Chicken Shawarma Wraps

Serves 6

One of the things I struggled with in writing this book was coming up with reasonable recipe yields for most home cooks. You see, growing up in a household of twelve with a mother who loved to cook, our yields were always enormous. Take this chicken shawarma, for example: When my mom originally developed the recipe, it called for 10 pounds of chicken! She would keep the cooked shawarma in the fridge, and whenever one of us would tug at her clothes and say we were hungry, she could say, “There’s shawarma in the fridge; go make yourself a sandwich.”

I scaled this recipe back to use 5 pounds of chicken, which may still seem like a lot . . . but the Arab in me cannot tell you to make less. The warmly spiced, vinegary chicken is great in a sandwich, on a salad, or on its own—perfect for meal prep.

INGREDIENTS

I Sleep in My Kitchen Mariam Daud

Chicken Shawarma

• 5 pounds boneless, skinless chicken pieces (half thighs and half breasts)

• 1 cup distilled white vinegar

• ¼ cup vegetable oil, plus more for the pan

• 2 tablespoons hot sauce (your choice)

• 1½ heaping teaspoons paprika

• 1½ teaspoons fine sea salt

• 1 heaping teaspoon black pepper

• 1 heaping teaspoon ground turmeric

• ½ heaping teaspoon ground cinnamon

Wraps

• 6 pita breads, warmed

• 1 cup Creamy Garlic Sauce or store-bought toum

• 3 Persian pickles (see Note), halved or quartered lengthwise

• 3 large tomatoes, sliced

• 1 red onion, sliced

DIRECTIONS

Make the chicken shawarma: Slice the chicken into very thin strips of uniform thickness.

In a large bowl, combine the chicken, vinegar, oil, hot sauce, paprika, salt, black pepper, turmeric, and cinnamon. Toss the chicken well so each strip is evenly coated in the marinade. Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 4 hours and preferably overnight.

Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat and add a bit of oil. Working in batches so as not to crowd the pan, add the chicken and cook, stirring occasionally, until all the liquid has evaporated and the chicken takes on a rich, golden-brown color, 7 to 10 minutes.

Build the wraps: Generously slather a warm piece of pita with garlic sauce. Add the chicken, pickles, tomatoes, and onion. Wrap the pita tightly around the filling, tucking in the sides to secure everything. Continue building the remaining wraps.

Serve immediately as is or toast them in the skillet that you cooked the chicken in or in a panini press.

note: Persian pickles are what I call the small cornichon pickles you’d buy at a Middle Eastern grocery store. They’re a bit tangier and more sour than an American-style dill pickle, and I think they’re perfect for wraps and sandwiches.

“”I Sleep in My Kitchen” Copyright © 2026 by Mariam Daud. Photographs copyright © 2026 by Jim Henkens. Clarkson Potter/Publishers, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group A division of Penguin Random House LLC”

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