Picture yourself on a little beach somewhere in coastal South America, where shade is hard to find, the water is a gorgeous aquamarine, and the sand is glittering white. Sunbathing, even shadebathing, is hard work, and since you’ve already eaten all the chili dusted mango slices you packed this morning, you’re ready for lunch.

A little hole in the wall just footsteps away from the beach serving succulent shrimp with some sort of verde sauce is the only thing you can find to eat, so of course you buy a plate and dig in. One bite and you know you’ve struck gold, green gold! What is that amazing sauce, and how can it be so spicy and yet so intensely flavorful? Without hesitation you order another plate, this time to try and figure out how to replicate the sauce once you wake up….. Too late, the alarm rings and you realize it’s Wednesday and you have a work presentation in three hours. Talk about rude awakening! The sauce would have to wait…

This green sauce is anything but mean. Oh, yes, it’s spicy, but that’s part of its allure. I make up batches of this sauce in the food processor to use in flatbread recipes, eggs, pizzas, almost everything that could use a fiery little kick. In this recipe, it acts as a nice, zesty base for your cooked shrimp. It truly is the stuff dreams are made of!

-Amy at Flatout