Easy Homemade Juicy Chicken Shawarma Recipe

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Cooking With Anadi

12K subscribers · chicken thighs and breast, warm spices, creamy toum

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Shawarmas sure were a staple in my diet when I came to Canada.

When I started university, I was so busy being always on the go! The new lifestyle was hard to adapt to, as anyone who’s gone to university can understand - not to mention if you’ve crossed the planet to do so! Yes, I’m known for loving to cook, but I was definitely in an adjustment period. Moreover, I first began my university life in residence, so the kitchen wasn’t the most accessible to say the least. However, as a side note, I have made Butter Chicken in my residence's kitchen! Let’s just say everyone on the floor totally gathered around for that feast!

Hanging around the other students, I had heard quite a lot about people picking up shawarmas for meals. What could shawarmas be? I love eating (duh), so I was intrigued. Plus, I was hungry, and was kind of bored of my typical fast food choices of poutine, Crispy Chicken Burgers KFC Zinger-style, McDonald’s breakfast sandwiches, a nice Paneer Tikka Pan Pizza Pizza Hut India-style…

So, after hearing all the rage about shawarmas, I finally decided to give it a try. Um, yum! I saw what the hype was about! Juicy meat and veggies, all wrapped in a warm pita bread. Reminds me of having Chicken Kathi Rolls or Seekh Kebabs from street vendors back in India!

I do have a confession to make, however. I’ve still never had a beef shawarma. Bucket list! If a chicken or beef shawarma is on your bucket list too, then be sure to make it as part of your Live to Cook one-month challenge, which you can get started on today for free by signing up to my email newsletter! I’ll definitely make a recipe when I finally go ahead and try it out! It does look good, but I’ve got a bias toward chicken as being my favorite meat!

Okay, so I really loved getting shawarmas when I didn’t want to cook for a satisfying meal. Plus, those potatoes they serve with the sandwich just blew me away!

When I got out of residence and cooked more frequently, I thought to myself “Why don’t I just make it?”. I tend to ask myself that a lot now after eating yummy foods at restaurants! You guessed it, I made it! As I describe in my free motivational guide to explore your potential in the kitchen, Make Cooking Fun!, going out to eat can be an excellent source of inspiration to cooking new delicious meals at home!

I was ultra ambitious and even made my own pita bread. Of course you don’t have to but I tend to go above and beyond. Hehe. Hopefully I inspire you to do the same, but I understand if you don’t want to take the time to do that! Simply use a store-bought pita bread!

To follow along in making the best ever chicken shawarma recipe you’ve ever had right from your own kitchen, be sure to watch the video at the bottom of this post! Please subscribe to my YouTube channel if you’re not already, and don’t forget to press the bell button to be notified when all of my latest video recipes are live! Let’s get cooking!

What Is Chicken Shawarma Sandwich?

Technically this isn’t an authentic Mediterranean chicken shawarma because we’ll be baking our chicken in the oven! True shawarma chicken is cooked on a vertical spit. The meat is marinated and it turns and cooks on the spit for hours, basted in its juices and in fat. Then, it’s shaved into thin slices of meat from the surface and is served either on its own or in a pita bread, as I’m doing here!

So of course I don’t have a spit to cook the chicken, but the oven is the next best thing! The marinade will closely replicate the flavors from the chicken at the shops using just a few common pantry spices and I bet you what, it will be much tastier.

After the chicken has finished baking, I like to broil the chicken for 1-2 minutes on each side to get a slight char, smoky flavor. This step is always a must for me.

By the way, if this is a lot of work for you, then you can make a speedy version of this for a fast wrap that’s perfect for lunch time with this Quick Healthy Chicken Shawarma Wrap!

Tools Needed to Make This Chicken Shawarma Sandwich Recipe

• Salt crock
• Baking sheet
• Garlic press
• Pepper mill
• Mixing bowl
• Measuring cup
• Measuring spoons
• Cutting board
• Chef’s knife
• Lemon juicer
• Small sieve
• Tongs
• Plastic wrap
• Aluminum foil
• Parchment paper
• Ramekins
• Fish spatula
• Basting brush

Ingredients for This Easy Chicken Shawarma Recipe

All ingredients and their quantities and recipe instructions to save for later can be found in the FULL PRINTABLE recipe card by scrolling to the bottom or by pressing the “Jump to Recipe” button. You can also use the recipe card to scale the recipe based on how many shawarma sandwiches you want to make so that you have the perfect amount of chicken and marinade for that chicken!

For the Shawarma Chicken

• Chicken: Chicken breast and thighs.
• Garlic: Freshly minced garlic cloves.
• Lemon: Juice of one freshly squeezed lemon.
• Olive oil: A bit of oil to add flavor.
• Yogurt: Go for full fat plain yogurt to make the chicken super tender and have the marinade absorb really well into the chicken. For an even thicker marinade that really clings to the chicken, you can use hung curd.
• Spices: Chili flakes, ground cloves, ground ginger, turmeric powder, ground cumin, salt and pepper.

For the Chicken Shawarma Sandwich

• Shawarma chicken
• Greens
• Pickled vegetables
• Tomato slices
• Toum
• Pita bread

How to Make the Best Juicy Chicken Shawarma Recipe

To Cook the Juicy Shawarma Chicken

Cut the chicken into 1 to 1 1/2 inch pieces and add to a large bowl. Add the yogurt, olive oil, spices, minced garlic, lemon juice and salt and mix everything until well combined. Cover with a plastic wrap and marinate overnight.

