Recipe: Gyros

Well, I almost did a post three days in a row...I started writing this last night but then I got too sleepy, and since I haven't been getting a ton of sleep recently I figured I should go to bed early. Granted, I still only got (barely) 7 hours, but its better than the 5-6 I've been getting for the past week or so. Anyways! Now that I'm done ranting about nothing, today I have a new recipe, and I hope it brings some joy to dinner for someone out there other than me!

Does anyone else out there have that one Gyro place that you just love to go to, even though you know damn well that it's not the healthiest option? I most definitely do. I actually had never eaten a gyro until about a year ago, but I immediately loved it. A few months ago my love and I found a really good gyro place down the street from us. Tender meat, tasty tzatziki, and amazing hummus and spicy feta fries on the side.

Well eating at this place inspired me to make a healthier version of a gyro for us to eat. I was actually at the gym getting my stair master on and watching food network when I had the realization that I needed to figure out a way to make healthy gyros. I did some recipe searching because I had absolutely no idea what kind of flavors went into making a gyro. The seasoning tended to be pretty consistent, so I just went from there. It actually wasn't very hard to recreate this into a healthier meal. I used very thinly sliced chicken for the meat, fat free Greek yogurt for the tzatziki, and Joseph's pitas for the bread. This is my second time making it now, and I have to say that I'm very happy with it.

Here's a preview of what our dinner looked like:

Greek gyro dinner

Serves 2

Recipe adapted from: Lizzy217 @ All Recipes

• 2 whole wheat pitas (I used Joseph's)
• 6-8 oz boneless skinless chicken breast (I used 3 large tenders)
• 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 2 tbsp fat free, reduced sodium chicken broth
• 1 tsp oil of choice (I used the oil in our jar if marinated artichoke hearts)
• 1/4 tsp ground black pepper
• 1/4 tsp dried marjoram 
• 1/8 tsp dried thyme
• 1/8 tsp dried basil
• 1/8 tsp dried oregano
• 1/4 cup thinly sliced yellow onion
• 1/2 cup fresh spinach
• 2 TBSP Fat free feta cheese crumbles (or more if you'd like)

1. In order to slice the chicken super thinly (like gyro meat), I've found it's easiest to work with slightly defrosted frozen chicken. You want the chicken to be defrosted enough to cut easy, but still frozen enough that cutting very thin sliced is easy. For the amount of chicken we used, we defrosted it for about 2 minutes in the microwave on the defrost setting.
2. Once slightly defrosted cut into super thin slices length wise. It should look like this:
   
3. To a bowl add: sliced chicken, sliced onion, balsamic vinegar, chicken broth, and all spices. This is what your bowl should look like:
   
4. Allow to marinade for at least 30 minutes. (I let it marinade while I was at the gym, so about 1.5 hrs.)
5. After letting it marinade, add to a skillet on high heat. It should only take 5 minutes or so to cook since the chicken is sliced so thin. As soon as the chicken is no longer pink make sure to turn off the heat so as to not over cook. The chicken should come out super tender!
6. Warm up pita bread in microwave for 30 seconds.
7. To assemble: add 1/4 cup fresh spinach to each pita bread. Lay out your chicken on top of spinach. Add feta cheese crumbles and tzatziki sauce. For the tzatziki sauce I used Jenn's recipe from Peas and Crayons (I didn't change a thing...except I didn't have dill so I added dried basil instead...it was delicious!)

Tzatziki sauce

The assembled gyro

On the side I added my home made chili garlic hummus with carrots and cucumber, plus a Greek style salad. 

Also, here is the calculated nutrition info for this recipe as I have listed the ingredients I used :)

Enjoy loves <3


With love,


Tuffy