Hopefully you’ve had the opportunity to try a donair if you’ve ever visited Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. These donairs are made at some locations throughout town using this recipe. Do not forget to knead the meat until it resembles a paste.
| Prep Time: | 40 mins |
| Cook Time: | 2 hrs 30 mins |
| Additional Time: | 6 hrs |
| Total Time: | 9 hrs 10 mins |
| Servings: | 15 |
| Yield: | 15 servings |
Ingredients
- 4 pounds ground beef
- 1 pound ground lamb
- 5 teaspoons all-purpose flour (Optional)
- 4 teaspoons salt
- 5 teaspoons dried oregano
- 2 ½ teaspoons dry mustard
- 2 ½ teaspoons garlic powder
- 2 ½ teaspoons cracked black pepper
- 2 ½ teaspoons cayenne pepper
- 2 teaspoons crushed dried chile pepper
- 1 ½ teaspoons paprika
- 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
- 1 (12 fluid ounce) can evaporated milk
- ¾ cup white sugar
- 2 teaspoons garlic powder
- 3 tablespoons white vinegar, or as needed
- 15 pita bread rounds
- 2 tomatoes, chopped, or more to taste
- 1 onion, chopped
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 300 degrees F (150 degrees C). Grease a large baking pan with sides.
- Place beef, lamb, flour, salt, oregano, dry mustard, 2 1/2 teaspoons garlic powder, black pepper, cayenne pepper, chile pepper, paprika, and Italian seasoning in a bowl; knead all ingredients together with your hands until mixture is like a paste, about 10 minutes. Roll the meat mixture into a large loaf shape, and place into the prepared pan.
- Bake in the preheated oven until no longer pink in the center, about 2 hours. An instant-read thermometer inserted into the center should read at least 160 degrees F (70 degrees C). Remove from oven; place meat on a drip rack until completely cool to allow juices and fat to drain. Refrigerate meat for 6 hours or overnight.
- Stir evaporated milk, sugar, and 2 teaspoons garlic powder together in a small bowl; gradually stir in vinegar just until mixture thickens.
- Slice donair meat into strips about 1/8-inch to 1/4-inch thick. Fry meat strips in single-sandwich batches in a skillet over medium-high heat until meat begins to crisp at the edges; remove from pan. Quickly rub 1 pita round lightly with water; fry pita in same frying pan, turning once, just until warm, about 1 minute.
- Spread pita with about 1/2 tablespoons of sauce mixture, top with donair meat, and garnish with onion, tomato, and more sauce; repeat with remaining meat and pita.
- Beef can be used in place of lamb if desired.
- Flour acts as a binder, but it is possible to make the recipe without using flour.
- In place of kneading meat mixture in Step 2, you can pass mixture through a grinder until finely ground. The finished product should be similar to processed meat, so that it can be thinly sliced and then pan fried without crumbling.
- You can also top with mozzarella cheese if you like.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 511 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 45 g |
| Cholesterol | 103 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 2 g |
| Protein | 33 g |
| Saturated Fat | 9 g |
| Sodium | 1004 mg |
| Sugars | 15 g |
| Fat | 22 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
Will definitely make this again. Like the sauce, this needs to sit overnight to give the best flavour.
It texture is perfect made it exactly as directed. A little to spicy for my husband will cut back on the heat to half and it really doesn’t need that much salt. All things aside and done great recipe taste and texture just like a Donair. I did not make the sweet sauce I don’t like a sweet sauce with Donairs I preferred the cucumber sauce.
let me say, this is spot on! I didn’t have time to make the complete loaf, so I thought a little out side of the box. I combined all the spices to make my donair spice blend. for the meat portion, I used a box of steak-umms! take your time cooking these. slice in three; pan fry, don’t flip or stir as the strips will fall apart and turn into cheesestake meat. While cooking the meat add the spice. This recipe is for 5lbs of meat. using the spice blend, I used 4.5 tsps for the one pound box of steak umms. AMAZING! Just like home, Listuguj, QC The sauce is good however, next time I would use about 1/2 tsp less of garlic powder. Thanks for sharing!