Easy Chicken Shawarma Recipe With Yogurt Sauce

An easy chicken shawarma recipe with tender, smokey and flavorful chicken and a garlic and lemon yogurt sauce served over crisp veggies and warm pita bread.

Looking for an easy chicken dinner that’s packed with flavor? Chicken shawarma is just what you’re looking for.

Give the meat a quick marinade while you prep the rest of your ingredients, and then the shawarma cooks up super quick and simple and is a total crowd-pleaser.

Easy chicken shawarma with yogurt sauce on a wooden plate. - 1

Easy chicken shawarma with yogurt sauce on a wooden plate. - 2

What is Shawarma?

Shawarma (also spelled shaurma, shoarma, shwarma, and shawirma) is a Middle Eastern dish made by roasting a cone of meat on a vertical spit. To serve, the meat is shaved off the cone and wrapped in flatbread.

And just in case you’re wondering, yes, the cooking process and presentation is very similar to gyros, but the two differ in toppings, seasonings, and type of meat traditionally used.

Full disclosure, since I don’t have a roasting spit in my kitchen (and I’m guessing you don’t either), we’ll be cooking our shawarma meat on the stovetop, so it’s not technically authentic shawarma, but it is authentically good.

Ingredient Notes

Boneless, skinless chicken thighs: Thighs are great here because they cook up moist and tender without a ton of fuss or babysitting.
Pita bread: If you can’t find pita bread, any flatbread will work just fine.
Plain Greek yogurt: I call for Greek yogurt for the sauce because it’s thicker and creamier than regular yogurt, but you can use any plain, unsweetened yogurt. The sauce will just be slightly thinner.

Yogurt shawarma sauce being spooned over chicken shawarma on a plate. - 3

Yogurt shawarma sauce being spooned over chicken shawarma on a plate. - 4

How to Make Chicken Shawarma

Marinate the chicken thighs. Give the thighs at least 30 minutes in the marinade but no more than 2 hours as the acids in the marinade can start to make chicken a little mushy if it sits too long.
In a large skillet, cook the marinated chicken until brown and beautiful.
Deglaze the pan with a bit of chicken broth or water and give the red onions a quick sauté in the drippings.
Wrap the chicken and onions in flatbread, add veggies, and then you’ll just need a bit of yogurt sauce to finish things off.

Shawarma Sauce

This garlic yogurt shawarma sauce is just unsweetened yogurt, a bit of lemon juice, garlic, and salt and pepper. It’s a perfect light and tangy topping that really complements the rest of the flavors in the shawarma.

And if you prefer a richer shawarma sauce, stir a couple spoonfuls of mayonnaise into your sauce, which adds a really satisfying richness (and makes the yogurt sauce even better on fries if you’re serving some as a side).

If you have any leftovers, you can thin the sauce with a bit of milk and use it as a creamy dressing for your lunch salad the next day.

Can I use chicken breasts instead of thighs in shawarma?

You can. While I prefer chicken thighs for shawarma, you can use chicken breasts here. Pound 2 medium chicken breasts out to an even thickness (check out my post how to cook chicken for salads and sandwiches if you want step-by-step photos of this process) and then marinate them and follow the recipe as written.

They will take longer to cook than chicken thighs, but should still be cooked to 165°F.

Can I make this ahead of time?

Yes. You can cook the meat and the onions and cut all the veggies up to two days in advance. When you’re ready to serve, reheat the meat and onions, assemble the shawarma, and enjoy.

Easy chicken shawarma with yogurt shawarma sauce wrapped in foil on a wooden plate. - 5

Easy chicken shawarma with yogurt shawarma sauce wrapped in foil on a wooden plate. - 6

Can I double the recipe?

Yes. This recipe doubles with no preparation changes needed. To change the recipe yield, hover over the serving size in the recipe card below or click if you’re on mobile, and slide the slider. No other cooking changes are needed.

Can I freeze chicken shawarma?

You can freeze some of the ingredients for shawarma. The cooked chicken thighs freeze well and the onions can be frozen, but will have a softer, slightly mushy texture after reheating. Freeze both in air-tight containers and keep up to 4 months.

