Chargrilled chicken with salsa verde

A good salsa verde fixes almost anything on the plate. I’ve been making some version of it since my first proper kitchen job — a busy bistro off Beaumont Street in Hamilton — and it has never let me down. Sharp, herby, a little oily, with enough acid to cut through the char on good chicken thighs. That’s the whole idea here.

This isn’t complicated food. But there’s a reason simple things go wrong: people don’t get their pan hot enough, they crowd the meat, or they make the sauce too timid. Don’t muck about with any of those three things and you’ll be fine.

Why chargrilled chicken salsa verde earns a regular spot

Chicken thighs are where the flavour lives. I know some people will always reach for the breast and, fair enough, but the thigh has better fat content for high-heat cooking and it forgives a minute or two of extra time in a way that the breast absolutely does not. Skin-off, bone-in thighs are what I use most weeknights. For this recipe, boneless thighs work better — they cook evenly and you get a flat sear on both sides.

The salsa verde is the heavy lifter here. Flat-leaf parsley, basil, a single anchovy fillet (don’t skip it — you won’t taste fish, you’ll taste depth), capers, garlic, lemon juice and good olive oil. That combination does a lot. The Australian Dietary Guidelines published by Eat for Health are fairly consistent on the point that lean protein alongside plenty of vegetables and healthy unsaturated fats makes for a well-structured main meal, and this dish does exactly that without requiring a nutrition degree to put together.

There’s a version of salsa verde at every good Italian-leaning restaurant in the country. Some are fussy about the ratios. Mine isn’t. I’ve made it with a mortar and pestle when I’m patient and with a knife and a board when I’m not. Both are fine. What matters is that you taste as you go and get the lemon-to-oil balance right before you pour it on anything.

Ingredients

Serves 4

• 8 boneless, skin-off chicken thighs (approx. 900 g total)
• 2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• ½ tsp fine sea salt
• Freshly ground black pepper
• Salsa verde
• 1 large bunch flat-leaf parsley (approx. 40 g leaves)
• ½ bunch fresh basil leaves (approx. 15 g)
• 1 anchovy fillet in oil, drained
• 2 tbsp capers in brine, drained and roughly chopped
• 1 small garlic clove, crushed
• 2 tsp Dijon mustard
• Juice of 1 lemon (approx. 35 ml)
• 80 ml extra-virgin olive oil
• Sea salt and black pepper to taste
• To serve
• 200 g mixed salad leaves or shaved fennel
• 1 Lebanese cucumber, thinly sliced
• Lemon wedges

Method

1. Pat the chicken thighs dry with paper towel. This step matters — moisture is the enemy of a good sear. Combine the olive oil, cumin, smoked paprika, salt and a few grinds of black pepper in a bowl, add the thighs and toss until well coated. Leave to sit at room temperature for at least 15 minutes while you make the salsa.
2. For the salsa verde: finely chop the parsley and basil leaves together on a board until they’re almost a rough paste. Add the anchovy and keep chopping until it disappears into the herbs. Transfer to a bowl with the capers, garlic and mustard. Pour in the lemon juice, then the olive oil, and stir well. Taste it. If it’s flat, add a pinch of salt or a few more drops of lemon. It should be punchy enough to make you blink slightly. Set aside.
3. Get your pan properly hot. A heavy cast-iron grill pan or a good quality non-stick chargrill over high heat — you want it smoking before the chicken goes on. If you’re cooking on a gas barbecue, same rule applies. Don’t rush this part.
4. Place the thighs flat on the hot surface, smooth side down. Don’t move them. Cook for 5–6 minutes until you can see the edges are opaque and the underside has good colour. Flip once and cook a further 4–5 minutes. The thickest part should reach an internal temperature of 75°C — a probe thermometer is worth owning if you cook protein regularly.
5. Rest the chicken on a board, loosely covered, for 5 minutes. This is non-negotiable. Cut into one too early and you’ve just lost all the juice onto the board instead of into your mouth.
6. Arrange the salad leaves and cucumber on a large platter or individual plates. Slice or leave the thighs whole and place on top. Spoon the salsa verde generously over the chicken and serve with lemon wedges alongside.

A note on the salsa verde

If you’ve got a food processor, you can blitz the whole lot in about 30 seconds. Honestly it gives you a smoother, more homogenous sauce and I’m not sure that’s actually better. Chopping by hand leaves texture — little bits of caper and leaf that catch in the sauce and give you something to chew on. I’ll admit I go back and forth on this depending on how the day has been. But the hand-cut version is worth it when you’ve got the time.

A few people ask me about substituting the anchovy for something else. You can leave it out if you have a genuine reason, but adding an extra teaspoon of capers and a small pinch of dried seaweed flakes gets you most of the way back to that savouriness. There are good dried nori flakes at most Asian grocers now, and they work surprisingly well here.

If you’re curious about the broader role of herbs in a balanced diet, Better Health Channel has solid general reading on herb and plant diversity in everyday eating — worth a look if you’re thinking about how to get more variety onto the plate without complicated recipes.

Variations worth trying

Swap the chicken for a firm white fish — blue-eye trevalla works beautifully, though it needs about half the cooking time. We’ve done a version with blue-eye cod here before that follows a similar principle. The salsa verde is equally good over a piece of pan-seared salmon; see how we do the greens pairing in our miso-glazed salmon recipe for ideas on what works alongside oily fish.

You can also go fully vegetable-forward with this sauce. Our trio of chargrilled heirloom carrots with salsa verde uses essentially the same base herb sauce and it holds up just as well — maybe better, because the sweetness of the carrots plays off the acidity in a way chicken doesn’t quite match. That’s not a slight on chicken. It’s just a very good carrot dish.

For a more substantial plate, this sits well on top of white beans or a simple warm grain. Aromatic spiced rice is another option — we’ve paired chicken with grains before in our spiced rice and quinoa recipe and the principle is the same: a good sauce makes a grain dish feel like a proper dinner rather than a side.

Getting the balance right

This meal does what I think dinner should do: it’s filling without being heavy, the fat comes from olive oil and a small amount of chicken thigh rather than anything processed, and the salsa adds a load of fresh herbs in a form that actually tastes good rather than virtuous. The lean protein here supports satiety and recovery, which if you’re thinking about fuelling for movement, is worth considering as part of how you build meals around your week.

One thing I’d push back on gently: the idea that healthy cooking has to be restrained with seasoning. A properly seasoned salsa verde with real olive oil, real capers and a decent squeeze of lemon is not a compromise. It’s just good cooking. The shortcut that doesn’t work is the one where you make the sauce timid because you’re worried about the calories in olive oil. You end up with something flat that doesn’t make anyone want to eat more vegetables.

Taste as you go. Get the pan hot. Serve it warm with good bread if you want.

— Dave Forsythe, Golden Door Living kitchen