Oven Baked Lemon Chicken Shawarma
Oven Baked Lemon Chicken Shawarma is the recipe you need if you’re not n in the mood to fuss too much over dinner. The solution: One Pot oven dishes! Bold Middle Eastern flavours with minimal effort! When you’re craving something deeply spiced, zesty, and satisfying but don’t want to spend ages in the kitchen, this one-pan oven dish is the answer. Juicy chicken thighs soak up a fragrant marinade of warm spices, lemon juice, and olive oil, then roast alongside colourful vegetables until perfectly tender and caramelised. The result? A flavour-packed meal with golden, spiced chicken and beautifully charred veg—practically effortless but seriously delicious.
Inspired by NYT Cooking, this dish is perfect for meal prep or an easy weeknight dinner. Serve it up with fluffy rice, warm pita, a cooling yoghurt-cucumber dip, and a fresh tomato salsa for a complete meal.
Tip: Don’t have all the spices? No worries—a shawarma spice mix works just as well, making this a flexible, foolproof recipe.
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
✔️ One-Pan Wonder – Everything bakes together, so less effort, less washing up.
✔️ Big Flavours, Minimal Effort – A zesty, spice-packed marinade does all the work.
✔️ Juicy & Tender Chicken – Oven-baked to perfection in just 40 minutes.
✔️ Versatile & Adaptable – Swap in your favourite veggies or use pre-mixed spices.
✔️ Healthy & Balanced – Lean protein, veggies, and fresh sides make it nutritious & satisfying.
Marinate, bake, and enjoy—this easy lemon chicken shawarma is about to become your new go-to! Healthy, tasty, easy and quick. Perfect!
Another great version of this dish, but using a pan instead of an oven is my Lemon Chicken Gyros which I served with Sautéed Red Peppers.
Oven Baked Lemon Chicken Shawarma
(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
Loading...Ingredients
- Chicken
- 300 - 400 g chicken thighs, left whole
- 1 tsp curcuma powder
- 1 tsp chili powder
- 2 tsp cumin powder
- 2 tsp koriander powder
- 2 tsp smoked or regular paprika powder
- Pepper & Salt
- 2 garlic cloves, grated
- 3 cm piece ginger, grated
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 4-5 lemon zest peels (sliced off with a vegetable peeler, keep whole, you'll remove them after baking)
- Juice of 1 lemon
- Vegetables
- 1 red pepper, deseeded thinly sliced
- 2 red onions, peeled & quartered
- 100 g mushrooms, halved
- Yoghurt Cucumber dip
- Half a cucumber, thinly sliced and roughly copped
- 1 cup yoghurt
- Pepper & Salt
- Olive oil
- Tomato salsa
- 3-4 tomatoes, roughly chopped
- 1 small red onion, finely chopped
- Small bunch koriander, roughly chopped
- Pepper & Salt
- 1-2 tsp honey (to taste)
- 1-2 tbsp of your favourite hot sauce (to taste)
- To serve
- Steamed white rice, flatbread or pitas
- Fresh koriander leaves, roughly chopped
Instructions
Mix all the chicken ingredients together and massage the marinade into the chicken. Cover and refrigerate for at least an hour, overnight is fine too.
Preheat the oven to 220°C.
Take the chicken out of the fridge and add the chopped vegetables, toss to coat and pour it into a baking dish, make sure the chicken is placed on top of the vegetables. Bake in the oven for 40 minutes until the chicken is cooked through and everything is just starting to char.
In the meantime make your yogurt dip, tomato salsa and cook your rice or steam, flatbreads or pitas. Yoghurt dip: mix everything together, taste and season with pepper & salt. Tomato salsa: same story!
When the chicken is done remove from the oven and let cook slightly. Discard the cooked lemon peels, they'll be a bit bitter. Using 2 forks shred the chicken into bitesize pieces and mix with all the veggies and the juices.
Serve with fresh koriander together with the yoghurt dip, tomato salsa and rice or flatbreads.
Notes
You can also use shawarma spice mix if you don't have all the spices at home, it's a very forgiving recipe!
