You Can Make Doner Kebabs At Home With This Easy Technique

When traveling in Europe, doner is the supreme late-night food option. Giant kebabs are made with a vertical, rotating spit, but, unfortunately, very few of us can afford to keep one in our kitchen. However, provided you've got some parchment paper and a working oven, you may not need one!

Doner kebab usually involves spiking seasoned filet after filet on a vertical spit then letting it slowly rotate, exposing only one half at a time to high, radiant heat. This slowly cooks exterior layers cooks slice off and serve, exposing rawer portions to the heat and beginning the process all over again. However, flattening ground meat, like lamb or beef, into layers no thicker than a couple of centimeters gets you the same flat shreds with less work and the same amount of cooking time. To get that same halal cart taste, however, you have to give your meat a final crisping in the oven, imparting that roasted flavor it would usually get from a spit.

This is also a great opportunity to add a little extra seasoning like some citrus juice, vinegar, or an extra sprinkle of salt. You should then have the perfect protein to fill a sandwich, lay on a salad, or just eat straight from the bowl. However, any good doner is naked without some extra fixings, so be sure to stock up on quality pita bread and plenty of toppings for the real experience. 

Doner should always be the star of the show, but it has so much seasoning that it's pretty difficult to overshadow it. This gives you a great opportunity to include some flavorful fixings, wrapping the whole thing up in the perfect bread that soaks up all that taste.

Most doner fixings lean heavily on acid to brighten up the heavy taste of ground meat. For vegetables, anything from a vinegar-based coleslaw to chopped tomatoes works perfectly fine. Try also to include a high water vegetable like cucumber for some extra crispness and fresh taste. For sauce, find recipes heavy on Greek yogurt and lemon, two ingredients you can incorporate into your meat so you'll have complementary flavors. Sprinkle in a little dill and you have something fresh, creamy, and herbaceous that pairs beautifully with crisped meat.

Nothing ruins a good doner like flimsy, flavorless pita bread. You want something wheaty and fluffy, but also high in gluten so it stretches rather than falls apart. Whole wheat options typically have more flavor and gluten so should hold up to both the flavor and heaviness of a lot of meat. If you want to change the sandwich game, slice off the top portion of the bread, flip it upside down, then insert it back into the pocket. This gives you two layers to support even the heftiest doner sandwich and minimizes any chances of juices or sauce leaking out.