Make restaurant worthy homemade gyro meat and gyros -flat breads filled to bursting with garlicky, herbed, crisped strips of Greek/Lebanese meatloaf in the comfort of your own home.
You know when you get stuck thinking about a certain food and that’s all you can think about eating? For example, take gyros. I drove to the city and went out for lunch at a Mediterranean eatery with my mom, one of my sisters, and my sister-in-law a couple weeks ago.
I ordered a lamb and beef gyro platter. My vegetarian mom and sister joked that I chose that so I wouldn’t have to share with them, and it turned out that my meat-eating sister-in-law had given up meat for Lent, so there I sat in front of a salad the size of my torso.
It was brimming with an enormous quantity of thin strips of crisped gyro meat. For one brief moment, I thought, “I will never be able to eat all of this.” Then I took a bite.
At that moment, gyro meat became my new obsession. I had NO problems at all finishing off the whole salad and generous portion of gyro meat.
It was crisp on the outside and full of garlic and herbs. I couldn’t get it out of my head the rest of that day or any other day afterward.
I kept talking about it to anyone who would listen. I mentioned it far too frequently to my husband. I certainly couldn’t and wouldn’t drive to the city every time I wanted one.
Homemade Gyros
That was out of the question. The only solution was to make homemade gyro meat and make it in vast enough quantities that I could convince myself I wouldn’t have to go without it ever again.
The process of creating a restaurant worthy homemade gyro meat version of this classic presented a couple of hurdles. I wanted to get that super fine, dense texture and keep it moist.
I bought lamb and beef, because I wanted my homemade gyro meat to match the gyros I had eaten. Then I combined them with goodly amounts of garlic and herbs.
The super fine texture was an easy, if weird fix… After letting the meats, garlic, and herbs rest in the refrigerator for a few hours to let the flavours mingle and marry, I put it through the food processor in batches, pulsing until the meat was a tacky, thick paste.
This I pressed down into loaf pans a little at a time to be sure I wasn’t leaving air pockets. I put the loaf pans in a larger roasting pan, poured boiling water in the outer roasting pan to come about two-thirds of the way up the sides of the loaf pans and popped it in the oven to cook for about an hour.
When the internal temperature of the loaves reached 165°F, I removed the loaf pans from the roasting pan, poured off all the excess fat that had built up around the loaves, then laid foil wrapped bricks directly on the surface of the meat – à la Alton Brown- to compress it into that super fine texture that I loved so much from the restaurant gyros.
I removed the bricks, then took the loaves from the pans, wrapped them tightly in plastic wrap, and refrigerated them until they were cool and firm. This was my key to getting the thin slices from the loaves.
When it came time to eat (and that could NOT come soon enough), I cut thin strips of my homemade gyro meat, then browned them in a reasonable amount (okay, indecent amount) of ghee. The smell was driving me wild.
Garlicky, oniony, herbed, beef and lamb meatloaf crisping in what was essentially browned butter? Ugh. It’s making me crazy hungry just to think about it now.
My house smelled like a Mediterranean eatery! The meat came out of the frying pan and was given a brief cool down rest before being piled into a flat-bread pita with some salad greens, chopped cherry tomatoes, sweet onion slices, cucumber yogurt sauce, crumbled Feta cheese, smashed Greek olives, and a drizzle of Greek dressing.
I folded it up, wrapped it in foil to keep all those mouthwatering components together and sunk my teeth into one of the best gyros I’ve ever had. I had done it.
With a little planning, I could have them whenever I wanted. As for the guys, they’re now just as obsessed as I am. They ask for the crispy meatloaf strips at regular intervals. I am more than happy to oblige.
Cook’s Notes:
-Do not be deterred by the length of time it takes to make homemade gyro meat. The majority of that time is “wait time” and the payoff is so enormously gratifying.
-It might seem fussy to chop the onion finely then squeeze it in a towel to remove excess moisture. This is, though, a big part of the final texture of the finished gyro loaf. Don’t skip it.