To store leftover pita bread, wrap in foil, freeze in a freezer bag, and defrost on the counter or in the microwave, sprinkled with a bit of water. Frozen pita should be used as soon as possible because it will dry out the longer it’s kept in the freezer.

The fresh veggies and yogurt sauce are not good candidates for freezing.

What to Serve With Shawarma

As a popular street food, shawarma is often served wrapped up with french fries. I highly recommend the french fry option, and the yogurt sauce doubles as an excellent fry dipping sauce.

If you’re looking for something a little lighter, try serving it with a side of tabbouleh and some sliced cucumbers (which are also great dipped in the yogurt sauce.)

More Easy Chicken Dinners

Shawarma Salad
Chicken Francaise
Crispy Lemon Chicken Thighs
Creamy Chicken Noodle Soup
Creamy Chicken Pasta

Ingredients

Marinade

▢ ¼ cup olive oil
▢ 3 tablespoons lemon juice
▢ 3 cloves garlic pressed
▢ 1 teaspoon ground cumin
▢ 1 teaspoon paprika
▢ ½ teaspoon salt
▢ ½ teaspoon black pepper
▢ ¼ teaspoon turmeric
▢ 4 boneless skinless chicken thighs

Pita & Toppings

▢ 1 small red onion cut into wedges
▢ ¼ cup chicken broth or water
▢ 4 pita bread loaves
▢ 4-5 leaves romaine shredded
▢ 1 cucumber chopped
▢ 1 large tomato chopped

Yogurt Sauce

▢ 5 to 6 ounces ( ⅔ cup) plain Greek yogurt*
▢ 1 teaspoon lemon juice
▢ 1 clove garlic pressed
▢ ¼ teaspoon salt or to taste
▢ Pepper to taste

Instructions

Marinate Meat

In a small bowl, combine marinade ingredients. Place chicken in a plastic bag and pour marinade over the top. Shake to coat and allow to marinate for at least 30 minutes, up to 2 hours.

Make Yogurt Sauce

In a small bowl (or the disposable yogurt cup), combine all yogurt sauce ingredients and stir until well-mixed.

Cook Meat

Preheat your oven to the warm setting (or lowest setting).
Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat, add chicken thighs (dispose of the marinade) and cook for 2 to 4 minutes until first side is seared and darkly golden. Flip and cook for an additional 2 to 4 minutes, until an instant-read thermometer inserted into the center of the thighs reads 165°F. Turn down the heat if at any time the chicken seems to be burning.
Transfer chicken to a plate and place a piece of foil over the thighs to keep them warm. Set aside.
Over medium high-heat, deglaze your pan with a little chicken broth or water (about a quarter cup), scraping the burned and blackened pieces off the bottom while the liquid simmers.
Add onions to your pan.
Place your pita bread into the warm oven to heat while your onions cook.
Cook onions until your they reach your desired level of doneness (for me, about 4 minutes for fairly soft onions). Remove from heat.

Assemble

Slice thighs into strips and serve over warmed pita bread. Top with cooked onions, romaine, tomatoes, cucumbers, and yogurt sauce.

Notes

Marinade Adapted From: NYTimes

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My favorite baked doughnut recipe infused with sencha green tea and topped with a fresh strawberry glaze and sprinkles.

Welcome to nerd month here on the blog! For the month of May, instead of doing our usual once-a-week themed recipe series, every single recipe this month is inspired by a favorite film, book, or television show!

Basically, it’s an excuse to write about and try to convince you to watch/read all of my favorites through food. And I’m so excited for it. I’ve already photographed a bunch of them, and I think May is going to be a lot of fun (for me at least 😉 ).

We are starting with a show that just happens to be returning to television for its fifth and final season tomorrow, Person of Interest .

Person of Interest is such an entertaining show. If you follow me on Twitter , or read my Weekend Posts , you’ll know that I spend 90 percent of my waking hours trying to convince people to watch it.

It’s a genuinely great procedural for people who like crime dramas, but it’s also a pretty delightful romance , a fascinating critique of the modern surveillance state, and secretly, the best hard core sci-fi on television right now (no seriously, the main plot of the show deals with dueling A.I. gods!!).

