Chicken Shawarma Recipe: How to Make Shawarma at Home
Chicken Shawarma Recipe
- 2.5 lbs boneless chicken, breast or thighs
- 1/2 cup lemon juice
- 2 tablespoons tomato sauce
- 4 tablespoons plain yogurt
- 3 tablespoons white vinegar
- 1 head garlic, pealed, crushed
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 teaspoons salt, or to taste
- 1/2 teaspoon oregano, ground
- 1 teaspoon paprika
- 1/2 teaspoon ginger powder, optional
- 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg powder
- 6 loafs pita bread
- 4 tomatoes, grilled or roasted
- 6 teaspoons Garlic Paste, Lebanese
- 1/2 lb cucumber pickles, salty
- 2 cups French fries
- Cut the chicken into thin slices of about 1/2 inch and place in a marination bowl.
- To make the marinade, mix all dry and liquid ingredients in a blender or food processor and blend for a couple of minutes.
- Add the marinate to the chicken bowl mixing well. Cover and let marinate in the fridge overnight.
- When ready, grill the marinated chicken on a panini/George Forman grill for about 15 minutes on medium heat. You can also cook the chicken on a BBQ grill if so you wish.
- Shred the cooked chicken thinly and set aside to make a bombastic sandwich.
- Spread 1 teaspoon of Lebanese Garlic paste along the center/diameter of a pita bread.
- Add 2-3 tablespoons of chicken
- Add salty cucumber pickles, some French fries, and some grilled tomatoes, roll and enjoy.
Chicken Shawarma is a popular gourmet sandwich that you can get at Middle Eastern restaurants. Marinated chicken chunks are mounted on a large rotating skewer and then roasted slowly to perfection against a gas-burning grill. Due to the unavailability of such industrial roasters at home, Chicken Shawarma has typically remained a restaurant dish. However, we’ve learned a few tricks that can bring you the beautiful flavor of the Chicken Shawarma Recipe at home without the need of such roasters.
We’ve experimented with at least 3 recipes; 2 of them tasted good but were closer to “Shish Tawook” (another chicken dish) than they were to Chicken Shawarma. So what we’re going to feature here is our third recipe which was adopted from a family friend who was once a Chef at a Lebanese Restaurant in Michigan.
Nice Marination of Chicken Shawarma
The basic concept in our recipe is to have a nice marination that mimics a good chicken shawarma flavor and then grill the chicken in such a way that keeps it juicy. We’ve found that our friend’s advice of using a panini or George Foreman grill is the best as it cooks fast and it keeps the chicken moist. Do not overcook the chicken, we’ve found that 13-15 minutes on medium heat was plenty, especially that we we were cooking thin slices of chicken.
The Chicken Shawarma Sandwich
Once the chicken shawarma is grilled, place the chicken breasts on a cutting board and shred into thin slices as per the photo above. Spread those slices along the diameter of a pita bread, add a bit of Lebanese Garlic Paste (check recipe), some salty cucumber pickles, a bit of roasted tomatoes, french fries, roll it and voila.. you’ve got yourself a nice chicken shawarma sandwich, made at home! The image below is of our Chicken Shish Tawook sandwich just for illustration purposes, so you can see the chicken pieces are similar to kabobs where as in the Shawarma they’re shredded.
If you like beef try our Beef Shawarma Recipe as well. Now on to the recipe…
Marinade Ingredients
Sandwich Wrap Ingredients
Try marinating a mix of 75% chicken breast and 25% skinless boneless chicken thighs. The fat in the thighs gives the chicken a nice kick when grilled. Add grilled tomatoes in the sandwich instead of raw tomatoes Some restaurants add french fries in the sandwich, others add a cabbage/mayo salad to the sandwich. Baking or broiling in the oven will rid the chicken of its juice and must be avoided if possible. We found that using a panini grill cooks faster and keeps the moisture inside the chicken You can find salty middle eastern cucumber pickles from Middle Eastern grocery stores.