-You can choose to use all beef or all lamb. It will change the flavour and texture of the end product, of course. That’s okay if you prefer all one or the other!
-This recipe makes a large amount. You can certainly halve the quantities. Keep in mind that it’s a bit of a lengthy process to create this and it freezes well. Having a frozen gyro loaf at your beck and call is not a bad thing.
-You can opt to broil the thin strips of gyro meat until crispy, but I prefer the flavour of browning them in ghee (1st choice), butter (2nd choice), or olive oil (3rd choice).
-The foil wrapped bricks laid on top of the cooked loaves of homemade gyro meat are not absolutely crucial. They do go a long way to compressing the finished loaves into that fine, dense texture that is so prized in restaurant gyros, though.
Can’t find a brick or don’t want to bother? It’ll still be super tasty!
Gyro Recipe
To Make the Gyros:
Homemade Gyro Meat and Gyros
Rate RecipeIngredients
For the Gyro Meat:
- 2 pounds ground beef between 80/20 and 90/10
- 2 pounds ground lamb
- 1 large onion peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks
- 2 tablespoons minced garlic
- 1 tablespoon dried oregano
- 1 tablespoon dried thyme
- 2 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
- 2 teaspoons kosher salt
- 2 teaspoons ground black pepper
- 1 teaspoon dried rosemary
For the Gyros:
- Gyro meat fully cooled
- ghee or extra virgin olive oil
- flatbread pitas
- mixed salad greens
- cucumber yogurt sauce
- halved cherry tomatoes or chopped large tomatoes
- thinly sliced sweet onions
- crumbled Feta cheese
- Optional but tasty: Greek dressing and chopped or smashed Greek olives
Instructions
To Make the Gyro Meat:
- Place the onion chunks in the food processor and blitz them until they are super finely chopped. Scrape into the center of a clean tea or flour sack towel, twist and squeeze it over the sink to remove any extra moisture. Use your hands to combine them with the remaining gyro meat ingredients. Cover with plastic wrap and let the mixture rest for at least 1 hour but up to overnight in the refrigerator.
- Preheat the oven to 325°F and bring a pot of water to a boil.
- Working in batches, pulse the meat mixture for a minute, or until it is a tacky, thick paste. Press it a little at a time into the loaf pans, taking care to eliminate any air pockets. You should have enough meat to fill 2 standard bread loaf pans. Press down firmly on the surface of the meat to even it out. Place a wet kitchen towel on the bottom of a large roasting pan and position the loaf pans on top of it. Pour the boiling water into the roasting pan. It should be 2/3 of the way up the outsides of the loaf pans. Carefully transfer the roasting pan into the oven and bake for 50-70 minutes, or until the meat measures 165°F on an instant read thermometer inserted into the center of the loaf.
- Carefully remove the loaf pans from the roasting pan and pour off any fat that accumulated. Put the loaf pan on a heat-proof surface (a cooling rack or a pan on top of the oven) and place a foil wrapped brick directly on the surface of the meat. Let the meat rest like this for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, remove the brick, run a knife around the edge of the loaves, then gently turn the loaves out. Wrap them tightly with plastic wrap and chill for several hours or overnight to allow them to chill and firm for easier slicing.
To Make the Gyros:
- Unwrap the gyro loaf and use a sharp knife to cut long strips no thicker than 1/4-inch. Melt at least 2 teaspoons of ghee or olive oil over medium heat in a heavy-bottomed frying pan. Lay the strips down into the ghee or olive oil and fry for at least 1 1/2 minutes on each side, using tongs or a small flexible spatula to flip them, or until they are crisped and browned to your liking. Gently transfer them to a plate to cool briefly, then assemble in your preferred order with the remaining gyro ingredients on a gently warmed flat-bread pita. Fold, wrap in foil to help hold it together, and dig in!