Most importantly though, there is a dog named Bear. Bear speaks dutch , is scuba certified, and is basically the greatest character on this or any other show on television. And Bear likes strawberry doughnuts.

CBS via Gallifreyan-detective

His co-owner and the show’s co-lead, Mr. Finch has a penchant for sencha green tea. So today, we’re making, Strawberry Glazed Sencha Green Tea Doughnuts.

These are some darn good doughnuts, but before we start, I have to say: baked doughnuts are not bakery doughnuts! They are glorified muffins and I think it’s a disservice to everyone involved to pretend otherwise. BUT, holy cow, these glorified muffins might actually give cake doughnuts a run for their money.

They are dense and soft, none of that light and airy nonsense. When you pick one of them up, there’s some heft to it. Green-tea-infused butter in the batter gives the doughnuts a gentle, fresh taste that goes so well with the strawberry glaze.

And that glaze, it’s made with three ingredients: fresh strawberries and two types of sugar, but IT SETS, as doughnut frosting is meant to set. Sticky, syrups glazes have their place, but it is not on my sencha green tea doughnuts!

Top the doughnuts off with a heavy coating of rainbow sprinkles and you have a perfect easy breakfast for your guard dog. <3

Person of Interest-inspired sencha green tea doughnuts topped with a fresh strawberry glaze and sprinkles. Recipe includes nutritional information. From BakingMischief.com - 20

*No doughnuts were licked in the taking of this photograph.

These 12 NaNoWriMo snacks will help keep you fueled and energized all the way to 50k. From BakingMischief.com - 22

Ingredients

Special Equipment

▢ Doughnut Pan

Glaze

▢ 1 1/2 cup ( 6-7 oz) sliced strawberries
▢ 2 tablespoons ( 25 g) granulated sugar
▢ 1 cup ( 120 g) powdered sugar sifted

Doughnuts

▢ 3 tablespoons ( 1 1/2 oz) unsalted butter
▢ 1 teabag sencha green tea
▢ 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
▢ 1/4 cup ( 50 g) granulated sugar
▢ 3 tablespoons ( 38 g) brown sugar
▢ 1 large egg
▢ 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
▢ 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
▢ 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
▢ 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
▢ 1/4 teaspoon salt
▢ 1 1/3 cups ( 160 g) all-purpose flour
▢ 1/2 cup milk

Instructions

Start Glaze

In a small bowl, pour granulated sugar over strawberry pieces and smash slightly with a fork. This will help draw the juice out of the strawberries to use in the glaze. Cover and set aside.

Doughnuts

Preheat your oven to 425°F and grease doughnut pan.
Melt butter in a small microwave-safe bowl. Immerse tea bag in the butter. Allow the tea to seep for about ten minutes. Squeeze as much butter out of the tea bag as possible before discarding the bag.
In a medium bowl, combine 2 tablespoons of the tea-infused butter (this should be almost all of what’s left, discard the excess), vegetable oil, granulated sugar, and brown sugar. Whisk until well combined.
Whisk in egg and vanilla extract.
Add baking powder, baking soda, ground nutmeg, and salt. Whisk until smooth.
Add half of the flour, whisking until just combined. Add all of the milk. Mix, and then the rest of the flour. Whisk until just combined.
Place a large plastic bag over a cup and pour batter into the bag. Seal the bag and snip a small piece off of one of the corners. Use the bag to “pipe” batter into your doughnut pan, filling 3/4 of the way full (this should make exactly 6 standard-size donuts).
Bake for 9-11 minutes until donuts are lightly golden and the tops spring back if you press into them. Allow to cool in the pan for 5 minutes before transferring to a rack to cool completely.

Finish Glaze

Pour sifted powdered sugar into a smallish bowl (you want one that is just large enough to mix the sugar in and fit a doughnut for dipping). Give strawberries another good mash and add 2 tablespoons of the juice to your powdered sugar. If you want seedless, completely smooth icing, run juice through a fine mesh strainer. Whisk until a thick, smooth glaze forms. Dip the doughnuts, rotating them so the glaze covers the entire top half of them.
Add sprinkles to each doughnut immediately after frosting, because this glaze sets quickly and sprinkles may not stick otherwise. Allow glaze to set for 10 to 15 minutes and enjoy!

