Salmoriglio Recipe

Salmoriglio is a versatile, bright, lemony, herbaceous Southern Italian sauce—something like a Southern Italian pesto. While the basil-pine nut–garlic mixture from Liguria in Northern Italy is what most Americans picture when they hear the word “pesto,” Italy has a wide-ranging family of sauces built on the same technique: crushing or pounding (pestare in Italian) aromatic ingredients with olive oil.

The key ingredients in salmoriglio are oregano, lemon, olive oil, and salt. It’s looser and brighter than its northern pesto cousin, thanks to its lack of nuts and dairy, a high ratio of olive oil to herbs, and generous seasoning with salt. The word “salmoriglio” traces back to “salmurigghiu” in Sicilian dialect and “salamoia,” meaning “brine” in Italian. Though salmoriglio is most often associated with Sicily, it’s also beloved in other Southern Italian regions, including Calabria, where it sometimes features fresh parsley and a pinch of pepperoncini (chile flakes).

What I love most about salmoriglio—aside from its peppy lemon punch—is its versatility. The condiment is most commonly served with grilled swordfish but is also often paired with other grilled fish, meat, and vegetables. It works as a quick, raw sauce to pour over cooked proteins or vegetables, and it makes an excellent marinade.

My favorite way to use salmoriglio is as a shortcut to a perfectly fancy weeknight dinner: I throw a couple of fish fillets—haddock, cod, halibut, or sole are all delicious—into a zip-top bag with some of the sauce, then let them sit in the refrigerator for about an hour until dinner time. After just a few minutes on each side in a piping-hot pan, the fish is cooked through—no additional steps or seasoning needed. I spoon more salmoriglio over roasted or grilled vegetables and potatoes, and call it a night.

If I have any sauce left at the end of the evening, I pour it over a log of goat cheese and keep it covered in the fridge for deliciously marinated cheese to eat with crackers or crumble over salad the next day.

The Ideal Ratios for the Best Salmoriglio

So how do you make a great salmoriglio? As usual, I started by making as many versions of the sauce as possible. With only a handful of ingredients, how different could the recipes be? Very different, it turns out. One called for dried oregano, another for fresh, and several included a combination of fresh oregano and parsley. Chef and cookbook author Lidia Bastianich‘s rendition uses no oregano at all—just a little fresh parsley in a sea of garlic-infused oil.

After tasting through many recipes from Italian chefs, I landed on a ratio of one part fresh oregano to one part fresh parsley and one part fresh lemon juice to three parts extra-virgin olive oil. (I tested some versions with white wine vinegar in addition to lemon juice but ultimately preferred the brightness of fresh citrus.) To make that citrus even punchier, I experimented with lemon zest and found a tipping point: Adding just half a teaspoon gave the sauce a pleasant boost, while a full teaspoon pushed it into bitterness.

Getting the Texture Right

The next thing to consider was texture. While some recipes call for a food processor to make a fully blended sauce or a warm emulsion—such as whisking warm water into the oil-and-herb mixture—most use basic whisking to bring everything together just before serving. In the latter recipes, the suspensions quickly broke, and the herbs sank to the bottom of the bowl while the oil floated to the top. 

Using the food processor was easy, quick, and produced a well-suspended, homogeneous green emulsion. However, I really didn’t like the bitterness the extra-virgin olive oil took on after it was mechanically blended at high speed. As Serious Eats editorial director, Daniel, explains in his article about blending olive oil into a raw egg to make mayo, “bitter polyphenols that occur naturally in olive oil are water-soluble, and, given enough of an opportunity, can migrate from the oil into any water present (say, in the form of lemon juice, egg white, or vinegar in a mayonnaise). This can make the mayonnaise taste more bitter.” 

This reaction was especially pronounced in the salmoriglio I made in the food processor—likely due not just to the processing method, but also to the sauce’s high lemon juice content and the abundance of fresh oregano, which already carries a distinctly earthy, peppery flavor that verges on bitter. So, I decided to mince the herbs with a sharp knife and whisk the sauce together by hand.For due diligence, I experimented with a few warm emulsions. When I added warm water to the sauce, it diluted the flavor—I actually missed the mellowed acidity. I tried making an emulsion with warm olive oil and, while I was at it, added the garlic to bloom its flavor and tame its sharp, raw bite. Unfortunately, the heat of the oil cooked the lemon juice, dulling its brightness and giving it a slightly cooked flavor.

But the garlic was finally where I wanted it, so I pivoted: I used heat to infuse the oil with optimal allium flavor, then let it cool completely before whisking it into the lemon-herb mixture. The result is a simple but flavorful herb sauce with lemony vigor and rich olive oil unctuousness—and now I want to drench just about everything in my kitchen with salmoriglio.