You’ll never have better shawarma chicken than this! Serve with pita bread, slices of cucumber, tomato, or tahini sauce. Great on top of fattoush as well!
| Prep Time: | 10 mins |
| Cook Time: | 20 mins |
| Additional Time: | 8 hrs |
| Total Time: | 8 hrs 30 mins |
| Servings: | 8 |
| Yield: | 8 servings |
Ingredients
- ¼ cup plain yogurt
- ¼ cup lemon juice
- ¼ cup canola oil
- 3 tablespoons white vinegar
- 4 cloves garlic, crushed
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts, sliced
- 2 tablespoons canola oil, or as needed
Instructions
- Combine yogurt, lemon juice, 1/4 cup oil, vinegar, garlic, salt, paprika, cumin, and oregano in a large glass or ceramic bowl; mix well. Add chicken and toss to evenly coat. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and marinate in the refrigerator for 8 hours to overnight.
- Remove chicken from the marinade and shake off excess. Discard the remaining marinade.
- Heat 2 tablespoons oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Cook chicken in hot oil in batches until tender and browned, about 5 minutes per batch. An instant-read thermometer inserted into the center should read at least 165 degrees F (74 degrees C).
- Substitute thyme for oregano if preferred.
- Nutrition data for this recipe includes the full amount of marinade ingredients. The actual amount consumed will vary.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 230 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 2 g |
| Cholesterol | 65 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 0 g |
| Protein | 24 g |
| Saturated Fat | 2 g |
| Sodium | 354 mg |
| Sugars | 1 g |
| Fat | 14 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
Yer missing the PICKLES! Authentic Lebanese/MiddleEastern/Arab shawarma …almost all of them have some kind of very tangy pickle in the pita, with the chicken and yoghurt sauce, if you make a sandwich of this… and I live in the town in our USA that has *more* middleeastern people (and restaurants) than anywhere else *in the world* (excepting the Middle East itself.)
Yuuuuummmmmy!
I followed the recipe as is and liked it. Normally I read the reviews and make the adjustment recommend, but this time I did not. I marinated the chicken over night and found that it was full of flavor and very juicy and tender. I did take the marinated and simmered it hoping that it would thicken up, but it just separated from the oil. I used it in my rice which made it tangy. over all I will cook this again.
This was an easy recipe to make and tasted delicious. I would make again.
Nice recipe
Really good
Served with homemade pita bread, tzatziki, and Greek tomatoes.
Delicious!
Mine turned out wonderful!!
Made this and my son-in-law was very skeptical that home made could be as good as that found in a top notch restaurant He was very surprised and happily ate it leftover for a couple of days.
It was easy to make, but I didn’t really like it. Not inedible but very underwhelming. If I weren’t doing Keto, I’d save it by putting it on pita with cucumber, tomatoes, and tzatziki or garlic sauce. However that’s not an option for me right now. I wouldn’t make it again.
We have been looking for a yogurt based shwarma recipe for some time now, and this one is the winner. We followed the recipe as written, but only left it in the marinade for 6 hours, and even that was almost too much due to the thinness of the chicken. Next time we’ll marinate for 4-5 hours, and already looking forward to making this again.
This recipe is perfect as is. The only thing I changed was to only marinade it 1 hour, then continued to follow the rest. Since I come from a Hispanic family we ate the chicken with beans, salsa, crema, and a side salad. It was amazing the entire family loved it. Can not wait to make it again!
so good. best recipe for this dish! only thing I did different was only added half of the vinegar. my husband is from Kosovo and this is his favorite dish! thank u
This was a really good marinade. I marinated the chicken overnight which I would recommend otherwise I don’t think the flavors would come through as well. I cubed the chicken, put it on a skewer with some onions and peppers and grilled it. It was delicious. I would recommend having a sauce to go with it. I made Tzatziki Sauce and that worked real well with the chicken. As long as I can marinade the chicken overnight, I will continue to use this recipe.
This recipe is spot on. Make it exactly as is. Tastes just like our favorite local Lebanese restaurant shawarma. My kids loved it, thank you!!
Very tasty. I heated the marinate to make it safe and used as a topping. Next time I will cut the chicken into pieces and put into a pita.
We enjoyed this chicken with fresh tzatziki sauce.
Very delicious and easy
I’ve never had chicken shawarma, so I really don’t have anything to compare this to, but we liked it! You definitely need some kind of sauce to serve this with though, or it will be quite dry. I made a quick sauce with plain yogurt, tahini, garlic, a bit of lemon juice and some chopped herbs, salt & pepper. We served this, sandwich style, with pita bread, sliced cucumber, tomato, red onion and the sauce. Really similar to a gyros, but with chicken. Thanks for sharing the recipe.