Shawarma Made Simple

Updated: Feb 23

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My hubby introduced me to shawarma and we have our favorite go-to restaurant for it. But if you've been here for awhile, you know we like experimenting and also making things ourselves! He came across a shawarma plate, and we did what we do! This was our first go at making it, but I can tell you it will probably be a monthly dish. With a little prep time and a lot of cooking time, we think it will also be great for when we have visitors since it easily makes so much and is pretty hands off once it gets started.

Here's how we did it:

I marinated chicken thighs in the following for a couple hours: A combination of olive oil, lemon juice, and a shawarma spice blend that includes: parsley, paprika (regular, hot, and smoked), toasted onion powder, laurel bay leaf, Grenada gold nutmeg, wild mountain cumin, cloud forest cardamom, red turmeric, cured sumac, Pemba cloves, fermented white pepper, Zanzibar black peppercorns, purple stripe garlic, allspice, cayenne pepper, cinnamon verum, buffalo ginger, red river coriander, and salt (affiliate code: SB10). I like to get all the herbs I can from this company.
While that was marinating, I made homemade TSB Hummus. (post coming soon)
Next, I got out the Trompo King and sprayed it down with spray olive oil (t's not my baking oil of choice, but a lot quicker and easier than tallow in this situation)! It's basically a really nice platter with high edges to keep all the delicious meat juices and catch the meat after slicing off, with handles and a skewer rod down the middle. It come with two sizes, but to make sure it would fit in the oven, I chose the smallest one. We did about four pounds of meat! The marinated meat slid on the skewer nicely and I kind of alternated the meats (so they stacked to make an 'X').

I poured atop the leftover juices (luckily, the tray sides easily held this in). Oh, I almost forgot, We put a quarter of an onion on first before the chicken, and capped it with another quarter of an onion and half of a San Marzano tomato we picked up from our farmer the day before.
Next was the easy (but long) part: cook at 250 degrees F for approximately 3 hours. Then, since we didn't realize it would take quite so long, we upped it to low broil unitl it hit the recommended safe eating temp (165 degrees). Next time, I think we'll try starting at 300 degrees OR even better, just start it before lunch time and keep it low and slow! Anyways, the light broil made a beautiful and tasty maillard reaction and the shawarma turned out delicious!

My hubby sliced off the meat, onions, and tomato really easily, and we were able to serve--carefully, since it stays hot!--directly from the dish itself.

We enjoyed this with hummus and some lassis later in the evening! I look forward to trying this style of cooking with different marinades and enjoying that juicy chicken - or even steak flavor! Check out the collage of pictures below for shawarma in different stages!