Main Course Recipes

Chicken Gyros

4 servings

This Mediterranean miracle is fun to prepare and features skinless and boneless chicken that becomes incredibly tender after soaking in a marinade made with plain Greek yogurt and Extra Virgin Olive Oil in a medium mixing bowl. Whether you use an oven or grill using indirect heat, the roasting preparation is simple and requires no special equipment—just a meat mallet to pound the meat and a food thermometer to check the temperature. Serve your beautifully cooked Chicken Gyros stuffed into warm Turkish bread for the ultimate warm sandwich experience! Read More

☆☆☆☆☆0x(write a review)👁283x

Tom the ChefPublished: 7.7.2026

Main Course Recipes

2 h.

3 h.

1/5

485 calories Per Serving (of 4) Read More

Before You Start

Let’s talk about important parts of the recipe before you start…

Jump to Recipe

Welcome to My Chicken Gyros Recipe

I am so excited to share my Chicken Gyros recipe with you today. This dish is truly a Mediterranean miracle that will nicely surprise anyone who has a chance to try it. I love how super tender the skinless and boneless chicken breasts become after resting in a rich marinade of plain Greek yogurt, exotic seasonings, and Extra Virgin Olive Oil right inside my medium mixing bowl. The roasting preparation is wonderfully simple, requiring just basic tools like a meat mallet and skewers to create a standing tower of meat. Whether you are baking it in the oven or cooking on the grill over indirect heat, you can easily ensure perfection by using a food thermometer to reach the safe internal temperature. I always serve my freshly sliced Chicken Gyros folded in warm Turkish bread. Let’s get started on making this delicious Mediterranean miracle in your own kitchen!

1. Creating the Perfect Marinade for Chicken Gyros

The secret to my Chicken Gyros being a true Mediterranean miracle lies entirely in the flavorful marinade. To begin, you will need a medium mixing bowl to combine all your wet ingredients and spices. I start by whisking together one cup of plain Greek yogurt and two tablespoons of Extra Virgin Olive Oil. The plain Greek yogurt tenderizes the skinless and boneless meat beautifully. Into the medium mixing bowl, I also add the juice of one lemon, four cloves of grated garlic, paprika, ground cumin, coriander, cinnamon, salt, and pepper. You can also add cayenne pepper for a spicy kick, or substitute it with more paprika. Whisk this mixture thoroughly until fully incorporated. This essential step guarantees your Chicken Gyros will be packed with that authentic flavor before we even begin the roasting preparation or use a meat mallet, ensuring every bite served in your Turkish bread is perfect. Don’t forget, we will be cooking this carefully, verifying it is done later with a food thermometer, and if using a grill, strictly using indirect heat.

2. Preparing the Skinless and Boneless Chicken

Before mixing the meat with our plain Greek yogurt and Extra Virgin Olive Oil marinade, we must focus on proper meat preparation for our Chicken Gyros. Start with one and a half pounds of skinless and boneless chicken breasts. Make sure the chicken is properly rinsed under cold water and any unwanted parts are removed. Next, cut each breast diagonally into half. Now, place the pieces over plastic film and use a meat mallet to pound them to exactly half-inch thickness. Using a meat mallet ensures the meat is perfectly tenderized and even, which is crucial for our roasting preparation later. Once pounded with the meat mallet, place the skinless and boneless pieces into your medium mixing bowl with the marinade. Stir everything together, cover with plastic wrap, and let it marinate for at least 60 minutes. This preparation step is vital for the Mediterranean miracle we are creating, which we will later check with a food thermometer, cook over indirect heat on the grill, and stuff into warm Turkish bread.

3. The Unique Roasting Preparation Method

What makes my Chicken Gyros so special is the fun roasting preparation that requires no fancy rotisserie equipment. First, preheat your oven or grill to 400°F. For the roasting preparation, take one large whole onion with the skin on, cut it in half, peel it, and place one half on the center of a baking sheet. Push three metal or wooden skewers into this onion half with a distance of about one inch from each other. Next, take your marinated skinless and boneless meat out of the medium mixing bowl. Place each piece of the plain Greek yogurt and Extra Virgin Olive Oil coated meat one by one onto the skewers, sliding them down to layer on top of each other. Finally, push the second half of the onion through the top of the skewers until it touches the meat. This roasting preparation structure holds our Mediterranean miracle perfectly upright while baking or cooking over indirect heat on the grill. When finished and checked with a food thermometer, this masterpiece is ready for your Turkish bread.

4. Cooking Your Chicken Gyros to Perfection

After completing the exciting roasting preparation, it is time to cook our Chicken Gyros. Place the baking sheet with your beautifully stacked skinless and boneless meat right in the center of your preheated oven or on your grill. The combination of the Extra Virgin Olive Oil and plain Greek yogurt from the medium mixing bowl will keep the meat moist as it roasts for about 70 to 90 minutes. However, the most critical step here is to ensure food safety and perfect doneness by using a food thermometer. You must check with a food thermometer to make sure that you have reached the minimum recommended safe serving temperature for poultry, which is 165°F. Cooking this Mediterranean miracle to the proper temperature ensures it is perfectly safe and incredibly tender, whether you pounded it with a meat mallet or not, cooked it in the oven or used indirect heat on the grill, before finally slicing it for your Turkish bread.

5. Preparing on the Grill with Indirect Heat

While my Chicken Gyros recipe is wonderfully easy to bake in the oven, I also love to prepare this Mediterranean miracle on the grill. If you choose the grill for your roasting preparation, there is a very important technique you must follow: you must make sure that the roasting happens on indirect heat and with a closed lid. Indirect heat means that the fire is not directly under the baking sheet holding your skinless and boneless meat, but rather on the sides. This indirect heat method gently roasts the stack of meat coated in plain Greek yogurt and Extra Virgin Olive Oil without burning the bottom onion half or drying out the layers you so carefully flattened with your meat mallet. Once it finishes roasting on the grill in your medium mixing bowl marinade, verify it has reached 165°F with a food thermometer. Then, you are ready to slice it up and serve it in fresh Turkish bread.

