Grilled Chicken Shawarma

Growing up my father was a huge red meat eater. He absolutely loved steak, burgers and stews. I on the other hand would chose fish and chicken if given the choice. To this day I still love grilled chicken over steak and sausage. However, my husband and two boys love red meat. When I say love, I mean really love red meat. In particular bacon is a favorite of theirs. If they could eat bacon at every meal they would do so happily and see nothing wrong with doing so. While I do love bacon, I have been encouraging my family to eat more chicken and fish. Luckily my two boys have discovered they love any type of grilled chicken. They get very excited when I take out the indoor grill and start grilling chicken. Last month I tried a new recipe for Chicken Shawarma from the August issue of Family Circle magazine, which with 35 grams of protein looked perfect for my active family.

This recipe has 13 ingredients. It takes 20 minutes of prep and 10 minutes of broiling time and makes 6 servings. I had no problems finding any of the ingredients at my local grocery store and made no ingredient modifications. I chose to use naan instead of lavash bread. I love naan and use it frequently. Instead of broiling my chicken I used an indoor grill. The broiler on my oven has been broken for months, so obviously I am unable to use it. Using the grill was perfect for this recipe and I think it would work better than the broiler in the first place. It took approximately 10 minutes for the chicken thighs to cook on the indoor grill. I followed the remainder of the recipe as written.

The chicken in this recipe turned out delicious. I think modifying the recipe to use the grill instead of the broiler was perfect. I would use this method again if I made this recipe a second time. My two kids really liked these sandwiches. The fact that they can be held was something that my kids really liked and the flavor of the chicken was delicious. Now that I'm not eating gluten if I was to make this recipe again I would eat it as a salad. The chicken would be great as a salad and would only need a very light vinegar dressing. Overall, a very easy and child friendly recipe.

For the recipe go to Chicken Shawarma.

Chicken Shawarma

My two kids and I love sandwiches. I make homemade bread weekly and every week my kids and I fight over sandwich ingredients. We all have a major peanut butter craving and I am not afraid to say that peanut butter is probably one of my favorite foods. I have tried giving it up over the years, but I always go back. My peanut butter obsession seems to go back to when I was little and we had very little money. We had to stand in the line at the church food line and the best part of the experience was the peanut butter. It came in huge jars and I loved it. I would literally eat it out of the jar with a spoon, sometimes actually squirting honey into the jar to combine and eat. Now that I'm older, while I still love peanut butter I have forced myself to branch out and try new sandwich combinations. One of my favorite sandwich fillings is grilled chicken, so I was very excited when I saw a recipe for Chicken Shawarma in the March/April issue of Eating Well magazine.

This recipe has 13 ingredients. It takes a total of 45 minutes, all of which is active and makes 4 servings. I had no problems finding any of the ingredients and made no ingredient modifications. I chose to use whole wheat pita bread, I try to use whole wheat whenever possible. I found a beautiful tomato at the farmer's market which worked perfectly for this recipe. Since I used an indoor grill my total grilling time was closer to 4 minutes per side. I weighed out my chicken breast to ensure proper amounts, I encourage anyone that doesn't have a food scale to buy one. They really are worth the money and can make a huge difference in recipes! Normally I would have used fresh lemon juice, but I completely forgot to buy lemons, so I used bottled instead. I followed the remainder of the recipe as written.

My three-year-old loved these sandwiches. I wasn't sure if he would eat the sauce or turn up his nose, but he ate his whole serving. At first I thought that the chicken was too salty, but once the sauce was added to the sandwich the taste was perfect. The recipe states that it makes four servings, but my family eats a lot of meat so this dish made more like 3 servings. I would suggest doubling the recipe if you have a meat eating family like I do or if you want leftovers. Overall, a popular new sandwich recipe in my house.

For the recipe go to Chicken Shawarma.