Nandos Style Chicken

[ln1234]

Would love to try and attempt to make chicken ala Nando's style. I'm a complete beginner when it comes to bbq'ing (doing it well anyway), so any tips appreciated. Is it true they precook the chicken before marinating and grilling?

Cheers!

[TimmyWimmyWoo]

Start by killing it when it's two days old – I'm not sure about the rest of the recipe.

[Salgar]

Nando's actually sell their marinade (Different from the little bottles of sauce), I'm not sure who sells it though, I think waitrose do but don't quote me on that.

Juts marinade all your chicken in that for as long as possible before cooking.

[Stu R]

There's a shed load of good dry rubs and wet marinades out there. Nandos do their own (available in wet marinade and dry rub sachets from sainsburys, tescos etc - though the dry rubs are harder to find and better imo) but as tasty as they are, there's far better ones out there.

Wet marinades I generally find are best left for at least 4 hours if you want the full flavour, or if it's a milder sauce overnight. Dry Rubs I normally leave for a couple of hours, but again the longer you marinade for the more flavour you get, generally speaking.

I'm in the middle of testing some 200 rubs and sauces at the minute (not all today!) so I'll happily report which we find are the best.


Once you've marinaded and your grill is up to temperature, it's just a case of chucking it on and cooking it! If you're using a wet marinade it doesn't hurt to baste it a bit while you're cooking either.

Edited by Stu R on Friday 2nd July 13:19

[Tsippy]

Look up chicken pirri pirri ( Portugese dish I believe?) and you should get some better recipes than what Nandos offers

Usually I use only the pirri pirri spice directly on the chicken, it's fantastic stuff Be careful of how much you add though as it can give you a sore bum

[Nefarious]

Broadly (it's still evolving a bit), my "Nando's" marinade recipe is something like this:
2-3 whole chilis (seeds left in)
6-8 garlic cloves
2 big sprigs of lemon thyme
Big pinch of oregano
Big pinch of paprika
zest of 1 lemon
medium sized squeeze of tomato puree
splash each of vinegar and olive oil
1/2-1 teaspoon of MSG

Blitz it all together, spatchcock your chicken and spread over both sides. 2 minutes skin side down in the griddle, turn and transfer the whole shooting match to the over at c.200C for the rest of the cooking time.