Chicken Gyros with Cucumber Salsa & Tsatsiki
Submitted by happyzhangbo
Chicken gyros with cucumber salsa and tsatsiki turn leftover roast chicken into a fast Greek dinner. Garlic-herb oil, cool yogurt sauce, crunchy cucumber-tomato salsa, warm pita.
YIELD
4 servingsPREP
18 minCOOK
8 minREADY
35 minChicken gyros with cucumber salsa and tsatsiki are the smartest thing to do with half a leftover roast chicken sitting in your fridge. The meat gets shredded, tossed in warm garlic-herb oil, and piled into broiler-warmed pita rounds with two cooling toppings that do all the heavy work.
The trick here is building both a tsatsiki AND a chopped cucumber salsa from the same two kirby cucumbers. One gets grated and squeezed dry so the yogurt sauce stays thick instead of watery. The other gets diced with cherry tomatoes, red onion, flat-leaf parsley, and fresh mint for a bright, crunchy salsa. Oregano and rosemary simmered gently in olive oil give the chicken the unmistakable herby Greek lean without ever touching a grill.
Kitchen Tips
- Squeeze the grated cucumber hard in a clean towel or your fist. Wet cucumber waters down the tsatsiki and turns the whole sauce into a puddle.
- Warm the oil-garlic-herb mixture gently. You want the garlic fragrant, not browned. Browned garlic goes bitter and coats the whole dish.
- Cover the bread with foil for the first few broiler minutes. It steams the pita so the interior stays soft and foldable instead of cracking apart.
- Use full-fat Greek yogurt strained overnight if you have the time. Thicker yogurt clings better and tastes richer.
Variations
Ingredients
roast, skin discarded, meat shredded (about 2 1/4 cups), and carcass reserved for stock *
Directions
Preheat broiler.
Peel and grate 1 cucumber, then squeeze it with your hands to remove excess water.
Stir together with yogurt, ½ teaspoon lemon juice, one third of garlic, and ¼ teaspoon each of salt and pepper to make tsatsiki.
Cut remaining cucumber into ¼ inch pieces and stir together with tomatoes, onion, parsley, mint, remaining ½ teaspoon lemon juice, and ¼ teaspoon each of salt and pepper to make salsa.
Gently simmer oil, oregano, rosemary, remaining garlic, ¼ teaspoon salt, and ⅛ teaspoon pepper in a small heavy saucepan, stirring constantly, until garlic is fragrant but not browned, 1 to 2 minutes.
Toss chicken with 3 tablespoons garlic oil and brush one side of bread with remainder.
Heat bread, oiled side up, in a 4-sided sheet pan, covered with foil, 3 to 4 inches from broiler 3 minutes.
Uncover and broil, rotating bread for even coloring, until golden in spots, about 2 minutes.
Spread some of tsatsiki on warm bread and top with chicken and some of lettuce and salsa.
Serve remaining lettuce, salsa, and tsatsiki on the side.
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