Oven Cooked Chicken Shawarma Recipes

EASY OVEN ROASTED CHICKEN SHAWARMA

Steps:

• Marinate the chicken: In a large bowl add the lemon juice, olive oil, salt, cumin, black pepper, paprika, turmeric, red pepper flakes, cinnamon, garlic, and whisk well. Add the chicken and toss making sure the chicken is well coated in the marinade. Cover with plastic wrap or foil and refrigerate for at least an hour. The longer the meat marinates the more flavour you'll have.
• Prep the oven and assemble everything: Preheat oven to 425°F degrees. Add sliced onion to bowl with chicken and toss well so that the onion is fully coated in the marinade. Add everything to a 9×13-baking dish. I didn't have much marinade leftover since the chicken absorbed most of it, so that's why I added everything to the baking dish. Spread everything evenly over the baking dish.
• Bake the chicken: Bake in the oven until the chicken is browned and crisp on the edges, for about 40 to 45 minutes. If you want the chicken crispier on top, turn the broiler on to high and broil for 3 minutes until nice and crispy on the outside.
• Rest and slice: Let the chicken rest for about 5 minutes, then slice it into bits.
• Make garlic sauce: Add all the ingredients to a blender (or an immersion blender) and blend until smooth, it should take 1 to 2 minutes. This recipe will make about 1½ cups of sauce, refrigerate leftover sauce.
• To make the chicken shawarma wraps, warm up the wraps first in the microwave for about 30 seconds, then spread some hummus over each wrap, spoon about 2 or 3 tbsp of tabbouleh salad, add chicken shawarma, and drizzle with garlic sauce and serve.

BAKED CHICKEN SHAWARMA

Steps:

• Combine olive oil, lemon juice and zest, garlic, smoked paprika, ground cumin, ground coriander, crushed red pepper flakes, salt, pepper, turmeric, and cinnamon in a gallon-sized resealable plastic bag. Seal the bag and gently squeeze ingredients together until they are well blended. Add chicken thighs to the bag, squeeze out most of the air, seal, and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, or up to 8 hours.
• Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C). Lightly grease a 12x18-inch baking sheet. Spread onion slices over the bottom; add chicken thighs on top.
• Bake on the center rack of the preheated oven, about 30 minutes. Switch on the broiler and move rack closer to the broiler. Broil chicken until a light char develops, 2 to 3 minutes. An instant-read thermometer inserted into the center should read at least 165 degrees F (74 degrees C). Garnish with parsley.

OVEN-COOKED CHICKEN SHAWARMA

Steps:

• Take a large resealable freezer bag and put the chicken thighs in it.
• Using a fine microplane grater (for choice), grate in the lemon zest, then squeeze the lemons and add the juice. Pour in the olive oil and add the garlic, then add all the remaining ingredients, except for those for the sauce.
• Squish everything about together, then seal the bag, place it on a plate or in a dish, and refrigerate for at least 6 hours, or up to 1 day.
• When you're ready to cook, preheat the oven to 220 degrees C (350 degrees F)/gas mark 7, remove the chicken from the fridge and allow it to reach room temperature.
• Tip the contents of the freezer bag into a shallow roasting tin--mine measures 44-by-34-by-1.5 centimeters (17-by-13-by-1/2-inches)--and make sure all the chicken thighs are lying flat and not on top of one another (if possible) before roasting in the hot oven for 30 minutes, by which time they should be cooked through (though obviously you must check) and golden on top.
• When the chicken's more or less cooked, make the sauce simply by combining the yogurt with the tahini and garlic, stir and salt to taste, and sprinkle with a few pomegranate seeds.
• Line a platter or a couple of plates with crisp lettuce, shredded or torn into pieces, and then top with the piping hot chicken, pouring the oily juices over them, unless you are, for some inexplicable reason, anti-oily-juices. If you wanted to make the chicken go further, you could cut the thighs into chunky slices rather than leaving them whole. And please do add any of the suggested accompaniments, itemized in my introduction.

CHICKEN SHAWARMA

Steps:

• Tip all the ingredients, except the chicken and lemon wedges, into a blender or a smoothie bullet with 1 tsp sea salt and whizz to a smooth paste. Pile the chicken into a bowl or large plastic container, pour over the paste and mix through so the chicken is completely coated. Cover and marinate for at least 4 hrs or up to 48 hrs - the longer, the better.
• Cooking on the barbecue: Light a lidded barbecue, and let the flames die down. Once the coals have turned ashen, pile them up on one side with a few coals scattered around the other. Starting and ending with half a baking potato, thread all the chicken onto two long metal skewers - so that both skewers go through each piece of meat - packing the thighs down between the potato halves so that they are really compact. Place the large chicken kebab to the side of the barbecue with only a few coals underneath. Pop the lid down and cook for 45-50 mins, turning every 15 mins, or until cooked through - prise the chicken pieces apart in the centre to check, or use a digital cooking thermometer; it should read 70C or more. Leave to rest for 5 mins.
• Cooking in the oven: Heat the oven to 220C/200C fan/gas 8. Sit the kebab across a roasting tin so it is suspended, or rest a wire rack over a roasting tin and place the chicken on top. Cook for 45-55 mins or until cooked through.
• Warm the naan on the barbecue or in the oven. Bring the kebab to the table to carve, wrap with warm naans, and serve with the other salads and lemon wedges for squeezing over.