Cuisine · Peru

Peruvian cooking

Peruvian recipes tested and adapted for the home kitchen — 6 dishes from Peru, each with step-by-step instructions and ingredient notes.

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Ají Criollo with fresh ají amarillo, ají limo and huacatay leaves — Peru recipe

🇵🇪PeruMedium

Sauces and Dips

Ají Criollo

Ají criollo is the emulsified chilli sauce that sits on every table in a Peruvian chicken house and next to every charcoal grill in Lima. Fresh ají amarillo is deveined and softened, fried with onion and garlic, then blended with fresh cheese and evaporated milk while oil is streamed in to build a thick, glossy emulsion, with huacatay and coriander folded in at the end for the herbal edge. It is a condiment rather than a cooking sauce: nothing is simmered in it, and it goes onto roast chicken, anticuchos, boiled potatoes and fried cassava after they leave the fire. Ají amarillo itself carries far more fruit than heat, so the sharpness in a good version comes from the ají limo added separately.

20 min150 kcal8 serves

🌿Vegetarian🌾Gluten-free🌶️Spicy

Ají de Gallina (Peruvian Creamy Chicken) with chicken breast, aji amarillo paste and walnuts — Peru recipe

🇵🇪PeruMedium

Meat Dishes

Ají de Gallina (Peruvian Creamy Chicken)

Ají de gallina is one of Peru's most cherished comfort dishes — shredded poached chicken folded into a velvety golden sauce built on ají amarillo, the fruity yellow chili at the heart of Peruvian cooking. Milk-soaked bread and ground walnuts thicken it, while parmesan adds a salty, umami edge. Mildly spicy and rich, it's spooned over rice with boiled yellow potatoes, olives, and hard-boiled egg — a fusion of Spanish and Andean roots.

60 min480 kcal4 serves

💪High protein🌶️Spicy

Anticuchos de Corazón with beef heart and ají panca paste — Peru recipe

🇵🇪PeruMedium

Meat Dishes

Anticuchos de Corazón

Anticuchos are skewers of beef heart marinated in ají panca, garlic, cumin and vinegar, then grilled over charcoal. They belong to the street corners of Lima, where the anticucheras set up braziers in the evening and serve them with a boiled potato, a piece of corn and a chilli sauce. The dish traces back to colonial Peru, when enslaved workers were given the offcuts that the Spanish kitchens discarded and applied a spiced-and-skewered technique to the heart, the cut closest in texture to muscle meat. Heart is dense, lean and mild rather than strong-tasting, and the entire difficulty lies in trimming it properly and taking it off the fire early. Marinating time comes on top of the stated time.

45 min420 kcal4 serves

💪High protein🌾Gluten-free🌶️Spicy

Causa Limeña with yellow potatoes, ají amarillo paste and lime juice — Peru recipe

🇵🇪PeruMedium

Appetizers and Sandwiches

Causa Limeña

Causa limeña is a cold Peruvian starter of layered mashed yellow potato seasoned with ají amarillo and lime, filled with chicken or tuna in mayonnaise and slices of avocado. The potato is worked with oil into a pliable, saffron-coloured dough, and because the dish is assembled in a mould and cut, it holds its shape on the plate; crab or prawn also work as the filling. By one account the name comes from the Quechua word kawsay, meaning sustenance, though a legend tying it to the War of the Pacific is told as well. Chilling time comes on top of the stated time.

60 min390 kcal4 serves

🌾Gluten-free🌶️Spicy

Lomo Saltado with beef sirloin, ají amarillo and red onions — Peru recipe

🇵🇪PeruMedium

Meat Dishes

Lomo Saltado

Lomo saltado is a beef stir-fry from the chifa kitchens of Peru, where Cantonese cooking technique met Peruvian ingredients from the late nineteenth century onward. Strips of sirloin are seared in a scorching pan, then joined by red onion, ají amarillo, tomato, soy sauce and vinegar, and the whole thing is finished with fried potatoes folded in at the last second. Serving it over rice puts two starches on one plate, which is exactly the point: the potato is Andean, the rice and the wok are Chinese, and the soy-and-vinegar pan sauce belongs to neither on its own. Everything depends on pan temperature, so all cutting and measuring is done before the burner is lit.

40 min690 kcal4 serves

💪High protein

Salmon Ceviche with avocado, chili pepper and cilantro — Peru recipe

🇵🇪PeruMedium

Appetizers and Sandwiches

Salmon Ceviche

Salmon ceviche is raw salmon ‘cooked’ in lime juice, tossed with red onion, chili and cilantro until the fish turns opaque and firm. It's a salmon spin on Peruvian ceviche, which traditionally uses white fish, with avocado folded in the way many Mexican-style ceviches do.

23 min370 kcal4 serves

🥑Keto⚡Quick🌶️Spicy

Nearby flavors

Four kitchens with overlapping ingredients and similar rhythms to Peruvian cooking.

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