Piri Piri Chicken Thigh with Cucumber Salad

Home / Recipes / Piri Piri Chicken Thigh with Cucumber Salad

30 Mar 2020

50 Minutes | easy | Serves 2-3

Piri piri chicken is named after the chillies used to make it, but they can be tricky to find; this recipe uses regular red chillies plus a couple of birds eye chillies, to ramp up the heat a little bit. If you like spice, just add more, or play around with different chilli varieties. In Portugal, where this dish originated, the most common accompaniments would be chips and a tomato and onion salad – definitely worth a try when tomatoes are in season.

Ingredients

6 bone in, skin on, chicken thighs (For the marinade)
Juice of ½ lemon (For the marinade)
3 cloves garlic (For the marinade)
2 teaspoons flaky sea salt (For the marinade)
4 red chillies (For the piri piri sauce)
2 bird’s eye chillies (For the piri piri sauce)
2 teaspoons smoked paprika (For the piri piri sauce)
8 cloves garlic (For the piri piri sauce)
6 tablespoons red wine vinegar (For the piri piri sauce)
2 tablespoons dried oregano (For the piri piri sauce)
4 tablespoons olive oil (For the piri piri sauce)
2 teaspoons caster sugar (For the piri piri sauce)
Salt (For the piri piri sauce)
1 red onion, finely sliced (For the cucumber salad)
1 cucumber, cut in half lengthways, seeds removed and sliced (For the cucumber salad)
2 teaspoons dried oregano (For the cucumber salad)
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar (For the cucumber salad)
1 tablespoon olive oil (For the cucumber salad)
1 teaspoons sugar (For the cucumber salad)
1 teaspoon salt (For the cucumber salad)

Directions

Mix together

Mix together the lemon juice, garlic and salt. Spread this evenly over the chicken thighs and set aside to marinate for an hour.

Blend all the piri piri sauce

Blend all the piri piri sauce ingredients to a paste. Set aside half of the sauce for brushing the chicken once cooked.

Make the cucumber salad

Make the cucumber salad by combining the salt, sugar, vinegar and olive oil and mixing well. Add the sliced cucumber and red onion and mix again. Set aside, stirring occasionally to make sure the sugar is dissolved and the vegetables well coated.

Light the Jupiter Outback BBQ

Light the Jupiter Outback BBQ gas burners and set the heat to low-medium.

Cooking the chicken

Place the chicken thighs skin side down and cook, turning regularly for around 20 minutes. It’s important to cook the chicken thighs slowly to make sure they’re cooked all the way through and the skin is nice and crisp. An internal temperature probe should read 73C.

Brush with sauce

When the thighs are nearly cooked, brush them with sauce and cook for a further 5-10 minutes, until looking caramelised and slightly charred in places.

Remove from the heat

Remove from the heat, and serve brushed with the reserved piri piri sauce and the salad.

Recipe Author

Helen Graves

Helen Graves is an award-winning recipe, food and travel writer with a particular interest in barbecue. She writes freelance for many major food and drink publications and is editor of Pit, the UK's first independent magazine about live-fire cooking. Helen has created a series of exclusive recipes for Outback that focus on maximising flavour for the home cook using lots of spices, fresh herbs and BBQ techniques.

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