Nutrition
Nutritional information is an estimate and provided to you as a courtesy. You should calculate the nutritional information with the actual ingredients used in your recipe using your preferred nutrition calculator.
did you make this recipe?
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This recipe for Homemade Gyros was originally published March 2014, updated April 2019 with video and improved notes.
Reader's Thoughts...
John jamieson says
You scare me so bad with that knife!
Almost everything about your cutting technique is wrong.
Learning good technique will keep you safe and improve your cred.
All the best!
Rebecca says
Hi John- Relax, man. 🙂 That’s a friend of mine doing the cutting. I sometimes get help with my videos, and honestly, I’m okay with showing a wide range of knife ability. Most people can probably relate with it and I’m happy about that. If you’d like to judge my actual knife skills, you can poke around on the website and see other videos that feature it. For instance, the melting sweet potatoes video does, even if it is at warp speed. But all that aside, it’s not super nice to pop into someone else’s house (my website is my virtual house) and critique their decorating skills, so I’m not sure why you’d do that here.
Who? Mike jones says
Cucumber yogurt sauce ??? Lol it’s called tzatziki sauce!! ??
Rebecca says
I am aware of that, but not everyone else is 🙂 I wouldn’t say no to raita on my gyros, either, and that is also a cucumber yogurt sauce.
mary t says
Thanks for this recipe! I cannot wait to try it. I
I’m soooo excited.
Nicholas Stamboulidis says
Stopped reading when I saw he ground up the meat. NO -just plain wrong. That’s not how it’s done in Greece unless you’re eating at a gas station run by a Turk. Meat is sliced and stacked with a fat layer mixed in between or on top if you have real vertical rotisserie.
Rebecca says
Hi Nicholas- “He” is a she, and the she is me. At no point did I claim it was authentic, but you might have learned that if you continued reading instead of shutting down when I did something that strayed from a tradition that isn’t mine. I did say it was good and worthy of sharing/tastes similar to the ones I’ve tried here in Western New York. And while YOU may have a real vertical rotisserie on hand, I do not, so I do what I can to approximate the taste of the ones I’ve had in restaurants here. I can’t confirm or deny your aspersions on Greek gas station gyros, I’d be pretty thrilled if gas stations near me served gyros. 🙂 Have a nice day!
dood says
“ground up the meat. NO -just plain wrong. Meat is sliced and stacked with a fat layer mixed in between or on top if you have real vertical rotisserie.”
If you want to be that picky about it, you should also mention that gyro in Greece is most often pork. Not lamb/beef mixtures.
Outside of Greece, in most of the ME and in EU and US, gyro is a ground product. Shawarma is generally still made in the traditional sliced-and-stacked style you mentioned.
dood says
Hi Rebecca – I wanted to add that I’ve made this recipe several times (variations on spice and the like, and sometimes 1 pound each ground beef/pork/lamb because my wife is (in my opinion) a bit overly sensitive to the flavor of lamb)).
I’ve always been very happy with it and am glad you posted it. The batch in the oven right now is an experiment on hand mixing instead of using the food processor. Hopefully I mixed it enough but as I smoothed it into the loaf pan I can tell it might have a bit too much texture (not mixed enough).
I just really hate cleaning this meat paste out of my food processor!
If this one turns out crumbly in texture, I think next time I’ll try the stand mixer and paddle approach. It’s a lot easier to clean.
Thanks again!
Rebecca says
Thanks so much, Dood, for taking the time to rate the recipe and let me know you love it! I don’t blame you for trying to avoid cleaning the “meat sludge” from the food processor. It’s not a fun thing to do. Thankfully, the recipe yields a great deal, so the need to do that can be mitigated by large batches all made at once. 🙂 Do let me know you it turns out both by hand and in the stand mixer. 🙂
Chakayla says
Definitely edible but just doesn’t taste anything like a gyro you’d get at a fair or festival sadly. Took a lot longer than another recipe I tried and just didn’t hit the spot. I followed this recipe to a T. Thank you for posting this, just wanted to put my opinion!
