How to Make Chef John's Pulled Chicken Shawarma Sandwich

All Recipes

Craving bold, street-food flavor at home? Learn how to make Chef John’s Pulled Chicken Shawarma Sandwich, packed with warm spices, juicy chicken, and tangy yogurt sauce—all piled into soft, toasty flatbread. In this video, Chef John walks you through the marinade, roasting method, and sandwich assembly for a dish that’s easy enough for weeknights but impressive enough for guests.

Transcript

00:01Hello, this is Chef John from Foodwishes.com with Pulled Chicken Shawarma Sandwich.

00:08That's right, if you know what you're doing, and by the end of this video you will,

00:13you can make a pulled chicken that's every bit as succulent and satisfying as pulled pork.

00:18And when you factor in the always irresistible shawarma spice, this, my friends, is a sandwich you're not going to want to miss.

00:25And to get started in a small bowl, we'll mix together some salt, some cumin, some sumac, some smoked paprika,

00:33some chili powder, some freshly ground black pepper, some garlic powder, some turmeric, some ground cloves, some cayenne pepper,

00:43and then last but not least some ground cinnamon.

00:46And then we'll go ahead and mix that up with a freakishly small wooden spoon.

00:50And our shawarma spice blend is done.

00:53And once that's set, we'll take a big old chicken and transfer it into a big old pot.

00:58And I think the bigger the better, and this one was almost five pounds.

01:02And then to that we will add some sliced garlic and onion, followed by about half of our shawarma spice mix.

01:08Okay, we're actually going to use that three times.

01:11Alright, once to cook the chicken, once to season the chicken.

01:15And then we'll also sprinkle a little bit over our finished sandwich.

01:18But anyway, once about half's been transferred in, we'll top that with a quart of cold fresh water,

01:23which is only going to come up the chicken about halfway, which might not seem like enough, but trust me, it's going to be fine.

01:30And what we'll do is place this over high heat, and we will wait for it to come to a boil,

01:35at which point we'll back our heat down to low, or somewhere between low and medium low.

01:40And we will cover this.

01:42And we will let it simmer gently for 20 minutes.

01:45And once our timer rings, we will uncover this.

01:48And we will very carefully, and very deliberately, and pretty slowly turn it over,

01:53so the breast side is down.

01:55And then we'll go ahead and cover this back up.

01:58And we'll continue to let it simmer for another 20 minutes,

02:01before we repeat the exact same thing.

02:04Okay, we'll uncover it, and very carefully flip it back over.

02:08And we will cover it up and give it another 20 minutes,

02:11for a grand total of one hour,

02:13at which point our chicken should be cooked through.

02:16And at this point, we're going to very carefully transfer it into a nice big bowl.

02:21And by the way, as long as this cooks for an hour,

02:23you can just flip it once if you want.

02:25All right, as you know, I'm paid by the step, so I go for the extra flip.

02:29And what we'll do is turn off the heat under our pot.

02:32And we will let our chicken cool on the counter for about 20 to 30 minutes,

02:36or until it's cool enough to handle.

02:38And once it is, we will handle it.

02:41And by handle, I mean pull off all the big chunks of meat,

02:44and transfer those into a bowl.

02:46And as you've probably heard me say before,

02:48we can get 95% of the meat off a chicken in like 2 minutes.

02:52But to pick that last 5% off the bones,

02:55it's going to take you like 10 minutes.

02:57So I say we don't do it.

02:59And we just leave all those little scraps attached,

03:01since what we're going to do is transfer that back into our pot,

03:04and make a really, really rich broth,

03:07in which we're going to finish our pulled chicken.

03:10And after we transfer it in,

03:11I like to rinse out the bowl with some cold fresh water,

03:14so as not to waste any of that goodness,

03:17and also give us a little more liquid to work with.

03:19Since what we'll do is bring this back up to a simmer on high,

03:23and then reduce our heat down to low,

03:25and simmer this gently for at least an hour.

03:28But if you can, try to go 2 hours.

03:31And while that's happening, we can take the meat we removed,

03:34and we can go ahead and shred that up into smaller pieces.

03:37But we don't have to go too, too small.

03:39Since as you'll see, when we move into final production,

03:42this meat's going to kind of shred apart naturally.

03:45And because of that, I don't want to start off too small at this point.

03:49And what we'll do is transfer our chicken meat into the fridge until we need it.

03:53And we'll wait for our chicken broth to finish simmering.

03:56And after about 2 hours or so, mine looked like this.

03:59And then what we'll do is pull that off the heat,

04:02and very carefully strain it.

04:04And then we'll eventually transfer everything back into the pot.

