Homemade chicken shawarma, in my opinion, is a great alternative to a similar dish from a fast food cafe. First, it tastes much better. Secondly, homemade shawarma is made from proven quality ingredients.
Ingredients (for 3 servings):
- Chicken thighs – 5 pcs.
- Thin lavash – 3 sheets
- Cabbage – 300 gr.
- Tomato – 1 psc.
- Red salad onion – 0.5 pcs.
- Suluguni cheese (or other cheese) – 100-150 gr.
- Lemon – 0.5 pcs.
- Jalapeno and / or chili peppers – to taste
Marinade
- Onions – 1 pc.
- Garlic – 2 cloves
- Vegetable oil – 1 tpsp
- Seasoning for chicken – 1 tsp
- Salt – 0.5 tsp
Sauce
- Mayonnaise – 5 tpsp
- Greek yogurt – 5 tsp
- Adjika – 1 tpsp
- Tahini – 1 tsp
- Garlic – 1 clove
- Ground zira – 1 tsp
- Lemon juice – 1 tpsp
- Salt to taste
Cooking process
1 The first step is to prepare the chicken. Remove the skin from the chicken thighs and separate the meat from the bone. Our chicken is ready. You can start preparing the marinade.
2 As a marinade, I use a mixture of finely chopped onions, pressed through a press of garlic, vegetable oil, chicken seasoning and salt. You can choose any seasoning for chicken. I added the Andalusian one – it is very aromatic and gives the chicken bright notes of various spices. This is not surprising, because in its composition a large number of spices are harmoniously combined: dried orange peel, paprika, thyme, cumin, turmeric, cinnamon, dill, chili pepper, cloves, nutmeg, cayenne pepper, mint, cardamom.
Add the marinade to the chicken and mix well. Cover the bowl with cling film. Now we remove the chicken to marinate in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours. But it will be even better if you leave her overnight.
3 While the chicken is marinating, let’s start making the sauce. Mix mayonnaise with Greek yogurt. If you want a lighter option, use double yogurt instead of mayonnaise. Squeeze the garlic there through a press. Now we add adjika. I am using Abkhazian classical adjika. Such adjika is quite spicy and not very salty.
You also need to add tahini – a sesame seed paste. If you do not have such a ready-made pasta, then you can cook it yourself. It will not be difficult to make it. I usually make a whole 200 ml jar at once, since I periodically prepare different dishes with the participation of tahini. I store the finished pasta in the refrigerator.
Cooking tahini
To make the tahini, we only need white sesame seeds. Fry the sesame seeds in a dry skillet over medium heat. In this case, the sesame must be constantly stirred. Fry it until light golden brown (approximately it takes 5-10 minutes). It is very important that the sesame seeds do not burn. We turn the fried sesame seeds into a paste. This can be done using a blender. That’s it – the tahini is ready. You can add it to our sauce.
It remains for us to add only ground cumin, lemon juice and mix everything well. The sauce for our shawarma is ready.
4 Proceed to the next stage – frying the chicken. This can be done in a skillet or on an electric grill. I’m grilling chicken thighs. This process takes about 8 minutes for me. In a frying pan, they need to be fried for 7 minutes on each side until golden brown.
Cut the finished chicken into strips.
5 Let’s prepare another component of the filling – vegetables. I usually add seasonal vegetables. It can be young white cabbage or Chinese cabbage, or Iceberg salad. In summer, you can put tomatoes or bell peppers. I always add red salad onions. I also like to add pickled jalapenos and / or chili for spice.
Finely chop the cabbage, chop the onion into thin half rings, cut the peppers and tomato into rings. I also sprinkle cabbage and onions with lemon juice. And I leave them to soak for a few minutes. This will make the onion taste softer and the cabbage more juicy.
6 When all the components of our homemade shawarma are ready, we start assembling it. To do this, spread the lavash and grease it with sauce. At the same time, the sauce should not slightly reach its edges. Put the filling on the bottom edge of the lavash: a layer of chicken, a layer of cabbage, a layer of onions and rings of hot peppers. Put 2 tablespoons of sauce on top of the filling. Now sprinkle the whole leaf with grated cheese. You can start rolling the shawarma.
7 Final stage
It remains only to fry the already rolled shawarma. In this case, the pita bread should become crispy. Again, this can be done on an electric grill or in a dry skillet.
Delicious, juicy homemade chicken shawarma is ready. A dish of this format can be eaten not only at home, but also taken with you to a picnic.
Another delicious dish – homemade fast food:
Juicy Burrito with minced meat and vegetables https://takajaeda.com/en/recipes-en/burrito-with-minced-meat-and-vegetables/