Kate says
I have been making this gyro meat combo for several years from another website. Great mixture. I do add more oregano. I don’t run it through a food processor once mixed nor do I do the brick thing. I thought I was genius by wrapping the cooked loaf in foil and letting it sit all day in fridge before slicing and pan frying. I don’t even use oil for frying as there is enough fat in the meat to allow a quick sizzle and browning. Basically I prep everything I can the night before including the tzaziki sauce so the flavors can meld. Bake the meat in the morning and after work pan fry assemble gyros and enjoy! I don’t even use pita as we can’t get good pita so I use flour tortillas. I live in California near the Oregon border so no Greek restaurant no Chinese and marginal Mexican. I’ve learned to make my own… I’m making tonight for a party. I Love Gyros!
Rebecca says
I’m so glad you love these, Kate!
Valerie says
Would love recipe
Rebecca says
Thank you! There is a printable version of the recipe in the body of this post 🙂
Thu says
Needs more salt. I used a tablespoon of kosher salt and it was so bland. I’d suggest using Himalayan sea salt for extra saltiness. Other then that the meat turned out pretty good. Next time I’m going to pulse the spices til they’re finely ground up to evenly distribute the flavor. I also mistakenly cooked it without draining the onion which didnt really affect the flavor. I also used the whole spice blend for three pounds of meat. I used one pound of lamb and two pounds of ground elk. My husband goes hunting so I used what I had. It came out fabulously! Thanks for the recipe! It was easy to follow!
Rebecca says
I’m glad you liked it, Thu! And salt is so subjective, I always err on the side of a reduced salt content because it’s far easier to add salt at the table than it is to remove it. 🙂
Ashish says
I love using lamb in gyros! This looks wonderful and perfect for lunch!
Dave says
I read reviews and didn’t see this covered so not sure what I am missing. I became lost with incorporate the mixture, onions, with the remaining Gyro meat ingredients. I assume ingredients is the other spices. I didn’t see at what point you mix the spices into the meat but assume after you greated the meat paste or while you are creating the paste.
BottomLine question is when do you mix the onions and other ingredients into the meat
Rebecca says
Hey Dave- You add the onions and spices and meat all together at once. It’s in the first paragraph in the printable part of the recipe. Here’s the instruction:
“Place the onion chunks in the food processor and blitz them until they are super finely chopped. Scrape into the center of a clean tea or flour sack towel, twist and squeeze it over the sink to remove any extra moisture. Use your hands to combine them with the remaining gyro meat ingredients. Cover with plastic wrap and let the mixture rest for at least 1 hour but up to overnight in the refrigerator.”
Happy Gyro Making!
Laurie says
I am sad. I followed the recipe exactly , spent a lot of time.
Not good. At all. Perhaps my gyro memories are different . Grew up with nyc gyros. A tasty treat. This bland and dry
Rebecca says
Hi Laurie-
Without being in the kitchen with you, it’s a little difficult to know what went wrong for you. That it was dry makes me wonder if the meat you used was super lean, perhaps, though… As for bland, if you try it again, I’d advise bumping up the spices. Everyone has different spice/herb preferences, and it sounds like you like it with oomph.
Jessica says
I can’t wait to make this! I found lamb on clearance and have been dying to turn it into gyros.
Couple questions:
Can I use a glass bread loaf pan or does it need to be metal?
Where do you source your lamb? It seems tricky to find it affordably, but maybe that’s just California.
Rebecca says
Hi Jessica- I’m so glad you’re excited and those are some great questions.
First, I don’t advise a glass loaf pan mainly because you’re going to be pressing down on it, and that makes me nervous with glass and heat combined. I’d feel much more sanguine about pressing down on metal. 🙂
As for sourcing lamb, I keep a watch at the stores. It doesn’t go on sale often (mostly just around Easter) but when it does, I snap it up. I think I got a good deal on it at Aldi one time. I vaguely remember getting a boneless leg of lamb for $3.00/lb ish and grinding it myself for gyros. 🙂
Denise says
What type of onion for the gyros meat?
