues for.
Mozambican · medium · serves 4
prep 20 min · cook 40 min
~697 cal · 100g protein · 6g carbs · 25g fat · 1g fiber · 1g sugars · 7g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Frango piri-piri, chicken grilled and basted with a fiery sauce of piri-piri chilies, garlic, lemon, and oil, is the dish that best captures Mozambique's Afro-Portuguese soul. The tiny, ferociously hot piri-piri (also called African bird's eye chili) grows across the region, and it was Portuguese traders who spread both the pepper and the technique of grilling chicken slathered in it along the coast.
Maputo, the seaside capital, is the dish's spiritual home, where open-air grills fill the evening air with smoke and the smell of charring, garlicky chicken. The bird is usually spatchcocked so it cooks flat and fast, brushed repeatedly with the sauce so the skin lacquers and blisters over the coals.
Eaten with the hands, with bread, rice, or fries and an extra dish of piri-piri for the brave, it is convivial, casual food built around a cold drink and good company. Its influence traveled far, the global 'peri-peri' chicken chains are distant descendants of exactly this coastal Mozambican grill.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally gluten-, dairy-, nut-, egg- and pork-free. No swaps needed.
Toggle a diet and the ingredients rewrite themselves with regional substitutes.
🥕 Vegetarian
🌱 Vegan
🌾 Gluten-Free
🥛 Dairy-Free
🥜 Nut-Free
🥚 Egg-Free
🐖 Pork-Free
Dietary labels are a cooking guide, not allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish; we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, read the label on every product you use, and note that a kitchen can cross-contaminate in ways a recipe cannot control.
Ingredients
US
Metric
Serves 4
1 (about 3.5 lbs) whole chicken, butterflied
6-10 African bird’s-eye chilies (piri-piri), or red bird chilies
6 cloves garlic
2 lemons
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 tbsp sweet paprika
1 tsp dried oregano
1/3 cup olive oil
2 tsp salt
Instructions
1
Blend the chilies, garlic, lemon juice, vinegar, paprika, oregano, oil, and salt into a smooth piri-piri sauce.
2
Reserve a third of the sauce for basting and serving, and use the rest to coat the butterflied chicken (or cauliflower and tofu).
3
Marinate the chicken for at least 4 hours, or overnight.
✎ Chef’s note
Butterflying (spatchcocking) the chicken lets it lie flat so it cooks evenly and soaks up far more of the marinade.
4
Grill skin-side down over medium coals (or roast at 425F/220C), turning every 10 minutes and basting with the reserved sauce, for about 35 to 40 minutes.
5
Rest 10 minutes, cut into quarters, and serve with the last of the sauce, extra lemon, and fries or crusty rolls.
Maputo beachside grill tradition.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Maputo. The dish Mozambicans name first is not the prawns visitors come for. Matapa is cassava leaves pounded in a mortar and simmered slowly in coconut milk with ground peanut, and it is eaten over xima, the stiff maize porridge that is the everyday staple here.
🗺️
Mozambique. For much of the twentieth century Mozambique was the world's leading producer of cashews, responsible at its height for around half of global output, and Africa's first industrial cashew processing plant opened here in 1960. War, nationalisation and structural adjustment collapsed the industry, and the country now grows a small fraction of the world's crop, though the nut still turns up in the cooking.
🌍
Africa. Africa's fifty-four nations hold cuisines as different as Morocco's slow-cooked tagines and South Africa's open-fire braai, yet shared threads run through them: ancient grains like millet, sorghum, and teff; stews thickened with groundnut, okra, or palm; and fiery condiments from Tunisian harissa to Ethiopian berbere. Staple starches, fufu, injera, ugali, couscous, anchor communal meals often eaten by hand from a shared dish, where hospitality is a point of honor.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
More from Mozambique
Frango à ZambezianaChicken marinated in lemon, garlic and piri-piri with coconut milk, then grilled slowly over calm coals and basted with more coconut until it is gold outside and soft within.
BadjiasCrisp Mozambican chickpea-flour fritters flecked with onion and served with fiery piri-piri.
MatapaCassava leaves stewed with peanuts, coconut, and prawns, one of Mozambique's most cherished national dishes.
Browse all Mozambique recipes →
Good to know
You’ll need: Oven, Grill or barbecue, Blender.
Storing it: Best straight off the heat. Leftovers keep 2 to 3 days refrigerated and reheat well in a hot oven rather than the microwave.
Make it a Mozambique meal
Sumo de MúcuaDrink
Bolo PolanaDessert
MatapaLunch
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Frequently asked questions
What is Frango Piri-Piri?
Butterflied chicken grilled under a lemon-garlic piri-piri baste, the original of a dish the world now queues for.
Where does Frango Piri-Piri come from?
Frango Piri-Piri is a Mozambican dish from Maputo, Mozambique.
Can Frango Piri-Piri be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Frango Piri-Piri recipe includes substitution suggestions for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, egg-free, and pork-free versions, including several at once such as gluten-free and dairy-free together. Treat them as a starting guide rather than a guarantee, and see the allergen note below.
Is Frango Piri-Piri safe for people with food allergies?
Our dietary labels and substitutions are a cooking guide, not medical or allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish, but we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, always read the label on every product you use, and remember a home or commercial kitchen can cross-contaminate ingredients in ways a recipe cannot control.
How long does Frango Piri-Piri take to make?
About 60 minutes total (20 minutes prep, 40 minutes cooking), serving 4.
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