Venezuelan Roots

A beloved cilantro sauce shared by Christian Corvos has become a viral, family-run sensation across Georgia. Through its word-of-mouth popularity, he honors the legacy of his late mother.

A recipe that started in Venezuela in the 1980s has become a viral sensation around Newton County over the last few years.

Christian Corvos has been sharing his mother’s cilantro sauce for decades, with friends as a teen in Venezuela and Florida, with classmates and teammates at Georgia College & State University in Milledgeville, where he played baseball, and with family and friends at his current home in Covington. “I’ve been eating it my whole life,” he said. “It was the sauce that people came home to eat.” Corvos calls his mother Carmen “a great cook” who excelled at crafting authentic Venezuelan and Peruvian dishes while putting her own touch on them. Ever since he was a small child growing up in Venezuela, he remembers her making the green sauce.

“We usually had it anytime we grilled out with grilled meats,” Corvos said. “Then it evolved, and we had it on baked potatoes and hot dogs. Now, I put it on everything that I eat.”

When he moved away from home, he took the recipe with him and shared it with friends. The sauce took on a life of its own.

“My high school friends still ask me about the sauce,” said Corvos, who relocated to Florida when he was 18 and later settled in Georgia. “I had teammates from Connecticut and Australia who would literally drink the sauce.” While in college, Corvos met his wife Bethany, who grew up in Conyers. “We were in college and dating, and Christian would always cook and grill out and say, ‘I will make this sauce from back home,’” she said. “I was a picky eater until I met him. It’s addicting.”

“My kids love it. They won’t eat ranch, but they’ll eat green sauce.”
Amy Stephens

Over the years, Corvos continued sharing his mother’s love of cooking and adding the sauce to a variety of dishes. Around 2015, his parents moved to the United States and introduced the sauce to more friends and family. When Carmen lost her battle with cancer in 2022, the family knew it had to keep her legacy alive in the kitchen.

“My friends kept saying, ‘Oh, you should bottle it,’” Corvos said, “so we did in memory and honor of her.” The Corvoses first started bottling the sauce in mason jars with stickers and selling it at the Covington Farmers Market in 2023. Fresh ingredients and unique flavors gave the sauce its identity. “We always loved the sauce,” Corvos said, “but we had to test the market.”

Bethany explained that despite their considerable efforts to keep pace with demand, the Farmers Market sold out of the product. They brought more the following week and sold out again.

“It’s really versatile and it can go with so much,” said friend and green sauce enthusiast Amy Stephens, whose family eats it on various meats and vegetables and during weekly Taco Tuesday variation dinners. She even brings bottles to family and friends out of state when she travels. “My kids love it,” Stephens said. “They won’t eat ranch, but they’ll eat green sauce.”

After the success in Covington, the Corvos family started introducing the sauce to other farmers markets and events in nearby towns like Monroe, Madison and Athens. Then they went through the testing and licensing process to start bottling it as Carmen’s Green Sauce, using a commercial kitchen with fresh ingredients and official labels through the help of a scholarship from Prospera—a nonprofit economic organization in Atlanta with which Carmen had been in contact previously. “We’ve been growing and learning,” Corvos said. “We have a family element that is important to us.” Corvos’ children sometimes assist with the business, while his father Waldo, brother Waldo Jr. and sister-in-law Silvia help run the markets in the Athens area, which have become increasingly busy over the past year.

Corvos Foods is a Georgia Grown company. Out of nearly 175 entries, its new spicy green sauce—made with habaneros—was a 2025 finalist in the Flavors of Georgia food product contest. In addition to area farmers markets, the sauces can be purchased at various locations in Covington, including Town Square Olive Oil and Little Springs Cattle Company. The Corvoses admit they enjoy hearing how customers use the sauce in their own homes in ways that they never considered, like on salmon or with vegetables or chips. It enhances BLTs, low country boils, other seafood dishes and any type of backyard barbecue.

Through it all, Carmen’s memory lives on through the sauce that bears her name.

“You’ve really got so many options,” Corvos said. “You can put it on a pork sandwich, and it’s delicious with eggs and burritos. The sauce’s superpower is versatility.”

For information, visit corvosfoods.com or email the Corvoses at carmensgreensauce@gmail.com.

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