Last Updated on June 13, 2022
What is Shawarma
Shawarma is probably one of the most recognizable Middle Eastern ethnic food names in the West, behind Falafel and Hummus. The name comes from the Turkish word çevirme which means “turning,” and where you have some deeply marinated layers of beef, lamb or chicken stacked on a vertical spit and slowly turning against a soft grilling fire for hours. The meat is then shredded and wrapped in a pita bread with garlic paste (chicken shawarma) or Tahini sauce (beef shawarma) and other goodies such as grilled tomatoes, chopped parsley, french fries, grilled onions, and salted Lebanese pickles. Let’s have a look at the Beef Shawarma Recipe
Shawarma Street Vendor in Tripoli, Lebanon
Shawarma (Arabic: شاورما) is also spelled as schwarma, shwarma, shawrma or shawerma depending on how folks hear their ethnic brethren say it! 🙂 This delicacy may get confused sometimes with the Greek Gyro but there is a major difference in the spices used and how meat is processed. In this post we’re going to feature our refined and well tested Beef Shawarma Recipe. (You can check our Chicken Shawarma Recipe Here)
How to Make Beef Shawarma at Home
Growing up in Lebanon, we almost never had to make Shawarma at home since it was an integral part of Lebanese Street Food and was thus so readily available. However in the US it’s not as common, at least not in Upstate NY. So my wife and I embarked on a little journey of fine tuning the art of making Shawarma at home, and I think we got it! We were able to replicate a very delicious Shawarma recipe that is so close to a high quality restaurant Shawarma both in flavor and texture, you can’t even tell. And we were able to accomplish that using two different methods of cooking the meat.
Preparing the Meat for Lebanese Beef Shawarma Recipe
Pick your favorite beef cut and ensure it has plenty of fat in it. Our photos here feature a roast cut, however you can do this with any steak cut, Ribeye, or even butter steak. Any fat in the cut will greatly enhance the flavor of the Shawarma. And if you like lamb, you can also mix some leg of lamb meat with the beef.
Cut the meat into chunks of about 3 to 4 inches in length and no more than 2/3 inch in thickness. You don’t want to have very small cuts since they’ll dry out and won’t be as moist as you’d love them to be. And if you make larger cuts, it may work if you roast it, but not on the Panini grill.
Shawarma Beef Cuts
Beef Shawarma Spices
Mix the spices with the lemon juice and vinegar in a blender (we use MAGIC BULLET for such quick mixes) then rub meat cuts with the marinade. It’s important to not blend the olive oil with the spices and lemon/vinegar because it tends to emulsify and mask the flavors, for some reason. Instead, after you have rubbed the meat with the marinade you just made, sprinkle some olive oil at the end, rub a bit more and you’re done. Cover container and refrigerate overnight (it needs several hours of marination).
Magic Bullet Mini: High Speed Blending For Marinade
Marinated Beef Shawarma Ready for Grilling
Two Beef Shawarma Cooking Methods That Work
If you don’t have much time on your hands, use a panini or George Foreman grill on medium/high and grill the marinated beef chunks for 10-15 minutes, no more. If otherwise you are in no rush, place the Shawarma chunks in a pyrex tray with a bit of marinade, cover it tightly with aluminum foil, and gently bake at 270-300F for 2 hours. The Pannini grill method yields a more flavorful Shawarma, where as the oven method yields juicier and more tender meat.
Beef Shawarma on Panini Grill
Beef Shawarma Baked in Oven In Covered Pyrex
Home Cooked Beef Shawarma Ready for Shredding
The Making of a Beef Shawarma Sandwich
Once the meet is cut/shredded, place a handful along the diameter of a warm pita bread, add the Tahini sauce, salted Lebanese pickles, a sprinkle of chopped parsley, some French fries, and some roasted tomatoes.. Roll and enjoy!
Lebanese Beef Shawarma Recipe
Equipment
Ingredients
Meat
- 2 lbs beef choose fatty cuts
Marinade Ingredients
- 5 cloves garlic
- 1/2 cup lemon juice
- 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon cloves whole or powder
- 1/2 teaspoon cumin powder
- 1/2 teaspoon caraway
- 1/2 teaspoon cardamom powder
- 1/2 teaspoon oregano or thyme, dried or green
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon powder
- 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg powder
- 1/2 teaspoon peppercorn
- 1/4 teaspoon chili powder
- 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
Sandwich Ingredients
- 1/2 cup Italian parsley finely cut
- 1 small tomato preferably roasted or grilled
- 1/2 cup French fries
- loaf Pita bread
Instructions
Shawarma Marinade
- Mix the spices along with the lemon juice and apple cider vinegar in a blender for a couple of minutes. Don't mix in the olive oil yet.