Preheat the oven to 425 F. Prepare the baking sheet with aluminum foil and arrange the chicken in a single layer.

Cook for about 12 minutes on the middle rack and then turn on the broiler.

Move the chicken to the top tray in the oven and cook until the chicken is lightly charred.

Let the chicken rest while you prepare the ingredients for the sandwich.

Assembling the Chicken Shawarma Sandwich

Lightly heat the pita if they were refrigerated and then tear the pita breads along the seam into two thinner pieces, and then lay them on a countertop with one half slightly overlapping the other.

Spread a tablespoon of the toum along the center. Add the greens mix, tomatoes, pickled cucumbers/turnips/beets. Cut the chicken into smaller pieces and then arrange over the sandwich.

Start wrapping the sandwich into a tight roll.

Brush or mop up the juices from the baking sheet where the chicken cooked earlier. Place the sandwich on a pan and lightly brown on each side until warmed and toasted.

Wrap in parchment paper and tear the top.

Enjoy hot:)

Other Filling Ideas for Shawarma Chicken Sandwich

• Hummus
• Tzatziki
• Onions
• Yogurt-Garlic Sauce: I used to actually do this before using Toum. It is a lighter and shortcut version of Toum. It is made by whisking together Greek yogurt (for thickness), fresh garlic cloves, olive oil, lemon juice and salt. This can get ready in just about 2 minutes and will give you a similar flavor to Toum without all the oil!
• Hot peppers
• Dill pickles
• Jalapeños

Tips & Tricks for Mastering This Chicken Shawarma Recipe

• Make sure to use soft pita bread to prevent cracking while wrapping. If you store your pita in the refrigerator, take the pita out (still in its bag) and let it come up to room temperature. Alternatively you can heat the bread for 10-15 seconds in the microwave.
• It can be hard to tear a pita bread into two thin circles. Start small and don’t make any quick movements. I only learned how to do this by looking at sandwich artists and tearing lots of bad pitas.
• Be careful not to overfill the pita with the toppings, it can make wrapping hard and increase the chances of tearing.

The Shawarma Spice Blend, Measured Out

The marinade is where all of this happens, so it is worth seeing the spices written out with their amounts rather than as a list of names. For six thighs and one breast you are using 2 teaspoons of ground cumin, 2 teaspoons of ground black pepper, 1 tablespoon of red pepper flakes, half a teaspoon of ground cloves, half a teaspoon of ground ginger, a quarter teaspoon of turmeric and a quarter teaspoon of cinnamon, with four to five minced garlic cloves, the juice of a lemon, a third of a cup of plain yogurt and a quarter cup of olive oil to carry it all. The cinnamon and the cloves are the two that surprise people, and they are exactly what make the difference between chicken with cumin on it and something that tastes like shawarma: warm, slightly sweet, almost dessert spices sitting underneath the heat.

A few spices you will find in other shawarma blends are not in this one. Paprika is the most common addition, and it deepens the color more than the flavor. Ground coriander and a pinch of cardamom both belong to the same family of warm spices and would not be out of place. None of the three are in the recipe as written, so treat them as your own variation rather than a correction, and add them in small amounts, no more than a teaspoon of paprika or half a teaspoon of the others, or they crowd out the cumin.

Shawarma vs Doner Kebab vs Gyros

These three are cousins, and the thing they share is the vertical rotisserie: a stacked cone of marinated meat turning slowly next to a vertical heat source, shaved off in thin slices as the outside cooks. Doner kebab is the Turkish original, gyros is the Greek version, and shawarma is what the idea became across the Levant, where the spicing turns warmer and the garlic sauce arrives. All three travelled through Europe with migration in the second half of the twentieth century, which is why you now find all three sold on the same street.

The meat is the other difference. Traditional shawarma leans on lamb or mutton, often layered with fat so the stack bastes itself as it turns, and turkey is common in cheaper stacks because it is lean and holds its shape. This recipe uses chicken thighs with one breast, which is a deliberate home-kitchen choice: thighs have enough fat to survive a 425 F oven and the broiler without drying out, and they give you the charred edges that the outside of the rotating stack would have given you.

What to Serve With Chicken Shawarma: Rice, Fries and Tahini

If you are not wrapping it, serve the chicken over rice. A plate of spiced rice with the chicken and its pan juices spooned over, plus the pickles and greens on the side, is how shawarma is served everywhere it is sold as a meal rather than a sandwich. Fries belong here too, and not as an afterthought: in Lebanon they often go inside the wrap rather than beside it, and if you have ever had shawarma with the potatoes tucked in, you already know.

On sauces, this recipe uses toum, the Lebanese garlic emulsion, and that is the one I would keep. Tahini sauce is the other classic and the easier one to make: sesame paste loosened with lemon juice, water and salt until it pours, which cuts the richness rather than adding to it the way toum does. Both work, and a plate with a spoonful of each is not excessive. Grilled eggplant is worth adding if you want a vegetable with more substance than the greens.

Is shawarma healthy? As written this is a reasonable answer to that question. The protein comes from a pound and a half of chicken across six servings, the marinade is yogurt and olive oil rather than anything heavy, and the vegetables are pickles and greens. Most of the calories in a shop shawarma come from the garlic sauce and the fries rather than the meat, so if you are watching them, that is where to look first, not at the chicken. The recipe card carries the full figures.

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