How to make traditional shawarma at home

Hello everyone! Welcome to Paulina Cocina , this place where we find beautiful recipes like this one and share them. Today's recipe is for a Turkish dish , a homemade shawarma . Have you ever thought you could make shawarma at home without the rotating thing to cook the meat? Well, yes, and it's really cool (and delicious) to make.

We love these types of recipes because they force us out of our comfort zone , using lots of new seasonings and waiting for long waits for the marinade—something different from our usual dishes and a challenge for many. Let's go for it!

About Shawarma

How to prepare Shawarma

An authentic and delicious Middle Eastern fast food dish , which, due to its global expansion, is now popular in Argentina and many South American countries. This traditional dish is based on spiced lamb, marinated for hours .

While the most traditional meat used in this dish is lamb, today it's very common to find beef or chicken shawarma. Once cooked, the meat is cut into strips and can be grilled.

How to marinate the filling

The marinade usually contains garlic, oil, vinegar, lemon juice, salt, tomato, mustard, pepper and paprika.

How to accompany a shawarma

Finally, as a special addition to this dish, it's usually served with raw vegetables and a sauce, wrapped in a tortilla (dürüm) or inside a pita bread split in half . So, we can choose between these two options before cooking this recipe:

Pita bread: The perfect companion

The famous Arabic bread , a variety of bread without crumbs, very light and widely used in the eastern and southern Mediterranean, especially in the Near East. Famous for its great contribution to shawarma .

The idea is to cut each of these breads in half and fill it with shawarma, then top it with sauce. It's a spectacular treat. You can watch a video on YouTube with the recipe for this fabulous Arabic bread that we use for this dish and more.

Tortilla: Another classic

The other way to serve this shawarma is wrapped in an Arabic napkin bread . What's that? Well, we could easily relate these to the tortillas we serve at fast food, and it's the same thing. The filling is rolled up in these tortillas, like a cone, and a typical sauce is a must-have on top.

What is the difference between Shawarma and Kebab?

A question that plagues humanity is that there is very little difference between them (if not none at all). Kebab comes from Turkish and means roasted meat. You may have heard it referred to as "döner Kebab," which means "roasted meat that turns" (due to its more typical cooking method, which is not the case with today's recipe). It is generally served inside a pita bread split in the middle. Until the "durum" appeared, its other format, wrapped in a tortilla we were talking about. Shawarma is mostly served in dorum format, or in a roll.

The quickest and most concise explanation we can give is that they're not the same, although shawarma is an Arabic word that means exactly the same thing as kebab. That's all for today. We'll stick with the recipe, which is very simple and beautiful to enjoy anytime. Let's try it ❤ .

Shawarma recipe

Ingredients

For filling

• 1 chicken breast or 400g of beef
• 1 tomato
• Lettuce
• Purple onion

For the marinade

• 1 onion
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1 pot of yogurt (250ml.)
• 1 lemon juice
• 1 bay leaf
• Pepper
• Salt
• Paprika
• Cumin
• Cinnamon

For sauce

This sauce is a classic of Arabic cuisine yogurt sauce recipe . Just for those who are curious, because I'll also tell you how to prepare it here:

• 1 pot of yogurt
• 1 tablespoon tahini (sesame seed paste)
• 1 lemon juice
• 2 garlic cloves
• Olive oil
• Salt
• Pepper
• Water

How to prepare homemade chicken shawarma

1. Cut a chicken breast or beef into thin strips (about 2 cm).
2. Finely chop or grind the onion and garlic. In a bowl, place the onion, garlic, and 250 ml of plain yogurt, add lemon juice, and season with bay leaf, pepper, salt, paprika, cumin, and cinnamon. Mix well.
3. Now add the chicken or meat to the marinade, where it will marinate for 3 hours or as long as possible. Cover and refrigerate.
4. Meanwhile, chop two garlic cloves and mix with 250 ml of yogurt, lemon juice, olive oil, salt, pepper, and a little water. Mix well and set aside.
5. On the other hand, cut the tomato, lettuce and red onion into strips for the filling.
6. Heat a little olive oil in the bottom of a pan and place the chicken on top. Don't stir too much; wait until it browns on one side and then turn it over to cook it thoroughly.
7. To finish, fill the tortillas with chicken or beef, along with the chopped vegetables and the salsa at the end, closing the tortilla in a cone shape.