Depending on who you ask, the idea of a sauce with Brazilian cuisine might be commonplace, or it might be near-blasphemous. The truth is, there are quite a few different sauces that are popular in Brazil, but opinions can vary on whether or not they’re traditional or even what foods they go with.
In our view, it can be worth trying out all of these different sauces and finding the ones you like the most. Yes, there’s a place for tradition, but there’s no reason not to enjoy something delicious if you love it.
Today, we wanted to talk about many of those Brazilian sauces (or molhos) to give you options to explore.
Table of Contents
The Green Sauces
First, while the title of this post says “beyond chimichurri,” it’s still worth talking about it, as well as two similar green sauces.
- Gremolata: An almost salad-like mixture of chopped parsley, garlic, and the zest of a lemon, lime, or even orange.
- Pesto: A deep green, oil-based sauce common in Italian cooking, made with basil, garlic, olive oil, pine nuts, and parmesan cheese.
- Chimichurri: Another herb-focused green sauce native to South America, it’s a robust mixture of parsley, oregano, garlic, olive oil, red wine vinegar, salt and pepper, and some kind of chili – and possibly other ingredients, like mint, yogurt, and onions.
If you want a deeper dive into these sauces, we wrote about Brazilian green sauces over in this post.
The key here is to know that just about every Brazilian restaurant is going to have some form of chimichurri available. There are as many recipes as there are places offering the sauce, of course, so it can vary a lot in heat, herbal composition, and even the base. Others, like pesto, tend to be more traditionally similar to one another, though you can still find some variation in terms of cheese, the use of pecans or chickpeas instead of pine nuts, and more.
Now that you know what we’re looking beyond, what other sauces are there to explore in Brazil?
Molho de Alho
Molho de Alho is a common sauce used in Brazilian cooking, often served alongside meats or as a topping for bread. Molho is the Portuguese word for sauce, and alho is the Portuguese word for garlic, making this a Brazilian version of garlic sauce.
If you’re familiar with garlic sauce from something like Middle Eastern cuisine, where it’s usually a sort of paste made with garlic, lemon, salt, and not much else, you’ll be a little surprised with what molho de alho has to offer. The Brazilian twist on the garlic sauce is white, creamy, and extremely garlicky, but it has more going on as well.
To start with, this sauce uses garlic, but it actually cooks the garlic a little to help release the aromatic oils and bring a bit more depth of flavor to the sauce. By cooking the garlic in butter, the butter can then be used to make a roux with some flour. It’s then turned into a creamy sauce with some milk, thickened with a bit of mayonnaise, and augmented with the other flavors.
What other flavors? A traditional molho de alho has salt, pepper, and oregano added. Some add some lemon or lime juice. Others use oil instead of mayo. Either way, the result is a thick, creamy garlic sauce that goes great on meat. There’s a reason we have a recipe for it here on our site!
Molho a Campanha
This one is an interesting addition because whether or not you consider it a sauce at all depends on your definition of sauce. It’s a lot more like gremolata but even coarser; in fact, it has a lot in common with the Mexican Pico de Gallo.
Molho a Campanha is also known as “Brazilian vinaigrette,” though it’s not really anything like what you might think of as an American vinaigrette dressing. Instead, this topping, condiment, sauce, or whatever you want to call it, is a bright, fresh mixture that goes well with rice and beans, alongside churrasco, and with a lot of other recipes besides.
It’s very simple to make. You need diced tomatoes, a diced onion, diced bell peppers, some parsley, and a mix of olive oil, white wine vinegar, and a bit of salt and pepper. All of that, tossed together, gives you a bright and tangy topping that goes great to counterbalance the richness of meat and the heaviness of rice and beans. No wonder it goes great with Brazilian cooking!
Molho Apimentado
Another spicy sauce, this one is a red sauce, and has more in common with a lot of American hot sauces. It’s a surprisingly complex sauce full of flavors and can be used on nearly anything.
What goes into it? Well, it’s a tomato base, with some olive oil, vinegar, and a bit of sugar for a base. Add to that some onion, bell pepper, chili pepper, garlic, mustard, and pepper, and you’re nearly there. Then come the herbs: parsley, bay leaf, cilantro, and oregano round it out.
The sauce itself uses half of the vegetables finely diced and the other half pureed. The diced veg is cooked in a saucepan, and the bay leaves may even be left in to continue to flavor the sauce, though most people remove it. The end result is spicy, very red, almost like a fine salsa or a chunky ketchup with a ton of added flavor.
Tucupi
Tucupi is a unique Brazilian sauce native to the Amazon. It’s made from the same ingredient you find all over Brazil: the yuca/cassava/manioc root.
What’s interesting is that this is a very delicate, complex, and unique sauce. Liquid from the manioc root is extracted, and then it’s fermented and seasoned. This process leaves you with the yellow-orange sauce called tucupi amarelo, which is extremely common in indigenous communities around the Amazon.
Some communities take tucupi and reduce it, which concentrates the flavors and turns it dark and paste-like into something called tucupi preto or tucupi negro, the black tucupi.
