Easy Homemade Chicken Shawarma brings the popular Middle Eastern/Israeli street food to your table. It’s dairy free, simple to make and so delicious!
Serve on a plate with sides or in a pita. Delicious!
Shawarma is a wonderful Middle Eastern street food. Nothing compares to the amazing taste of the meat that comes right off the skewer, especially when combined with the pita-fillers.
However, it is not always simple to find shawarma where one lives or to just pop out when one has a taste for it. That’s how we started making it at home.
Therefore, with this Easy Homemade Chicken Shawarma recipe you can enjoy the taste of shawarma at any time! All you need is chicken and Easy Shawarma Seasoning Mix and voila!
And try Easy Homemade Turkey Shawarma as well!
In fact, do you love Israeli street food? This one is amazing: Easy Sabich Sandwich.
Want to make some hummus to spread on your pita? Try: Easy Homemade Hummus or an even quicker version: Really Easy Homemade Hummus
A little background
When I was single, I would make the simplest things (like grilled cheese or boiled chicken in onion soup mix), so when I got first married, I had no idea how to cook. Over the years, I learned by asking and getting advice.
I never learned to actually like cooking, but I do so for my family and love my kids’ reaction when I make something they enjoy eating.
My kids consider me to be a very good cook. Why? Because everything I make is to their particular specifications. Every since they were little, I would make whatever anyone liked (there was no “if you don’t like it, have cereal”). Having six kids, I could easy make several dishes for a sit-down meal and was very happy when more than one of them wanted the same thing.
Besides, not liking to cook, I dislike going out even more. I used to like going out, until one day, I went out and couldn’t find anything reasonably priced on the menu that was something I couldn’t make on my own at home. So, I made a rule, if I can make it at home, I am not eating it out.
Shawarma was one of those things that I would eat out.
Then I came across Shawarma seasoning.
To be honest, I still eat Shawarma out, because there is nothing like it. However sometimes a person wants to eat something quick and not have to drive to get it, especially if you live in a place where it can’t even be considered local.
A little about Israeli cuisine
Some people complain about cultural appropriation in cuisine when food from one country is attributed to another country.
However, national cuisine in itself is often a mingling of food from of a variety of cultures, often due to a change of ruling countries and a shifting of borders.
Turkish cuisine, for example, goes back to the Ottoman Empire and was a combination of several cultures under Ottoman rule.
When people move from country to country, they will take their cultures with them and their decendents may adapt their traditional cuisine with that of their new home and, if they don’t, others might.
Chinese food in US restaurants is quite often not really authentic Chinese, but American Chinese.
Americans have created a whole variety of types and styles of pizza and pineapple pizza was apparently created in Canada by a Greek immigrant. Yet, everyone still calls them all “pizza”, which originated in Italy.
Spaghetti is thought to be an Italian food, but many historians believe that it was brought back to Italy from China by Marco Polo.
Apparently, battered fried fish was from the Portuguese Jewish community as a sabbath food and ended up in England via Holland during the Spanish Inquisition, yet everyone attributes the food to the British.
…and don’t get me started on Hummus.
When one lives in a melting pot, such as the US or Israel, it is just unrealistic to expect that food from a particular culture won’t mingle with that of other cultures.
That being said, “Israeli cuisine” is basically Middle Eastern (as opposed to Eastern European food) that was brought to Israel by Jews when they fled or were expelled from Muslim countries and moved to Israel mostly after the declaration of the State of Israel (collectively known as Mizrahi Jews).
Recipes were passed from generation to generation and, although decades have passed, the foods are still known by the culture they came from and everyone seems to have their own way of making them.
That said, there are many variations of pretty much any “Israeli” recipe, because of background, custom, or even just taste. When choosing a recipe, one has to know what actually constitutes a main ingredient – what makes the dish what it is – and what is left up to individual taste.
