Juicy homemade shawarma: a simple and quick recipe with photos

Shawarma is a popular fast food dish that originates from the Middle East. Its base is meat (traditionally lamb, chicken, beef, or turkey), cooked on a vertical grill, sliced into thin strips, and wrapped in thin lavash or pita. Shawarma also includes various vegetables (tomatoes, cucumbers, cabbage), sauces (garlic, tahini, yogurt, or spicy), and spices.

Today, it is probably hard to list the number of fast-food establishments that prepare dozens, if not hundreds, of varieties of shawarma. You can eat on-site or order delivery to your home. However, we decided to test our own skills and made shawarma at home. What we ended up with – we will tell and show you next.

From the list below, we managed to prepare 6 medium-sized shawarmas, and with the leftover lavash, we made chips as well. Therefore, the proportions and quantities of ingredients can be adjusted according to your needs, and you can also experiment with fillings by adding your favorites.

So, here is the list of ingredients we used:

The longest process is frying the chicken, so we start with that. We separate the tendons and membranes from the fillet, rub it with salt, pepper, and spices. We heat the pan, add a small amount of oil, and place the whole fillets in it. We fry on low heat under a closed lid for about 10-15 minutes, after which we flip them and fry for the same amount of time. Then, right in the pan, we start cutting the chicken into smaller pieces and mix thoroughly so that all of them are evenly coated with spices. This compensates for the lack of a vertical grill.

When the meat is cooked, we set it aside on a plate for further preparation of the shawarma.

While frying the chicken, we prepare the vegetable filling and garlic sauce. For the sauce, you need to grate the garlic on a fine grater and finely chop the dill. In a deep container, mix mayonnaise with yogurt, squeeze in lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste, and add the grated garlic and dill. Mix thoroughly, adding more spices if needed.

Finely chop the cabbage, squeeze it by hand, add a pinch of salt, and dress with unrefined oil and vinegar.

Slice the pickled cucumbers into thin rounds, and cut the tomatoes into half-moons. We transfer the chicken from the pan to a plate, which means that all the fillings and sauce are ready.

We cut the lavash sheet in half across. This way, we will form a small shawarma with a minimal amount of dough.

We lay out the cabbage, chicken, sauce, cucumbers, tomatoes, and another layer of sauce.

We wrap it around, tucking the edges of the lavash inside.

We decided to bake four shawarmas in the oven (temperature 200 degrees, both upper and lower heating elements on, and convection mode, baking time – 10 minutes), while the other two were prepared on a small grill (the temperature in our device is not adjustable, cooking time for one shawarma – also 10 minutes), to compare which cooking method is better. Shawarma on the grill

Shawarma in the oven

As it turned out, both are roughly the same, as the shawarma comes out juicy and crispy. On the grill, it is a bit “flatter” due to the pressing factor of the working surfaces. In the oven, the edges of the lavash turned out to be slightly crispier. Therefore, you can use the method you prefer or have available.

Here are the results of our work:

Bon appétit!