Spiced Lamb Gyros with Tzatziki
See it adapt to allergies, servings & swaps.
Per serving 855 kcal · 53g protein · 52g carbs · 46g fat
Ingredients
- 454 g ground lamb
- 1 count small onion, finely grated and squeezed dry
- 5 count garlic cloves, grated (3 for the lamb, 2 for the tzatziki)
- 1½ tsp kosher salt, for the lamb
- 1½ tsp dried oregano
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 1 tsp ground coriander
- ¾ tsp black pepper, for the lamb
- ½ tsp paprika
- ½ tsp dried rosemary, crushed
- ¼ tsp dried thyme
- ¼ tsp ground cinnamon
- 200 g Greek yogurt
- 1 count cucumber, grated and squeezed dry
- 15 ml lemon juice
- ½ tsp salt, for the tzatziki
- ¼ tsp black pepper, for the tzatziki
- 2 count pita breads
- 1 count tomato, diced
- ½ count small onion, finely chopped, for serving
Steps
- Make the tzatziki first so it has time to sit. Grate 1 cucumber on the large holes of a box grater, then wring it out in a clean towel or squeeze it dry by the handful — a wet cucumber makes a thin sauce. Grate 2 garlic cloves. Stir both into 200 g Greek yogurt with 15 ml lemon juice, ½ tsp salt, and ¼ tsp black pepper. Refrigerate until you assemble.
- Heat the oven to 375°F (190°C) and line a sheet pan with parchment.
- Grate 1 small onion on the same box grater, then squeeze it dry in a towel or a fistful of paper towel. Keep the onion, lose the water.
- Mix the spice blend in a small bowl: 1½ tsp kosher salt, 1½ tsp dried oregano, 1 tsp ground cumin, 1 tsp ground coriander, ¾ tsp black pepper, ½ tsp paprika, ½ tsp crushed dried rosemary, ¼ tsp dried thyme, and ¼ tsp ground cinnamon.
- Put 454 g ground lamb in a bowl with the squeezed onion, 3 grated garlic cloves, and the spice blend. Mix with your hands for a full minute. The mixture goes from loose to tacky and starts holding its own shape — that is what lets you slice it later.
- Turn the lamb out onto the parchment and press it into an even slab about ½ inch (1 cm) thick. Even thickness matters more than what shape you end up with.
- Roast 25–30 minutes, until the slab is firm to the touch, browned at the edges, and sitting in its own rendered fat. Let it rest on the pan for 5 minutes.
- Cut the slab into strips about ½ inch (1 cm) wide. Spread them out on the sheet pan in a single layer, cut faces up, and put the pan back in under the broiler for 4–6 minutes, until the edges darken and go crisp. Watch it — the strips are thin and they go from browned to burnt in under a minute.
- Dice 1 tomato and finely chop ½ small onion. Warm 2 pitas in a dry skillet or straight over a gas flame, about 30 seconds a side, until they are soft and blistered in spots.
- Build each one: pita, a spoonful of tzatziki, the crisped lamb, tomato and onion, then more tzatziki over the top. Fold and eat while the lamb is still crisp.
That is the whole thing.
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Restaurant gyro meat comes off a vertical spit that has been turning for hours. The home version that actually gets you there is one sheet pan, used twice: mix ground lamb with grated onion and the spice blend, press it into a thin slab, and roast it. Then cut the slab into strips, spread them back across the same pan, and run them under the broiler until the edges crisp. Browned outside, seasoned all the way through, and it slices instead of crumbling.
Two things carry this recipe. The first is grating the onion and squeezing it dry — grated, it disappears into the meat and seasons every bite; diced, it stays as chunks of onion, and the water it gives up steams the slab instead of letting it roast. The second is mixing the meat longer than feels reasonable. A full minute by hand turns the mixture tacky, and that tackiness is the only reason the slab holds together under a knife.
The tzatziki here has no dill. Dill is the traditional finish and it belongs in a lot of tzatziki, but cucumber, garlic, and lemon in 200 g of yogurt already tastes like tzatziki, and skipping it is one less half-bunch of herbs going soft in the drawer.
On the plate
Two gyros, one plate, tzatziki spilling out the open end. The lamb is the whole dish, so the strips go in warm and go in last — sitting them under cold yogurt for ten minutes undoes the crisping you just did.
Do not pour off the fat the slab renders. The strips go back onto the same pan and crisp in it, and that is most of where the browning comes from — a clean pan under the broiler gives you dry meat.
Leftovers
- Store the lamb strips in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days. They come back under the broiler in 3–4 minutes, or in a dry skillet 2 minutes a side. Reheating in the microwave gives you the meat without the edges.
- Tzatziki keeps 4 days and gets better on day two, once the garlic settles down. If it weeps, pour off the liquid and stir it back together.
- The cooked slab freezes well for 2 months, whole or sliced. Thaw overnight in the fridge before crisping. Pita does not freeze — buy what you will use.
A pound of ground lamb is a two-person amount, and most gyro recipes are written for six. That gap is where the waste starts — you shop for a recipe scaled to a bigger household than yours, and the extra sits in the fridge until it goes. Eatsë scales each recipe to the number of people actually eating, builds the grocery list by aisle from what that comes to, and suggests the week's dinners so the fridge stare has an answer. You still choose, and you still cook.
More from the recipe library — the Greek lemon chicken with spinach and feta is the same set of flavors on a lighter night.
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