04:07Oh, and I should have mentioned already,

04:09at no point should you skim any of that chicken fat off the top of the broth.

04:13Alright, that stuff's going to be key to achieving the texture we want in the final product.

04:18But anyway, once all that's been transferred in,

04:21what we'll do is turn our heat up to high,

04:23and we will bring our broth and the aforementioned fat up to a boil.

04:27And we will continue to boil until it's reduced by about half.

04:32And no, I don't want you to measure.

04:34I just want you to do it by eye.

04:36And that's probably going to take about 15 minutes or so.

04:39But do not go by time.

04:41Go by appearance.

04:42And when the pot looks like this, and you think you've reduced it by about half,

04:47we'll reduce our heat down to medium,

04:49and we'll transfer our chicken in and give it a good stir.

04:52Oh, and don't worry if it seems like you have too much liquid at this point.

04:56Okay, it kind of looks like that.

04:58But as you'll see, once we finish this final step,

05:01we will have just the right amount of juiciness.

05:04And all this final step involves is to continue cooking this stirring occasionally for about 15 minutes,

05:10at which point our mixture should look something like this.

05:13And what we'll do is grab a spoon so we can give it a taste,

05:17sampling both the meat and the broth.

05:19And what we'll do is season this up with as much salt as you think it needs.

05:23Plus, and just as importantly, we'll season it up with more of our shawarma spice mix.

05:28And we will stir that in and give it another taste.

05:31And I tend to use a pretty heavy hand here,

05:34but exactly how much you add is going to be up to you.

05:37And as you can see, as promised, that chicken is starting to break down and shred apart,

05:42which is exactly what we want.

05:45Since in its shredded state, it's going to be very absorbent,

05:48and it's going to soak in all that amazingly flavorful broth,

05:51not to mention that chicken fat we did not skim.

05:55And that's it. Once we have that seasoned and spiced exactly how we want,

05:59we'll reduce our heat to low,

06:01and we will finish with the last ingredient,

06:03which for me is the freshly squeezed juice from a half lemon.

06:07Although you certainly could add the whole lemon,

06:09if you want this a little more lemony and acidic.

06:12And that's it. Our pulled chicken shawarma is ready to build a sandwich with.

06:16And no, I'm not going with pita bread.

06:19I need something bigger and more absorbent.

06:21So I toasted a sandwich roll in the oven with a little bit of olive oil,

06:24and for me, the recommended amount of meat is somewhere between too much and way too much.

06:30And then as far as finishing touches go,

06:33I'm going to garnish this with some finely sliced red onion,

06:36followed by a nice drizzle of garlicky tahini sauce,

06:39which, yes, we have a recipe for.

06:42And then I think we'll also do a nice extra sprinkling of our spice blend

06:45before finishing up with some fresh cilantro.

06:48And of course, just like regular chicken shawarma,

06:51there are lots of other things you could put on this sandwich,

06:54like maybe some lettuce or tomatoes or peppers or pickled vegetables.

06:58So as usual, that's up to you.

07:01I mean, you are after all the Jeff Bridges of your pulled chicken shawarma sandwiches.

07:05And that's it. I'm going to pick this up and go in for a nice big bite.

07:09Or at least that was a plan.

07:12But I ended up taking two or three bites,

07:14which were nothing short of amazing.

07:17As I said in the intro, this has almost the exact texture of pulled pork,

07:21thanks to that very simple and very effective cooking method.

07:25And besides the incredible texture,

07:27as you might imagine, this tasted very much like chicken shawarma,

07:31which I've had many times in many, many different formats,

07:34but never is a pulled meat sandwich like this.

07:37And I really could not have been happier with how it came out.

07:40Although my bun did want to keep popping open,

07:43which I thought was just because it thought it was so beautiful.

07:46It didn't want me to hide the inside, which could have been part of it.

07:49But also, I think the sandwich was trying to tell me,

07:52put a little more of that garlicky tahini sauce on

07:55and maybe one more pinch of spice.

07:57And if I've said it once, I've said it a hundred times.

08:00Always listen to your food.

08:03But anyway, that's it.

08:04What I'm calling a pulled chicken shawarma sandwich.

08:07And this could obviously be adapted to make some incredible sliders.

08:11Or if you're not into bread, just serve it over some rice

08:14with some tahini drizzled over and all the other fixings.

08:18But whether you do that or make this as shown,

08:21I absolutely loved how this came out.

08:23And I really do hope you give it a try soon.

08:26So please follow the links below for the ingredient amounts,

08:30a printable written recipe, and much more info as usual.

08:33And as always, enjoy.

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended