Chicken Shawarma

Description

If you were to ask me what makes a meal absolutely delicious, I’d have to say it would be all about a good combination of amazing flavors and textures.  This recipe for Chicken Shawarma is exactly that.  Flavorful chicken is grilled and served along with a bright and crunchy slaw, a creamy yogurt dip, and warm fluffy pita bread.  There’s really not much to this recipe which makes it even better, I truly believe that good food doesn’t always have to be the most labor intensive or use a zillion costly ingredients.  Using mostly pantry staples, the chicken marinade comes together in just a few easy steps, and then you just let the ingredients do their job.  You can marinate this for a little as two hours, but 8 hours to overnight is really the best for maximum flavor. Now for my favorite part, the slaw.  In case you haven’t noticed from many of my recipes, I kind of have a soft spot for a good cabbage slaw.  Why?  It’s easy, cheap, and it’s a delicious way to pack in a bunch of veggies.  This slaw is no exception when it comes to loading in your veggies.  This slaw packs in plenty of veggies, herbs, and even a good handful of pickles to really brighten up the flavor.  I once read that just about any recipe is made better by adding a pickle, and this slaw is no exception.  The last step of this recipe is grilling your chicken, but before you do that, whip up your yogurt sauce and the prep work is done!  I like to make my slaw and yogurt sauce about an hour before serving so that the flavors can really come together and especially so that the veggies in your slaw will start to soften. You can serve this any way from a pita wrap or lean towards a salad by going heavier on your slaw and serving the pita in triangles.  Not only is this meal healthy and packed with protein, the ingredients for the marinade do all the work for you.  This is a great meal to prepare ahead of time if you know you’ll be short on time the following day.  Speaking of being short on time, did you know about that time I had to shop for holiday presents at a gas station?  Our local hospitality committee was hosting a secret Santa event and I had drawn the ticket to give a gift to my boss.  As it happens with any parent, I became super distracted with all our sports events and totally forgot about the gift exchange.  Fortunately, I got the calendar reminder while I was stopping for gas and coffee that morning so I at least had options.  I ran into the station and quickly scanned the aisles looking for something appropriate that would fit within the 30 dollar budget.  I made a b line for the novelty hat section and got a knock off hat from a local sports team, grabbed some candy bars and gum, and finally went over to the sunglasses and grabbed a pair that said “hang loose” on the lenses in blue mirror accents.  Just to be sure I had all my bases covered, I splurged and grabbed a couple bottles of windshield wiper fluid.  I put everything in a plastic bag and got a couple extra so that I could fashion a bow out of the leftovers.  Later that day during the exchange, my boss opened their gas station gift, and had a laugh over a present that had obviously been bought at a gas station.  Thankfully it was a secret Santa event because I was too embarrassed to confess who really gave that silly gift.  By the end of the day I was fried, but what made it even better was to come home to realize that I had prepared some chicken shawarma the night before for a delicious and healthy dinner.