This keto Peruvian Roasted Chicken & Green Sauce is crispy on the outside, juicy and tender on the inside! The addicting and versatile green sauce is great with the chicken, but also delicious on fish, veggies, or even as a salad dressing! Whole 30, Paleo, and Squeaky Clean Keto Friendly!
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Mr. Hungry and have travelled back and forth from CT to SC along Interstate 95 over 20 times during our marriage. It’s a brutal 12 – 14 hour ride depending on traffic, but I always looked forward to it because it meant stopping for lunch or dinner at a tiny Peruvian roasted chicken restaurant we’d found in Virginia.
If you’ve never had Peruvian chicken, it’s typically marinated and then roasted over a wood fired rotisserie. To serve they chop it into quarters and smother it with this incredible green sauce and a side of pickled red onions with cilantro.
There are variations on the theme depending on the restaurant, but the basic elements are usually the same – and it’s amazing.
This Keto Peruvian Roasted Chicken & Green Sauce recipe is as close as I can get without having a wood fired oven anymore, but the flavors are still pretty legit.
The most important element of the chicken itself is the spice paste. It’s earthy and rich, with a beautiful brick red color. The paste is easily whipped up in your trusty magic bullet or a mini food processor – if you don’t have either, you can mince the garlic by hand and stir it in a small bowl or even grind it with a mortar and pestle.
Then be sure to rub the paste alllllll over the chicken, AND inside the skin along the breast and legs – this isn’t the time to be shy, you’re going to need to get up close and personal with it. Then let the chicken marinate for at least an hour (or even overnight) before roasting to get the most intense flavor.
I like to roast my Peruvian chicken at high heat for a shorter amount of time, rather than a long roast at a low temperature. This method gets the crispiest skin, and also seals in the juices and prevents them from steaming out and leaving you with dry chicken!
Also important is to let the bird rest after roasting, so that the juices can settle in and not run out as soon as you cut into your bird.
Now let’s talk about the accompaniments to this low carb Peruvian roasted chicken! The green sauce is tangy and spicy, with a creaminess from the mayonnaise. If you don’t do mayo you can sub avocado. Lots of cilantro, garlic, and jalapeño make up the base of the sauce, which is pungently delicious and the perfect foil for the tender chicken!
I can’t say enough about how obsessed I am with this sauce – you’ll know why once you taste it!
Next, the onions! If you hate onions you can skip these, but the punch of flavor that just a little bit of these pickled red onions give with each bite of Peruvian chicken and green sauce really brings it together! It’s just the perfect bite. Honestly.
There is so much to love about this Keto Peruvian roasted Chicken & Green Sauce recipe! It’s not only delicious and easy to execute, it’s also dairy free and nut free – and even Whole 30 friendly if you use a Whole 30 approved mayonnaise (or sub with avocado) in the sauce.
A super healthy keto chicken dinner recipe that your family will love, AND that you can feel good about feeding them?? It’s definitely a win/win on this one!
Last side note, this Keto Peruvian Roasted Chicken is a great recipe to feed a crowd. Roast 2 or 3 of them at once and you can serve it on big platters, along with rice and tortillas so your non low carb friends or family can turn it into tacos or burritos.
(For my fellow low carbers, I like this with my easy keto broccoli slaw and/or jalapeño popper cauliflower casserole on the side!)
Economical and delicious, not to mention gorgeous (those colors tho, amirite?) – this Keto Peruvian Roasted Chicken & Green Sauce always goes over well when we serve it at gatherings! With Super Bowl weekend coming up, it’s something to consider!
Whenever you get around to making it, it’s sure to be a hit!
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Keto Peruvian Roasted Chicken & Green Sauce
- Total Time: 1 hour 35 minutes
- Yield: 6 servings 1x
- Diet: Diabetic
Description
Crispy, tender, loaded with flavor – this Peruvian Roasted Chicken recipe is destined to be a new family favorite! Whole 30, Paleo, Keto, Atkins, Low Carb, and Squeaky Clean Keto Friendly!
