Easy Homemade Chicken Gyro Recipe (Healthy Options)

One of my favorite Greek restaurant meals is shaved and seasoned meat called Gyro used to make sandwiches on pita bread. Imagine my delight when I learned that you can make chicken with the same flavors at home. Quick and delicious, our homemade Easy Chicken Gyro Recipe comes together in minutes.

While slow-cooked Greek gyro meat done the traditional way tastes amazing, it takes hours to prepare. Not our chicken gyros recipe, consisting of fresh veggies and tender chicken served in warm pita bread is a complete meal that makes them the perfect lunch or easy enough to make any night of the week. This delicious recipe gets me the same flavor profile at home.

Our Greek Chicken Gyros recipe is incredibly easy and it’s a versatile meal. Serve your chicken gyro over rice, wrapped in flatbread, or a pita, or make a Greek salad. 

Mediterranean recipes are known to be traditionally healthier but traditional gyro meat is relatively high in fat. Recipes like our Lamb Burgers, Greek Salad with Lemon Dressing, and these easy Chicken Gyros recipes are lower in fat and make delicious meals that we feel good about feeding to our family.

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Ingredients for the Chicken Gyros Recipe

Chicken – Boneless chicken thighs, chicken breast, or chicken tenders. Sliced thin and marinated in the Greek dressing.

Salad Ingredients

• Fresh Tomatoes – Grape or cherry tomatoes.
• Cucumber – We like the smooth flavor of English cucumbers and remove the seeds. Peeling them is optional.
• Sweet Onion – Vidalia or a red onion. Sliced thinly.
• Kalamata Olives – The deli olives are generally better than jarred but use what you enjoy. Seeded.
• Lettuce – We like a crisp lettuce that can be chopped. We don’t recommend romaine unless the thick ribs are removed. Butter, Green Leaf, or Iceberg are good choices.
• Easy Pita Bread recipe – Sliced in half.
• Crumbled Feta Cheese – Feta in liquid is better than dry crumbled.

Greek Dressing and Marinade Ingredients.

Double this recipe and use half to marinate the chicken. While we like our simple blend of spices, you can use a spice blend such as Mediterranean seasoning, Italian Seasoning, or Herbs de Provence seasoning blends.

• Olive Oil – We use a mild extra-virgin olive oil. Choose one that you enjoy the taste of.
• Red Wine Vinegar – Substitute with Champagne vinegar or Apple cider vinegar
• Spices – Dried Oregano, Dried Basil, Garlic Powder.
• Salt and Black Pepper.
• Dijon Mustard – Mustard works as an emulsifier to make the dressing creamy.

How to Make Homemade Chicken Gyros

1. Prepare the dressing by combining all ingredients into a jar or salad cruet. Shake to combine. Combine tomatoes, cucumber, onion, and olives in a ziplock bag or airtight container and drizzle lightly with Greek dressing. Refrigerate 30 minutes or longer. Place sliced chicken in another ziplock bag and drizzle lightly with Greek dressing. Refrigerate 30 minutes or longer.

2. Heat one tablespoon of olive oil in a heavy skillet. You can use a grill pan but our favorite is a cast iron skillet. Add the chicken and cook for four minutes on each side or until golden brown and at an internal temperature of 165ºF. Set aside and keep warm.

3. Drain the marinade from the vegetables and mix them with the chopped lettuce. Build a Gyro by placing marinated vegetable lettuce mixture in the pita bread. Add chicken and top with Feta cheese and a drizzle of tzatziki sauce.

Hostess Tips

Tips for working with raw poultry. We use a nonporous cutting board and chop everything else before working with the raw chicken to keep it from cross-contaminating the fresh ingredients. Reclosable bags or glass bowls are used for marinating the chicken because we want something that can be thrown away or put in the dishwasher. Never rinse raw poultry because splashing water can spread bacteria around your kitchen.

Use a large enough skillet to keep from crowding the chicken so it can brown evenly or work in batches.

You can cook extra chicken and freeze it for quick and delicious meals on busy days. Let the cooked chicken cool completely and store it in an airtight container or freezer-safe ziplock bag. Use it within 3 months.

With a little meal prep, you can have a quick and easy meal during the week. Cook the chicken ahead of time and chop up the fresh ingredients but don’t combine them. Assemble your gyros when you’re ready.

If you don’t have the seasoning we call for, instead of purchasing multiple herbs, you can use Greek seasoning or a blend called Herbs de Provence and salt and pepper. Fresh herbs such as ground coriander or fresh dill would be delicious.

Variations for Homemade Chicken Gyros Recipe

• Make chicken skewers and grill for a healthy option. You can also use leftover turkey or chicken, rotisserie chicken, or deli for a semi-homemade option.
• Serve with purchased or homemade tzatziki sauce.
• Greek Dressing makes a delicious marinade any time you want to cook chicken. It isn’t just for gyros. Marinating chicken adds tons of flavor and moisture. We recommend at least 30 minutes or overnight.
• Add chickpeas, sweet red peppers, or spicy banana peppers.

Greek Chicken Gyro recipe is a complete meal. However, if you’re looking for options of what you can serve with it, we recommend Greek Tabbouleh salad, old-fashioned Lemon Icebox Pie, and a delicious Campari cocktail!

I hope you enjoyed this delicious recipe as much as we do. Drop me a comment below, and don’t forget to give it a star rating. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐. Your comments and ratings help others decide if this recipe is for them too.

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Originally released on April 21, 2016, this Chicken Gyro recipe has undergone updates to enhance our readers’ experience, including simple details and new images. No changes were made to the actual recipe.