Hands press an onion pierced with toothpicks into a mound of yogurt-marinated Chicken Gyros meat.

6. Assembling Your Mediterranean Miracle in Turkish Bread

The final and most rewarding step of making my Chicken Gyros is assembling the warm sandwiches. Once your food thermometer confirms the skinless and boneless meat has safely reached 165°F after roasting in the oven or over indirect heat, carefully remove it from the skewers. Slice the gyro vertically to create those authentic, thin strips of meat infused with the plain Greek yogurt and Extra Virgin Olive Oil marinade you whipped up in your medium mixing bowl. Serve these tender pieces, which were perfectly prepped with a meat mallet during the roasting preparation, nestled inside fresh Turkish bread. I love to top this Mediterranean miracle with Mediterranean aioli, sliced onion, a slice of tomato, and lettuce. If you wanted to add a modification like cucumber slices for extra crunch, you could certainly do so, but please note that it is a modification that is not part of the recipe. Enjoy your perfect Chicken Gyros!

Buy me a coffee

Chicken Gyros

4 servingsTom the ChefPublished: 7.7.2026 ☆☆☆☆☆0x(write a review)👁283x

2 h.

3 h.

1/5

🖨Print

Ingredients:

Click any ingredient to learn more

Chicken gyro:

1 cup of plain Greek yogurt

2 TBSP of Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Juice from 1 lemon

4 cloves of garlic - peeled and grated (or pressed)

1 TSP of ground paprika

½ TSP of ground cayenne pepper - ground (spicy, optionally substitute for ½ TSP of paprika)

1 TSP of cumin seeds - ground

½ TSP of coriander - ground

½ TSP of cinnamon - ground

1 TSP of salt

½ pepper - ideally freshly ground

1 ½ LB of chicken breasts - skinless and boneless (or skinless and boneless chicken tights)

1 onion - whole with skin on

The rest of the sandwich:

1 loaf of Turkish bread (store-bought or recipe here, or pitta bread, burger bun, or other kind of bread)

1 cup of (or galic aioli or mayonnaise)

Optionally: onion - sliced

8 slices of 2% milk

lettuce of your choice

Tools:

Click any tool to learn more

1x Medium Mixing Bowl (3 – 4 QT)

1x Lemon Squeezer (Optional)

1x Small Hand Grater or Garlic Press

1x French Whisk

1x Meat Mallet (tendorizer)

1x Plastic Wrap

3x Skewers (metal or wooden)

1x Food Thermometer (probe)

Nutrition per 1 Serving:(recipe split into 4 servings)

Estimated

Calories 485 Protein 46.4 g Fat 25.3 g Saturated fat 7.0 g Carbohydrate 17.1 g Sugars 7.5 g Fiber 1.4 g Sodium 590 mg Cholesterol 115 mg

Estimated. Worked out from the ingredients above using the United States Department of Agriculture’s FoodData Central reference data. An estimate, not a measurement — brands, sizes and how much of a marinade actually ends up on the plate all move it.

Directions:

1.Marinade:

1.1.

Place into a medium mixing bowl:

1 cup of plain Greek yogurt

2 TBSP of Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Juice from 1 large lemon

4 cloves of garlic – grated

1 TSP of paprika

½ TSP of ground cayenne pepper

1 TSP of ground cumin

½ TSP of ground coriander

½ TSP of ground cinnamon

1 TSP of salt

½ TSP of ground pepper

Stir together with a whisk until fully incorporated (about 1- 2 minutes).

2.Meat Preparation:

2.1.

Make sure that the chicken breasts are properly rinsed under cold water and the unwanted parts are removed.

2.2.

Cut each chicken breast diagonally into half.

2.3.

Pound each piece of chicken breasts over plastic film to ½” thickness using a meat mallet.

2.4.

Place chicken breasts into the marinade and stir with a spatula or hand.

2.5.

Cover with plastic wrap and let marinade for at least 60 minutes (or preferably overnight in the refrigerator with last 60 minute out of the refrigerator).

3.Preheat oven or grill to 400°F.

Note:

Yes this meal can be prepared in the oven but also on the grill with lid.

4.Roasting Preparation:

4.1.

Cut large onion into half, peel it and place 1 half on the center of the baking sheet.

4.2.

Then push into the onion 3 skewers with a distance of about 1″ from each other.

4.3.

Remove the chicken from the refrigerator, and place the first piece on the skewers and slide down to the onion. Then take all the rest of the chicken and place each piece one-by-one on the skewers, layering them on top of each other.

4.4.

Push the second half of the onion through the skewers until it touches the chicken.

4.5.

Note:

For the purpose of the photo prepared from the double batch.

5.Roasting:

5.1.

Place the baking sheet with the chicken in the center in a preheated oven or on the grill for about 70 – 90 minutes until done. *

Tip:

Optionally, you can slice the cooked layer in order to have part of the meat ready sooner and also to speed up preparation – gyros will be prepared faster this way.

For preparation on grill only:

Make sure that the roasting happens on indirect heat and with a closed lid – with the fire not directly under the baking sheet, but on the sides).

5.2.

6.Assemble & Serve

6.1.

Slice gyro vertically.

6.2.

Serve in Turkish bread or pita bread with Mediterranean aioli, sliced onion, a slice of tomato, and lettuce. Optionally serve just a gyro with side of potato wedges.

Kitchen Guide