Nando's
Nando's Peri-Peri Sauce Copycat Recipe
The marinade, the baste and the table sauce, from one blender jug. Lemon-led before it is hot, which is the thing mos…
How to Make Nando's Perinaise at Home
Perinaise: Two Minutes, Two Ingredients, and the Ratio That Matters
The dip that goes with everything, once you have made the peri-peri sauce.
AI-generated illustration created for food.fast. It is not photographic evidence of a prepared batch.
If you have made the peri-peri sauce, this takes two minutes and is arguably the most-used thing to come out of it. It goes on chicken, on chips, in wraps, on burgers and, in this kitchen, on a great deal that it has no business being on.
The only decision is the ratio, and almost everybody goes too hot on the first attempt. Perinaise is not a spicy mayonnaise in the sriracha sense - it is a mayonnaise with a warm, lemony, garlicky background and a heat that sits well behind the creaminess.
Three parts mayonnaise to one part peri-peri sauce. That is it.
How this page shows its working
The method gives quantities, timings and observable cues rather than asking you to guess. The 4 cases in If it goes wrong explain likely causes and corrective action.
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Why three to one, and what happens at two to one
At 3:1 the mayonnaise is still clearly the dominant flavour. You get the lemon and garlic of the peri-peri sauce coming through as a background, a soft orange colour, and a heat that arrives late and stays mild. This is the restaurant ratio and it is what makes the sauce usable in quantity.
At 2:1 the sauce becomes assertive. It is good, it is not Perinaise, and it is too much on a plate that already has peri-peri chicken on it.
At 1:1 the emulsion starts to loosen, because you are adding a significant quantity of oil-and-vinegar sauce to a fixed amount of emulsifier. It goes runny and eventually splits.
If you want more heat without changing the ratio, add a pinch of cayenne directly rather than more peri-peri sauce. That keeps the texture where it should be.
How to make it, step by step
Make it
-
Fold the peri-peri sauce into the mayonnaise in stages
A third at a time, folded in fully before the next goes in. Adding it all at once shocks the emulsion and can loosen it.
About 2 min -
Lemon, paprika, garlic powder and salt
Folded through. The colour should be an even pale orange with visible flecks.
About 1 min -
Thirty minutes in the fridge
Short, because there is very little dry powder in it. The heat does come forward slightly.
About 30 min
Where it goes
Almost everywhere, honestly:
- On the chicken, which is what it is for.
- Chips, which is what it actually gets used for.
- In a wrap with leftover chicken and shredded lettuce.
- On a burger, in place of any other sauce.
- Stirred into a potato salad, a tablespoon at a time, which turns a dull side into something worth eating.
- Thinned with a tablespoon of lemon juice as a salad dressing.
It is one of the few sauces on this site that works on fish as well as meat, the lemon doing the work.
Ways to change it once you have made it once
Garlic Perinaise
Two crushed fresh garlic cloves folded in. Keeps five days rather than two weeks but is worth it.
Lemon and herb
Use the lemon and herb variation of the peri-peri sauce, double the lemon juice and add a tablespoon of chopped parsley.
Vegan
Vegan mayonnaise, unchanged otherwise. Add an extra pinch of salt - vegan mayonnaise is usually under-seasoned.
What went wrong, and how to fix it
Each entry names a likely cause as well as a correction, so the advice remains useful when equipment, ingredients or batch size differ.
It is runny
- Why it happened
- Too much peri-peri sauce for the mayonnaise, or low-fat mayonnaise.
- What to do
- Fold in more mayonnaise to bring it back to 3:1. Full-fat only.
Too hot
- Why it happened
- A hot batch of peri-peri sauce at the standard ratio.
- What to do
- More mayonnaise. Peri-peri sauces vary enormously in heat, so taste and adjust rather than following the ratio blindly.
It split
- Why it happened
- Too much oil-based sauce added at once.
- What to do
- Whisk a fresh tablespoon of mayonnaise in a clean bowl and add the split mixture to it a teaspoon at a time. This genuinely works.
Pale and bland
- Why it happened
- A mild peri-peri sauce, or not enough of it.
- What to do
- The smoked paprika is doing colour and depth work - do not leave it out. A pinch of cayenne adds heat without loosening the texture.
Questions people actually ask about this recipe
What is the ratio for Perinaise?
Three parts mayonnaise to one part peri-peri sauce. More than that and the emulsion starts to loosen.
Can I use shop-bought peri-peri sauce?
Yes, and the ratio may need adjusting - bottled sauces vary a lot in heat and thickness. Taste as you fold.
Why does mine keep splitting?
Too much sauce added at once, or too high a proportion overall. Add it in thirds.
How long does it keep?
Two weeks in the fridge, or five days if you have added fresh garlic.
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