Notes

Nutritional Information Doughnuts Adapted From: King Arthur Flour Strawberry Glaze Adapted From: A Happy Food Dance

If you make these, I would love to see them! Tag me @bakingmischief onTwitteror #bakingmischief onInstagram!

Insanely chocolatey Brooklyn Blackout Cupcakes made with three different types of chocolate, stuffed with a creamy chocolate pudding, and topped with sprinkles and a chocolate glaze.

For me, the real heart of the Captain America series is our Brooklyn boys so when it came time to choose some Cap-themed recipes, Brooklyn Blackout Cake immediately sprang to mind.

Marvel via Tumblr

Brooklyn Blackout Cake originated in Brooklyn from the Ebinger Baking Company, which opened its doors in 1898 . But it wasn’t until around WWII that the cake got its name, so while it’s never featured in the films, it still makes me think of Captain America every time I see it.

Plus, I maybe just really wanted an excuse to make the cake for the blog, and since I prefer making cupcakes to cakes, as is my wont, I turned it into Brooklyn Blackout CUPCAKES.

Um, if you don’t LOVE chocolate, you may be excused now, because there is nothing here but chocolate. You’ve got deep, dark chocolate cake. You have chocolate pudding stuffed into that cake. Then there’s a chocolate glaze on top of that.

Pile on some chocolate cake crumbs, and then just because I never want it to be said that I am not excessive in all things, we sprinkle some chocolate sprinkles on there too.

And oh my gosh, how to describe this cake to you. It’s like dying and going to chocolate heaven. You use three different types of chocolate in this cake, so you get three different shades of holy cow delicious. The cake itself is made with dark chocolate and coffee, then we use a bitter-sweet chocolate in the pudding, and a sweeter semi-sweet in the glaze.

It really is one of the most decadent desserts I’ve ever made. And just in case it seems intimidating to you, these Brooklyn Blackout Cupcakes are actually pretty easy cupcakes to put together. No stand mixer is required, and the pudding is literally just heating a few ingredients together while your cupcakes bake and remembering to give it a stir occasionally.

It’s not simple, but it is easy. Honestly, the hardest part is not eating all the components separately before you get them assembled.

Ingredients

Cupcakes

▢ 8 tablespoons ( 4 oz) unsalted butter
▢ 1/2 cup ( 3 oz) dark chocolate* chopped
▢ 2 tablespoons and 1 teaspoon vegetable oil
▢ 3/4 cup and 2 tablespoons ( 105 g) all-purpose flour
▢ 1/2 cup ( 40 g) unsweetened cocoa powder sifted
▢ 1 teaspoon baking powder
▢ 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
▢ 1/2 teaspoon salt
▢ 1 cup ( 200 g) granulated sugar
▢ 2 large eggs and 1 large egg yolk at room temperature
▢ 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
▢ 1/2 cup buttermilk
▢ 1/2 cup hot coffee

Pudding Filling

▢ 1/4 cup ( 50 g) granulated sugar
▢ 2 tablespoons ( 15 g) cornstarch
▢ 1/8 teaspoon salt
▢ 1 1/2 cups milk any percentage is fine
▢ 1/2 cup ( 3oz ) bittersweet chocolate, chopped (good-quality chocolate chips are fine)
▢ 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Chocolate Glaze

▢ 4 tablespoons ( 2 oz) unsalted butter
▢ 2 tablespoons milk
▢ 1 1/2 teaspoons light corn syrup
▢ 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
▢ 1/3 cup ( 2oz ) semisweet chocolate, chopped (good-quality chocolate chips are fine)
▢ 1 cup ( 120 g) powdered sugar sifted*
▢ Chocolate sprinkles