Rebecca says
Hey Denise! Red onion or yellow onion will be fine!
Kathryn says
OK, I’m lazy. IMade 1/2 recipe, used all lamb , chopped onion by hand, added 2 eggs and a splash of oat fiber. Mixed it all with my hands and made 32 meatballs, which I baked at 400 degrees for about 15-20 minutes. Wow. The flavor is great! Will definitely make again. These will go in the freezer and I know 4 meatballs will make a serving, for portion control.
Judith says
This sounds sooo good! I am definitely making it. But I was thinking about chilling it in the fridge in a cylinder shaped container, then… if it would get solid enough to stay in one piece for cooking…. I can cook it standing up in my cuisinart rotisserie oven! It actually would spin round and round slowly searing the outside just like those huge ones they cut meat off of in authentic restaurants. But will it just collapse and be too soft, or will chilling several hours firm it enough? If this works it will be incredible!
Mandy @ South Your Mouth says
I can’t wait to try this! Gyros are my weakness!
Michael O'Hara says
Nice job with this recipe! I’d been stumbling around the internet looking for this exact prep method and seasoning for the gyro meat. Made a half-batch the first time through and it is a true winner. Did the water bath and followed the directions to a T. Only minor change was to cut some rendered beef fat into the mix; the ground beef I used was a bit lean and wanted to make sure it stayed moist. Thanks for this recipe, I’m a fan.
Rebecca says
I’m so glad you love it, Michael! It’s about time for me to whip up another batch of this!
Michael O'Hara says
Okay…a couple two-pound test batches of this wonderful recipe and I’m ready to go full baa-moo and make about eight pounds of it this weekend. Love the bricks to pack it down after the cook and agree that the spices can be futzed with to give it a little more kick. But this recipe, through two different batches and two different cooks is a peach.
One burning question — since last time I smoked my food processor turning the mix into pulp before it got packed into pans for the water-bath cook:
Have you had any luck just combining the uncooked seasoned lamb/beef mix in a stand mixer with the paddle attachment? Then just mixing and scraping for a few minutes to incorporate everything? Seems like it might work and speed up the process. I’ll be trying it this weekend.
Your way in the food processor worked perfectly, btw. But it killed my 8 cup Cuisinart food processor lol.
Rebecca says
Ooooh. I am sorry about your food processor! Maybe do that in a couple of batches instead of one giant batch? Or if you have a meat grinder attachment for your stand mixer you could toss it through there a couple of times? You really want to work that spice into the meat. And I am so glad you’re thinking of adjusting the spices to your own preference. I like to really jack up the oregano and marjoram for more oomph, personally.
Beth says
Another answer to the texture issue is to take the loaf and whip it against a bowl many many times to compact it before baking it and get your butcher to grind the meat three times the whipping it against a bowl forces all the air out of the loaf.
David G says
Unbelievable! We were completely blown away!
Thank you very much for sharing this wonderful recipe.
Tim says
I’ve made this several times and it comes out perfect! I haven’t been to my local gyro shop since. Thank you from the bottom of my stomach!
Rebecca says
You are VERY welcome, Tim. I’m so glad I could scratch the gyro itch!
andrew J allen says
I think your recipe might lack on the flavor of herbs, for two pounds of meat ( farm raised 1 lamb and 1 beef)I table spoon each of rosemary marjoram oregano garlic powder…. obviously salt and pepper….however I also use some cumin, mint, allspice and sumac/lemon juice….It’s like visiting Lebanon and Greece in the same meal….best gyro meat that I have ever had…try it. As with all food it depends on the quality of the ingredients. Yours might bee top notch and taste just fine…..so not at all trying to knock it