Homemade Chicken shawarma bowls packed with spicy grilled chicken, rice, cucumber tomato salad, and topped with my homemade shawarma white sauce. The perfect healthy 30-minute weeknight meal!
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 my special shawarma 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.
How to Make Shawarma Bowls
Begin by marinating your chicken breasts. I used chicken breasts and marinated them for a few hours in my warm and spicy shawarma seasoning. Next, cook the rice. While the chicken breasts are marinating, wash and rinse your rice and cook it according to the directions below.
While the rice is cooking, chop the salad and prep any sides and set them aside. Once you’ve completed the chopping and mixing the sauces, simply cook the chicken and assemble these delicious bowls!
Recipe Tips
Feed a crowd: If you are making this dish for a large family or a crowd, try roasting the chicken in the oven on a sheet pan to cut prep and cooking time. Check out my oven-roasted chicken shawarma recipe for the oven method.
To Meal Prep: Prep the chicken, rice, and salad separately and pack the chicken and rice into meal prep containers and the salad and sauces on the side. To reheat, heat up the rice and chicken then top with the salad and sauces and enjoy!
Storage Tips: It is recommended that you assemble your bowls when you are ready to eat, but here are some ideas for making and storing some elements of the bowl in advance so you can prep them ahead of time.
Hummus + Shawarma Sauce can be stored in the refrigerator in an airtight container for 3-4 days, so make it in advance if you’d like.
You can store your marinated chicken in the fridge for up to 2 days before using it. Combine the salad ingredients the night before to make assembly a breeze.
Substitutions and Variations
- Vegetarian Shawarma Bowl: Skip the chicken and focus on the rice, hummus, and salad. Add grilled vegetables like zucchini, eggplant, and bell peppers or chickpeas for a hearty vegetarian option.
- Shawarma Shrimp Bowl: Replace the chicken with grilled or sautéed shrimp seasoned with shawarma spices for a seafood twist. Be sure not to overgrill your shrimp.
- Quinoa Instead of Rice: Swap out the long-grain rice for cooked quinoa for a protein-packed and gluten-free alternative.
- Additional Toppings: Enhance your shawarma bowls with toppings like fried or toasted pita chips, toasted pine nuts, pomegranate seeds, or chopped fresh mint for extra freshness.
More Delicious Bowls to Try
Chicken Shawarma Bowls
Ingredients
For the rice
- 1 cup basmati rice
- 1 3/4 cup water
- pinch of salt
Chicken Shawarma
- 1.5 pounds chicken breasts or thighs, boneless, skinless
- 4 Tablespoons Greek Yogurt
- 2 Tablespoons lemon or lime juice
- 2 Tablespoons olive oil
- 4 cloves garlic minced
- 1 teaspoon EACH ground cumin, ground coriander, smoked paprika, turmeric, salt
- ½ teaspoon EACH allspice or 7 spice, ground cinnamon, garlic powder, black pepper
For the salad
- 3-4 Persian cucumbers, chopped
- 2 Roma tomatoes, chopped
- 1/4 red onion, chopped
- 1/4 cup olives of choice
- 2 tablespoons minced parsley
- 1 teaspoon EACH lemon juice, vinegar, olive oil
- salt and pepper to taste
- For Serving: , Hummus, shawarma white sauce, feta cheese, pickled red onion, or favorite pickles
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. Slice chicken breasts in half horizontally or pound to make them thinner. To a large bowl, add the chicken breasts, yogurt, lemon juice, oil, garlic, and spices; Mix until well combined. Heat a large heavy-duty pan over high heat. Add the chicken mixture to the pan and cook 4-5 minutes per side or until the chicken is cooked through. Rest for 5 minutes then cut into small bite-size pieces or slices.
- To assemble: Combine all the ingredients for the salad in a medium bowl. Assemble the shawarma bowls by placing about 1/2 cup cooked rice in the bottom of a serving bowl. Top with sliced shawarma chicken, salad, hummus, feta, pickled onion, and a drizzle of the shawarma white sauce.
Equipment
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
*Recipe by Layla Atik // Photography by: Tanya Pilgrim
Delicious! I skipped the rice and combined the chicken, yoghurt sauce and selfmade hummus with a tortilla, the salad on the side.
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!