Healthy Homemade Chicken shawarma bowls filled with homemade chicken, salad, hummus, and a very special yogurt jalapeno sauce. 
Make your own shawarma bowls are home and enjoy the delicious fresh flavors of shawarma in a salad form. These shawarma bowls are loaded with flavor, color, and texture and are SUPER healthy. They are packed with deliciously spiced chicken, Middle-Eastern salad, hummus, rice, and a special yogurt jalapeno sauce. It’s basically a bowl loaded with so much flavor and goodness! I like to add a little rice on the side but that’s totally optional.
I used chicken thighs and marinated them for a few hours in my spicy shawarma seasoning, check out the recipe here for the full post and video on making easy oven baked shawarma chicken. You can also use chicken breasts for the recipe by cutting the cooking time in half. The link above features oven-baked shawarma chicken but today I pan-seared the chicken. You can do either or because both methods work very well.
Next, all the sauces are prepared and salad chopped while the chicken is marinated. Once you’ve completed the chopping and mixing the sauces, simply cook the chicken and assemble these delicious bowls!
The ingredients can also be prepared ahead of time and separately packed in meal prep containers and assembled as needed.
Healthy Chicken Shawarma Bowls
Ingredients
For the rice
- 1 cup basmati rice
- 1 3/4 cup water
- pinch of salt
For the Shawarma chicken
- 4 chicken thighs boneless skinless or about 1 pound
- 1 tsp lemon juice
- 1 small garlic clove minced
- 1 tsp ground coriander
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 1/4 tsp ground cardamom
- 1/4 tsp smoked paprika
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp Black pepper
- 1 tsp olive oil
For the jalapeno yogurt Sauce
- 1/2 cup plain yogurt
- 1 jalapeño pepper seeds and veins removed, adjust to taste
- 1/4 cup chopped herb of choice parsley, mint, dill or cilantro
- 1 clove of garlic
- 1 tsp of lime or lemon juice
For the salad
- 1 cup diced tomato
- 1 cup diced cucumber
- 1/4 cup diced onion
- 1/2 cup chickpeas canned or cooked
- 2 tablespoons minced parsley
- 1 tablespoon lime or lemon juice
- salt and pepper to taste
For Serving
- 1/4 cup hummus homemade or store bought*
- 2 tablespoons feta cheese optional
- 2 tablespoons tahini paste optional
- Lettuce of choice
Instructions
- To cook the rice: Begin by making the rice. Wash the rice until it runs clear. Fill a medium saucepan with 1 3/4 cups water, add a pinch of salt, and bring to a boil. Add the rice, stir, and wait until the water comes back to a full boil then reduce the heat to low and simmer the rice covered for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes turn off the heat and allow keep rice covered for 5 more minutes. After 5 minutes fluff rice with fork and keep warm until ready to serve.
- To cook the chicken: While the rice is cooking, prepare and cook the chicken. In a large plastic bag or bowl, combine the chicken, lemon juice, garlic, and spices until the chicken is fully loaded. Make immediately or marinate 1-2 hours or overnight. Heat a large heavy duty skillet to medium-high heat for at least 2 minute. Pour 1 teaspoon olive oil to the pan. Cook the chicken uncovered for 8-10 minutes per side or until the center is fully cooked. Rest for 5 minutes then cut and serve.
- To make the jalapeno yogurt sauce:Place all the ingredients in a blender or food process and blend for 1 minute or until fully combined.
- To assemble: Combine all the ingredients for the salad in a medium bowl. Assemble the shawarma bowls by place about 1/2 cup cooked rice in the bottom of two medium serving bowls. Top with sliced shawarma chicken, salad, hummus, jalapeno sauce, feta cheese, and drizzle with tahini sauce. Serve immediately.
Notes
Equipment
Nutrition
Made this tonight for my family and we all LOVED it!!! Great flavours! Definitely going to Ben making this again!
Step 2 seems to be missing. I don’t remember it being absent the last time I made this.
This recipe looks good is there any way to cut down on the calories or sodium? Otherwise this meal really is loaded with healthy food.
You can make it into a salad by omitting the rice and control the salt to your liking.
Found this web site as a link from Spark People. Great recipes. another idea for the person cutting calories- is there is product called “miracle Rice” and they have pasta too, that has no calories. Have to rinse it a lot then just cook as per package, I usually just microwave it for 2 minutes then add to recipes. Gives the “idea” of rice and BULKS up a recipe. I also found a product at a local “natural market” called oasis and they have fat free hummus that is anywhere from 11 to 28 calories in two tablespoons. A real calorie BARGAIN and I think they are great. I watch salt too as I cook for my mom who has the need for low sodium foods, so we all benefit from that.
Love the recipe and love the idea of these composed dishes.
Thanks for the great review and tips, Frances! <3
These are SO pretty!!! Earmarking them for dinner next week! Good luck fasting, you, are a stronger person than I!
Thank you so much!