Instructions

Cupcakes

Preheat oven to 350°Line 22 cupcake cups with liners.
In a medium microwave-safe bowl, microwave butter until almost completely melted. Add dark chocolate and oil and microwave for 30 seconds. Stir. Microwave for an additional 15 seconds if necessary, until chocolate is completely melted. Stir until well combined and set aside to cool.
In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
In a large bowl, whisk together sugar, eggs, and vanilla extract. Whisk in cooled chocolate mixture. (It can be warm, but if it is hot to the touch, set aside for another couple of minutes. You don’t want to scramble the eggs!)
Whisk in half of the flour mixture until just combined. Add all of the buttermilk and mix. Whisk in the last of the flour, mixing until just combined.
Whisk in the coffee.
Fill cupcake tins just under 2/3 of the way full. You should have about 22 cupcakes. Don’t over fill!
Bake for 15-18 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cupcakes comes out clean.

Pudding Filling

While your cupcakes bake, in a medium saucepan, combine sugar, cornstarch, and salt. Whisk in milk, pouring slowly so no lumps form.
Cook over medium-low heat, whisking out lumps occasionally until mixture is thick enough to coat the back of your spoon, about 6 to 10 minutes. The heat should be low enough that your pudding cooks without coming to a simmer. If it begins to simmer, turn the heat down.
Add chocolate and cook for 1 to 2 more minutes, until chocolate is completely mixed in and the mixture is thick. Add in vanilla and stir.
There will be some cornstarch lumps in your pudding. This is normal and you won’t notice them when the pudding is stuffed into your cupcakes, but it they bother you, you can strain your pudding through a mesh strainer to get rid of them. Transfer your pudding to a storage container and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, until it finishes firming up.

Fill Cupcakes

Cut a cone shaped piece out of the center of 20 of the cupcakes, reserve the remaining Cut the tip off of the cone and place in a separate bowl to use later, keep the tops.
Fill cupcakes with pudding and replace the tops.
Crumble the remaining two cupcakes and cupcake centers to create the crumb topping. Set aside.

Make the Glaze

Make sure you have all of your cupcakes filled and topping and sprinkles ready before starting the glaze. This glaze starts to set after 10 minutes or so, so you want to be able to put it directly onto the cupcakes. Combine butter, milk, corn syrup, and vanilla in a medium pot. Cook over medium heat until butter is melted. Whisk in chocolate and stir until incorporated. Remove from heat and immediately whisk in sifted powdered sugar and stir until mixture is smooth.
Spoon glaze over cupcakes. Do three or four at a time and then coat the batch with crumbs and sprinkles. Since this glaze sets, if you wait too long the crumbs/sprinkles won’t stick to your cupcakes.
Repeat with the remaining cupcakes. If the glaze begins to harden, return to low heat and stir until smooth and spoonable again. Allow cupcakes glaze to set for 15 minutes before serving.

Notes

Brooklyn Blackout Cupcakes Nutritional Information Cupcakes Adapted From: Baker By Nature Pudding Adapted From: Smitten Kitchen Glaze Adapted From: Handle The Heat

Small-batch Instructions: To halve this recipe, half of 3/4 cup + 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour is 1/4 cup and 3 tablespoons , 1/4 cup of sugar is 2 tablespoons , 1/3 cup of semi-sweet chocolate is 2 tablespoons, 2 teaspoons . To halve an egg yolk, separate yolk into a small bowl and measure out 9 grams or 1/2 teaspoon of yolk. Make-ahead Instructions: You can make the pudding filling up to two days in advance, just make sure to keep it stored in an air-tight container until you are ready to use it.

An easy chicken shawarma recipe with tender, smokey and flavorful chicken and a garlic and lemon yogurt sauce served over crisp veggies and warm pita bread.

Looking for an easy chicken dinner that’s packed with flavor? Chicken shawarma is just what you’re looking for.

Give the meat a quick marinade while you prep the rest of your ingredients, and then the shawarma cooks up super quick and simple and is a total crowd-pleaser.

Easy chicken shawarma with yogurt sauce on a wooden plate. - 36

What is Shawarma?

And just in case you’re wondering, yes, the cooking process and presentation is very similar to gyros, but the two differ in toppings, seasonings, and type of meat traditionally used.