Recipe
🥙 LUNCH
Ají de Gallina
Shredded chicken in a creamy, gently spicy sauce of aji amarillo, bread, and walnuts, a Lima lunchtime classic.
Peruvian · medium · serves 4
prep 20 min · cook 40 min
~1000 cal · 58g protein · 112g carbs · 35g fat · 7g fiber · 11g sugars · 11g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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Ají de gallina is one of Lima's great comfort dishes, a plate of shredded hen (gallina) bound in a sauce the colour of sunshine. That colour comes from ají amarillo, the fruity yellow Peruvian chili that gives so much of the country's cooking its warmth without much heat.
The sauce is thickened the old creole way, with bread soaked in milk and ground nuts, a technique that traces back through Spain to the Moorish kitchens of medieval Iberia. Grated cheese and evaporated milk round it into something rich and velvety.
It is everyday food, ladled over boiled potatoes and rice and finished with black olives and a wedge of hard-boiled egg. Frugal in origin, using up an old boiling hen, it has become a dish Limeños order without a second thought at any menu-of-the-day lunch spot.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally 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 lb chicken breast, poached and shredded
3 slices white bread, crusts removed
1 cup evaporated milk
1/3 cup walnuts, ground
1/3 cup grated parmesan
3 tbsp aji amarillo paste
Hard to find? 3 tbsp a roasted yellow bell pepper blended smooth with one or two serranos and a little oil - aji amarillo brings heat, fruit and that yellow all at once, so a substitute has to supply all three; the bell pepper carries the colour and body, the serrano the clean heat. Cayenne alone gives you heat and a pale sauce
1 tbsp aji panca paste
Hard to find? 1 tbsp a soaked ancho chilli blended with a little of its soaking water and a pinch of smoked paprika - aji panca is barely hot; it is there for dark dried fruit and a little smoke, so reach for a mild dried chilli rather than a fierce one
1 onion, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup chicken broth (from poaching the chicken)
to taste salt
to taste black pepper
4 boiled potatoes, sliced
2 hard-boiled eggs, to serve
8 black olives, to serve
4 cups cooked rice, to serve
Instructions
1
Soak the bread in the evaporated milk until soft, then blend to a smooth paste with the ground walnuts.
2
Soften the onion and garlic in oil, then stir in the aji amarillo and aji panca pastes and fry until fragrant and deepened in colour.
✎ Chef’s note
Fry the pastes until you see the oil separate out from them. That is the signal that the raw edge is gone and the colour has bloomed, and it is the difference between a bright sauce and a flat one.
3
Stir in the bread-and-walnut paste and loosen with a little stock to a pourable sauce.
4
Fold in the shredded chicken and the parmesan, season with salt and pepper, and warm through, adjusting the thickness with more broth or milk if needed.
5
Serve over sliced boiled potatoes and rice, topped with hard-boiled egg and olives.
Lima creole home cooking.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Lima. The title is conferred rather than self-awarded: the New York Times has called Lima South America's culinary epicentre, and Peru has taken the World Travel Awards' leading culinary destination in the region almost every year since 2012. What is underneath it is a coastal city with cold Pacific fisheries at its door and two immigrant cuisines, chifa and Nikkei, with names of their own.
🗺️
Peru. Two immigrant kitchens have their own names here. Chifa is the Chinese-Peruvian cooking that arrived with Cantonese labourers in the nineteenth century and put lomo saltado in a wok; Nikkei is its Japanese-Peruvian counterpart, which rethought raw fish and cut short the time it sits in citrus. Ceviche's traditional knowledge was inscribed by UNESCO in 2023.
🌍
South America. Migration reworked the plate within living memory. Japanese arrivals in Peru and Brazil produced Nikkei cooking, Italians made pasta and pizza entirely ordinary in Argentina, Uruguay and Sao Paulo, and West African cooking carried into Bahia by the slave trade gave Brazil dende palm oil, okra and a whole ritual repertoire.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
More from Peru
Lomo SaltadoBeef flash-fried in a smoking wok with soy, vinegar, tomatoes, and fries, Lima's Chinese-Peruvian icon.
Rocoto RellenoArequipa’s fiery rocoto peppers stuffed with spiced beef, olives, and raisins, capped with melting cheese.
CevicheFresh white fish cured in lime "leche de tigre" with red onion, chili, and cilantro, Peru's national dish.
Browse all Peru recipes →
Good to know
You’ll need: Blender.
Storing it: Best the day it is made. Wrap well and refresh in a warm oven, or freeze and reheat straight from frozen.
Make it a Peru meal
Pisco SourDrink
Suspiro a la LimeñaDessert
CevicheDinner
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Frequently asked questions
What is Ají de Gallina?
Shredded chicken in a creamy, gently spicy sauce of aji amarillo, bread, and walnuts, a Lima lunchtime classic.
Where does Ají de Gallina come from?
Ají de Gallina is a Peruvian dish from Lima, Peru.
Can Ají de Gallina be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Ají de Gallina 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 Ají de Gallina 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 Ají de Gallina take to make?
About 60 minutes total (20 minutes prep, 40 minutes cooking), serving 4.
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