I personally find it very arrogant and quite irritating when a blogger(not naming names) will put “authentic” in the title of an “Israeli” recipe, as if all the rest are mere imitations. What’s worse, is when that blogger makes the recipe with her own twist and then calls it authentic!
Adding more or less of a spice or adding a spice that is not in the recipe, does not make it less authentic, but calling it “authentic” and then adding unnecessary extra ingredients above and beyond what needs to be there, is misleading.
For example, “authentic” Israeli salad (what Israelis call Israeli salad) is diced tomatoes and cucumbers. Sometimes, they will add some oil salt and pepper, but THAT’S IT. Anything else does not have to be there, but if you leave out the cucumbers or the tomatoes, you no longer have an “Israeli salad”.
So, find the recipes you like with the ingredients you prefer, add your own twists, and בתאבון (literally translated, “with appetite”) !
A Little background about Shawarma
Shawarma is a Middle Eastern meat dish that is a popular street food.
Shawarma’s origin is from the Doner Kabab from Turkey, whose modern cuisine developed from the Ottomans of the Ottoman Empire who adopted combined different traditional dishes of the countries they ruled.
The Greek version of a shawarma is a Gyro, which will often include pork.
Both names (Doner and Gyro) indicated turning or spinning and in fact the name shawarma comes from the Turkish form of the Arabic word for turn or spin.
Shawarma is made from different types of meat that can be used together to create it. These include, lamb, turkey, chicken, and beef.
The different types of seasoned meat are sliced and skewered in tight layers on a vertical rotisserie or spit with layers of fat at the top. The skewer rotates vertically and slowly near a heat source and the fat melts over the meat giving the meat a wonderful flavor as lightly roasts on the outside.
Shawarma is a popular street food in the Middle East. It seems that every country has their own traditional way of eating it.
In Israel, it will normally be served in a pita or, in a laffa (an Iraqi flatbread that is part of Israeli cuisine) together with a variety of additions, such as tahini, humus, babaganush,(eggplant spread), pickles, Israeli salad (diced cucumbers and tomatoes), French fries, pickled cabbage, and more. Everyone just puts in what they like.
Tips for making shawarma at home
- The shawarma can be put in the oven and baked until ready, but I like using a frying pan and stirring for more control.
- The dominant taste of shawarma seasoning is the cumin. Everyone seems to have their own taste as far as the seasoning is concerned, so feel free to add more of it (or just more cumin) if you like it that way.
- I use fat instead of oil when I can to replicate the fat used on the rotisserie and add more while cooking if I feel the mixture is not greased enough, but oil is fine and to each his own (I personally don’t eat the shawarma with the extra oil or fat, but my sons – who don’t care about calories – like it that way).
- When chicken is used to make shawarma, it is the dark meat of the chicken that is used and that is why chicken thigh fillets are called for. However, in a pinch, if you don’t have chicken thigh (or if you don’t like it), you can substitute strips from another part of the chicken.
- Feel free to use left over chicken for this recipe, just make sure it is not too dry or the shawarma pieces may fall apart (yes, that did happen to me). It will still taste good, but won’t look as appetizing.
- While shawarma is a street food, many places serve it on a dish or platter with a pita on the side, so feel free to serve it however you like.
And…guess what! Chicken has health benefits!
Easy Homemade Chicken Shawarma
Simple and delicious shawarma from scratch.
Ingredients
- 1 pound skinless, boneless chicken thigh, sliced into small strips
- 2 tablespoons shawarma seasoning mix (more if desired).
- cup oil or fat (I like to use chicken fat)
Instructions
- Place the shawarma seasoning mix in a bowl, add the chicken strips and coat well.
- Grease a frying pan and heat.
- Place the strips in the frying pan and stir as it cooks.
- Cook for approximately 10 minutes or until turkey strips have cooked through.
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
4Serving Size:
1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 695Total Fat: 65gSaturated Fat: 7gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 56gCholesterol: 142mgSodium: 307mgCarbohydrates: 1gFiber: 0gSugar: 0gProtein: 29g