Ingredients
For the marinade and chicken:
- 5–6 lb whole raw chicken
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 teaspoons lime juice
- 1 teaspoon lime zest
- 2 teaspoons minced fresh garlic
- 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
- 1 tablespoon kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 tablespoon ground paprika
- 1 tablespoon ground cumin
For the Green Sauce:
- 2 jalapeños, seeds removed
- 2 cloves garlic, peeled
- 3/4 cup fresh cilantro, washed
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1/3 cup sugar free mayonnaise
- 1 tablespoon white vinegar
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 2 teaspoon lime juice
- 1 teaspoon lime zest
For the red onions:
- 1 cup red onions, peeled and thinly sliced
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
- 1 tablespoon lime juice
- 1/2 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
- pinch of salt
- 1 teaspoon granulated sweetener (optional, omit if Whole 30)
Instructions
For the chicken:
- Combine all of the marinade ingredients in a magic bullet or small food processor and process until a mostly smooth paste.
- Rub the paste all over the inside and outside of the chicken, including under the skin of the breast and legs as far as you can reach.
- Roast the chicken uncovered at 400 degrees for about 70 minutes, or until a thermometer inserted in the center of the thigh reads 165 degrees.
- Remove from the oven and let the chicken rest for 15 minutes before cutting and serving.
For the green sauce:
- Combine all of the ingredients in a magic bullet or blender and process until smooth.
- Taste and season with salt and pepper as desired.
- Store any leftovers in the refrigerator.
For the red onions:
- Combine all of the ingredients in a small bowl and toss well to coat.
- Let sit for 10 minutes before serving.
Notes
Nutrition info is approximate and will vary based on what part of the chicken you eat:
1 thigh – 358 calories, 22g fat, 0g carbs, 36g protein
1 drum – 233 calories, 12g fat, 0g carbs, 29g protein
1 breast – 193 calories, 12g fat, 0 carbs, 31g protein
2 Tbsp green sauce: 133 calories, 16g fat, <1g carbs, 0g protein
2 Tbsp onions: 9 calories, 0g fat, 1g net carbs, 0g protein
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 85 minutes
- Category: keto dinner recipes
- Method: oven
- Cuisine: Peruvian
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 thigh, 2 T sauce, 2 T onions
- Calories: 500
- Fat: 39g
- Carbohydrates: 2g
- Protein: 36g
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R. Jenner says
This is a favorite in my family and we are having it again tomorrow for a family dinner!!! My husband and I are smoking two chickens and my sister and her husband are smoking two chickens. The sauce is amazing and I love the onions!! Thank you for the recipes!!!
Mellissa Sevigny says
I bet this will be amazing with the smoked chickens! Now I need a smoker ha ha!
Tracey says
Made this last night and it was insanely good! I’m going to put that green sauce on anything I can!
Annemarie says
Great recipe! I made this a few months ago, and again last night with roasted tempeh as I’ve given up chicken, now. Delicious! This time around the onions were a bit strong for me, but I splashed a bit more oil on the leftovers and roasted them with the tempeh leftovers for lunch and they were phenomenal!
Angela says
I just made this tonight… Amazing!! How does it not have more reviews?! This instantly made our list of top 5 meals of all time. Everything was absolutely perfect together – from the perfectly spiced and juicy chicken, to the sweet and tangy onions, to the spicy creamy sauce.
Meredith says
Insanely good.
Cátia Araujo says
Pure perfection! One of the best recipes I have ever tried! Thank you so much!
Edamy says
Wow! This was delicious! My Peruvian husband thought he died and went to heaven. The green sauce is so yummy (we left those seeds in the jalapeños for some spice). We were just in Peru visiting his family and I think your chick was better than the ones we had there. Thank you!
Mellissa Sevigny says
Wow that is super high praise! So glad you all loved it and thanks for letting me know!
Helen Burkshire says
This recipe is so versatile. I used it on chicken thighs and it was delicious!
The sauce was too creamy and i had to spread it on like mayo.
I didn’t want to add anything else to it to make it watery or ruin it, but the flavor was amazing!
Thank you!
Jo Swallow says
This is delicious. I just took my chicken out of the oven and even with no sauce it’s amazing. I followed the recipe almost exactly, I used smoked salt and smoked paprika and put a cut lime in the body cavity, so not super huge deviations. The green sauce is good, but my favorite sauce is the aji amarillo sauce, so I made some of that too. I’m very excited to share this with my lunch buddy at work (ok not excited to share the chicken, more like excited to see her reaction) she’s really going to love it.
Joni L. says
Hosting a dinner party? Looking for something tasty and beautiful to serve your guests? Then this is it!