Definitely don’t try to make this sauce yourself. For one thing, if you don’t do it right, it’s actually poisonous because of the cyanide content. It’s also pretty hard outside of the Amazon to get your hands on yuca brava, which is the bitter yuca needed to make it.
Tucupi, on its own, is basically just a sour sauce with a fermented tang. Often, it has other flavors added, like salt, garlic, chicory, and herbs. It’s used as a sauce, the base for soup-like street foods, and more.
Requeijao
This one is another entry on the list that is not necessarily a sauce, though it can depend on how you use it. It’s basically a light cheese, similar to a sort of creamy ricotta, with a very mild flavor.
It’s often used in sort of the same way Americans use cream cheese, as the base for spreads or as a topping alongside other ingredients like ham and a more pungent cheese. It’s also not something you make unless you’re into cheesemaking, so there’s not a lot else to say from us today.
Other Sauces in Brazil
While we’ve covered the more basic and traditional sauces you’ll find throughout Brazil, it’s important to remember that Brazil is a huge country with millions of people across a wide range of geographic locations, cultural heritages, and culinary histories. There are tons of sauces you can find, whether it’s in a market, at a restaurant, or in local homes, that aren’t represented here.
For example, while many of the sauces we’ve listed have some kind of hot pepper in them, a lot of Brazilians don’t actually like spicy peppers, and there are non-spicy versions of pretty much all of these sauces. Similarly, for the people who love the heat, there are more spicy versions of all of them and even a wide range of hot sauces that would be more comfortable on an American shelf than a Brazilian one.
It can also be important to remember that sauces aren’t necessarily everywhere the way you might think they are. Something like chimichurri, sure, but there are plenty of places where you aren’t going to find sauces on offer.
A lot of people believe that churrasco, for example, shouldn’t have a sauce. Churrasco is meant to bring out the unique flavors and textures of individual cuts of meat, so if you’re dipping it in sauce, you’re losing out on the uniqueness each cut brings to the table.
At Texas de Brazil, our churrasco generally doesn’t come with a sauce on the side. That said, there are sauces you can grab from the salad area or on the table, and you’re always free to customize your own dining experience.
On top of all of this, Brazil has a lot of culinary influences from other countries. That Levantine garlic sauce we mentioned above is also found here and there, Italians have brought their pasta sauces, and many other such sauces exist to cater to immigrants from all around the world.
The only thing Brazilians might take issue with is the occasional American who can’t seem to live without ranch dressing. It’s fine here and there, but don’t play into that particular stereotype if you can help it, please!
Beyond the Borders of Brazil
There are also a bunch of other sauces that are common in South America but may be less prominent in Brazil or originated in another South American country. We’re not really focusing on them as much today, but it’s worth listing some of them.
Aji Verde
Aji Verde is a Peruvian green sauce. It’s also considered a kind of hot sauce and would be right at home on a Mexican table.
It uses mayonnaise as a base and mixes in cilantro (or Peruvian black mint), jalapeno (or Peruvian aji Amarillo peppers), parmesan (or cotija, a similar South American cheese), alongside some garlic, lime juice, and salt. The end result is a spicy, herbal, garlic-forward green sauce that serves as a sort of creamier chimichurri.
Pebre
Pebre is another green sauce, but this time, it’s from Chile rather than Peru or Brazil. It uses onion, tomato, oil, vinegar, cilantro, salt, and some red chili.
It’s pretty similar to chimichurri, but it’s often eaten on bread or in a salad, and of course, it’s a staple with barbecue.
Guasacaca
This one comes from Venezuela, and it’s sort of like the sauce version of guacamole. It uses avocados, onions, bell peppers, garlic, cilantro, black pepper, and a dash of hot sauce, with some vinegar and oil as a base.
The whole thing is pureed and blended until smooth to make a delicious sauce with a hint of spice that goes great on all sorts of different foods. The spice is even optional, though you’ll be hard-pressed to find a Venezuelan who will leave it out.
Huancaina Sauce
Another Peruvian favorite, this is a bright yellow sauce that is usually served over potatoes but can be found alongside many other foods.
The sauce itself is made with the same aji Amarillo pepper, some vegetable oil, red onion, garlic, queso fresco cheese, milk, salt and pepper, and… crackers. The onions and peppers are cooked, then it’s all blended together, into a unique sauce you won’t see much of anywhere else.
Salsa Golf
This is a strange sauce with a more recent history; made in the 1920s by a golfer who was unsatisfied with the available shrimp toppings, the man mixed a variety of ingredients together to make a dip for shrimp that has since been used for all manner of other purposes, including as a sauce for fries. It’s a mixture of mayonnaise, ketchup, mustard, lime juice, Worcestershire sauce, and a bit of salt and pepper. It’s very tasty, if not altogether traditional.
All of these are really just scratching the surface. South America is truly a place of endless variety, where combinations of flavors like garlic, herbs, and vinegar are mixed and matched into hundreds of different sauces, many of which transcend the borders of the country.