- Cut the beef into chunks of 4 inches long by no more than 2/3 inch in thickness.
- In a bowl, rub the meat with the marinade, sprinkle a bit of olive oil then rub again, cover and let marinate overnight in the fridge.
Grilling Shawarma Method 1: Panini Grill
- Lay the marinated shawarma chunks on a panini or George Foreman grill and cook for 10-15 minutes on medium-high heat.
- Once cooked, shred the meat on a cutting board and serve hot.
Grilling Shawarma Method 2: Oven Roasting
- Lay the marinated beef chunks in a Pyrex tray with a bit of marinade, cover the trap tightly with aluminum foil, then gently bake at 270-300F for 2 hours.
- Once cooked, shred the meat on a cutting board and serve hot. This roasting method will make the meat very tender and juicy and will almost fall apart.
Preparing the Tahini Sauce
- In a blender, mix the Tahini paste with garlic, lemon juice and salt until you turn it into a thick sauce.
Serving a Shawarma Wrap
- Place about 4-6 ounces (to taste) of shredded shawarma in a pita bread along the diameter, sprinkle some Tahini sauce, add freshly grilled tomatoes, french fries, a garnish of Italian parsley. Roll and enjoy.
Excellent meal, Edgard! This is my first time making this dish, so I followed your directions precisely. Even though I had not expected such wonderful results, the beef was juicy and tender. Furthermore, I prefer my meals spicy, so instead of using a tablespoon as instructed, I upped the spice quantity, and the flavor was delicious.
I put in more spices add plain yogourt and no apple cider vinegar. Then put it in a hot cast iron pan and cook it till it sizzles. Great eating.
We made this for dinner tonight. It was good. We used chuck roast with good marbling. I was surprised how much liquid was at the bottom of the pan after cooking. The flavor was good but not as bold as anticipated. The tahini sauce, tomatoes and parsley really combined well with the meat. The tahini sauce was not as thick as I anticipated. We roasted the tomatoes with olive oil and basil. We will make it again.
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Ive done this in the pressure cooker for years now with a bit of stock to get a little more liquid for the pressure cooker. Works excellent tastes excellent. I live in a place where there isnt much food like this so its nice to have a recipe to make at home. thanks for sharing.
Hello, I’m looking forward to making this recipe with my shawarma machine. Your recipe appears to be tasty. I went to the Spinning Grillers website and watched shawarma machines, and I decided to buy one. Now I will attempt to make this recipe as soon as possible! Thank you for your sharing!
Oh wow you’ve got a shawarma machine?! 🙂 this is awesome. Please let me know how it turns out if you try our recipe with it.
I’d love to try it one day in a Dutch Oven.. Heard so many good things about how it tenderizes meats.
Love the spice profile, but it is very tangy. Adding that lemon juice and tahini “sauce”, would ruin it. Also, why rub marinade then “sprinkle olive oil” what does that do? just put the olive oil in the marinade. This recipe needs a lot of work. I tried this side by side with 3 other eastern Mediterranean marinades and this one was the loser.
Could you please share the recipe that was the best?
Extremely disappointing. I cooked it at low temp in the oven for two hours and the meat came out extremely over cooked, dry and flavorless. I ended up with a pile of grey meat sitting in a pool of fatty liquid that couldn’t even be used for gravy because it was so acidic. A waste of good top sirloin. I don’t understand why this has to marinate overnight in so much lemon juice and ACV. Doesn’t this pre-cook the meat? I also don’t understand why they recommended this option when shawarma is traditionally grilled on a spit.
Hi French Cook – Sorry to hear that you over-cooked your shawarma. Did you wrap the cooking tray with aluminum foil so it locks the moisture in? And how big was the piece of meat you used? We had no issue at all when we used a Pyrex tray wrapped in aluminum foil. It turned out very moist.
Hello,
I see “cloves” and “cardamon” in your recipe. Is this powdered measurements of said herbs?
Kind regards
Nassif
Nassif the cloves and cardamon are powdered measurements.
Hi! Are the spices in this recipe whole or ground?
Val the spice ingredients in the Shawarma recipe are ground.
Thank you for the Turkish reference. But this is actually a kebab, even if the spices may be sightly different to the Turkish one, it is still a doner kebab.