Skip the takeaway and make this incredible homemade doner kebab recipe instead! This easy oven-baked version uses beef and lamb mince, yogurt, garlic and spices to create juicy, thinly sliced kebab meat with crispy edges. Serve it in pita bread with salad and your favourite sauces for a delicious Turkish-inspired dinner.
About This Doner Kebab Recipe
Beef and lamb mince, onion, garlic, yogurt, tomato paste and spices are all you need to make your very own thinly shaved Doner Kebab meat at home! Doner Kebab is a Turkish dish of meat cooked on a vertical rotisserie, served as fast food in a wrap or on a plate. But did you know that you can make this in the oven and it's so easy and delicious? This is a recipe that went viral and produces the most delicious kebab meat!
Doner kebab is different from Shawarma or Gyros. Doner is Turkish and uses onions, yogurt and herbs so the flavour profile of doner meat is tangy and bursting with fresh flavour rather than say the spicy, aromatic shawarma or lemony and yogurty gyros.
Why This Recipe Works and You'll Love These Doner Kebabs!
I'm going to show you the perfect ratio of mince so that you get juicy kebab meat every single time.
I'll show you the easy spice mix that you need to make this. It's just 5 spices to get that delicious aroma and flavour.
You know exactly what is in it. I bought some of the best kebabs in Sydney and while they were really tasty, when I tried the meat by itself, it didn't have a lot of flavour and relied on the sauces to give it flavour. Also it did taste like it had some sort of wheat based filler in the meat so this is great to serve to any gluten free eaters.
I did a blind taste test with Mr NQN and he preferred the flavour of the homemade doner meat because he said it had much more flavour!
It feels kind of like magic when you unroll the parchment with all of the thinly sliced meat. Some of the edges are crisp but it's also very moist inside.
I'll show you how to get more of those crispy edges if you prefer your meat crispy!
I'll also show you which sauces work well with this so that it tastes just like your favourite takeaway kebab shop!
I'll also show you how to make a lighter version that is lower in fat using chicken mince.
It is so darn tasty! Seriously, we made this several days in a row because we both enjoyed it so much.
Lamb mince - Lamb mince with 15% fat. Lamb gives this a more authentic flavour than using straight beef (trust me, it makes a difference!).
Onion - white or yellow onion
Garlic cloves - Fresh garlic cloves
Greek yogurt - or natural yogurt.
Tomato paste - Double or triple concentrated tomato paste.
Spices - Use dried ground cumin, coriander, paprika and oregano.
Tips For Making Doner Kebab Recipe
1 - Roll this very thinly between two sheets of parchment. Don't worry if there are sections where you can see through the meat. These will become the thinnest, best pieces!
2 - Make sure to use the right beef mince aka not too lean. You want beef with at least 18% up to 25% fat. I could only find 18% fat beef mince so I added some olive oil. This is what keeps the kebab juicy.
3 - To make a lighter version, use chicken mince instead. Add a bit more yogurt to keep it juicy so use 75g/2.6ozs of Greek yogurt rather than 45g/1.4oz.
4 - Roll the meat out between two large sheets of parchment. I use extra wide parchment for this around 40x40cms or 16x16inches.
5 - You can prep this ahead of time and roll them the day before and then bake them on the day.
6 - To serve these just like the kebab shop, use 4 sauces: bbq, tomato, garlic sauce and mayonnaise. The garlic sauce I used was by Al'Fez which they call toum but it is not fluffy like toum and suits this (toum is a fluffy Lebanese garlic sauce). I also love serving this on top of salad.
6 - The amount and type of salad depends on you but typically a kebab shop will include tomato, cucumber, sumac onion and lettuce.
Doner Kebab Recipe
An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott
Recipe Overview
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 25 minutes
Serves: 4
Ingredients Needed
400g/14oz beef mince 18-20% fat
120g/4oz lamb mince 15% fat
1 onion, grated
3 garlic cloves, crushed
3 tablespoons/45g/1.4oz Greek yogurt
1 tablespoon tomato paste
2.5 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1.5 teaspoons ground cumin seeds
1.5 teaspoons ground coriander
1.5 teaspoons sweet paprika
1 teaspoon oregano
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
To Serve
8 leaves iceberg lettuce, shredded
4 Pita bread or mountain bread
1/4 red onion, thinly sliced, sprinkled with 1/4 teaspoon sumac
2 sliced tomatoes
1 sliced Lebanese cucumber
BBQ sauce, tomato sauce, garlic sauce and mayonnaise
Step-By-Step Instructions
Step 1 BLEND - Place the onion (1 onion) and garlic (3 garlic cloves) in a large food processor and blitz until fine (Thermomix 10 seconds, speed #5, scrape down halfway). Add the beef mince (400g/14oz), lamb mince (120g/4oz), Greek yogurt (3 tablespoons/45g/1.4oz), tomato paste (1 tablespoon), salt (2.5 teaspoons), sugar (1 teaspoon), cumin (1.5 teaspoons), coriander (1.5 teaspoons), sweet paprika (1.5 teaspoons), oregano (1 teaspoon) and black pepper (1/2 teaspoon) and blitz on high speed until you get a smooth, well combined paste (Thermomix 45 seconds, speed #9).
Step 2 ROLL - Preheat oven to 200C/400F fan forced or 220C/440F conventional and line a large baking tray with parchment. Divide the mixture in 5x150g/5oz portions. Roll out 1 portion between two large sheets of parchment using a rolling pin.
The thinner you roll it, the more like doner kebab meat it will be. Remove the top layer of parchment and starting from the shorter end, roll up the meat parchment onto itself into 1 inch folds. Place on the parchment lined tray and repeat with the remaining meat portions. Bake for 25 minutes. Rest for 5 minutes, then unfurl all of the parchment packets (there will be enough meat for 4 wraps).
Optional: grill for 5 minutes to crisp edges (I don't do this as I prefer the meat juicy).
Step 3 WRAP - Heat pita bread (1 pita bread) on both sides in an oiled griddle or frypan on medium heat. Add a quarter of the meat and add sauces and top with sumac onions (1/16 red onion and 1/16 teaspoon sumac), tomato slices (1/2 tomato), cucumber slices (1/4 Lebanese cucumber) and lettuce (2 leaves). Roll up in wax paper. This also makes a fantastic sandwich filling.
Personal Note
Add Doner Kebabs to the list of things that Mr NQN likes. He never grew up eating them as he grew up a vegetarian. Also we don't get takeaway a lot but he has really been enjoying having these for lunch every day, especially with the sauces and salad.
He is a funny guy though in a lot of ways. While he is very calm and low key he also has really fixed ideas about gender norms in some ways. To him, he is really set on what is masculine and what is feminine. I don't mean that he thinks that women belong in the kitchen. He is very much a feminist. It's just that he thinks that men don't get facials and don't really look after themselves very well.
However when I give myself a facial at home, I always have to pretend that I have too much product and I call him and he happily sits there and gets a quick little facial from me. It's quite cute how happy he is to do it. And when we were changing the sheets on the bed, I only had one of my silk pillowcases left as we hadn't been able to do the laundry for a while. I use silk pillowcases as they're meant to be good for your hair and skin. I offered it to him telling him that it would be nice to sleep on.
That was about 2 months ago. He has since washed that pillow case every week but also held onto it tightly. It turns out that he simply loves sleeping on it in the same way that he loves facials!
So tell me Dear Reader, have you ever tried this doner kebab hack? And do you have strict ideas about genders?
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