Beef shawarma can be made at home with great success using my simple recipe and tips. Shawarma is a classic street food in Lebanon and throughout the Middle East, made on a turning spit. Stovetop beef shawarma at home is just as good!

I love asking around the family for their experiences and ideas when I start developing a new recipe—sometimes the response is as it was when I started on the homemade beef shawarma quest: “That’s not a homemade food, Maureen.”

Never did I meet a recipe challenge like that without getting more than a little excited to prove an idea wrong (or, my idea right!). Several methods, flavors, and ways to eat later, I now present a recipe for beef shawarma that gives us a delectable shawarma experience that’s easy to make at home. Read on!

What is Beef Shawarma?

Shawarma is similar to Greek gyro in its preparation: highly seasoned, marinated thinly sliced beef, chicken, or lamb is layered tightly on a vertical spit. The spit turns with a heat panel behind it, cooking the shawarma to juicy perfection. The meat is cut with a sharp knife, vertically, and the tender layers fall to a plate or piece of flatbread for a wrap. Who’s in?

Ingredients for Delicious Beef Shawarma

Shawarma flavor is all about the spices. There are many here! Feel free to mix and experiment with flavors you like more or less pronounced. Shawarma blends, like my custom chicken Shawarma spice, are available in Middle Eastern markets. Beef shawarma seasoning has a different flavor profile than the spice blend for chicken shawarma. Consider scaling up the spice blend for a larger quantity, then you’ll have shawarma spice at the ready.

Here’s the balance of flavors I love for beef shawarma. All of the spices are ground:

• Paprika
• Cardamom
• Cinnamon
• Garlic Powder
• Allspice
• Ginger
• Salt and Pepper

The shawarma spices are whisked together with olive oil, lemon juice, vinegar, and fresh minced garlic. When marinating the meat, know that it need not “swim” in the marinade! The meat should be well-coated and allowed for at least one hour to soak up flavor and tenderness.

I always add sliced onion to the marinade with the meat, for another layer of flavor. The onions are then sauteed along with the meat.

What is the Best Cut of Beef for Shawarma?

It’s not the time for expensive cuts of meat when making this recipe for beef shawarma! The marinade for the meat tenderizes it while imparting lots of deep flavor, so we that we want a cut that can stand up to all of that.

Try sirloin, chuck steak (not a roast), flank steak, skirt steak, or round steak. There is no absolute in terms of the cut, so peruse what’s available at your meat counter and adapt from there.

Beef Shawarma meat is sliced into thin strips, so the meat can already be thin-cut or a thicker steak of an inch or two also works well.

How to Make Beef Shawarma

Here is how to make beef shawarma in just a few simple steps:

1. Blend the spices, if making your own spice blend, and combine them or a purchased spice blend in a large bowl (to marinate the meat) along with olive oil, lemon juice, and vinegar.
2. Slice the meat and onion. Use a sharp knife to cut the meat against the grain into strips that are about 3 inches in length and about ½-inch thick. Freeze the meat for about 20 minutes if it’s very soft; this will make slicing easier. But a sharp knife is really the key; it will cut through the meat with ease. Cut a medium yellow or white onion into thin slices.
3. Then add the meat and onion to the marinade, cover, and set aside to soak up the goodness for an hour (room temperature) and up to 3 hours (refrigerated).
4. Next, sauté the meat and onions in two batches in a large skillet over medium-high heat. The meat will release lots of liquid. Keep cooking until some of that liquid cooks off and the meat begins to get some char color (and not just steamed).
5. Prepare a platter with trimmings, including a great tahini sauce or toum (check out how to make toum), to make either a beef shawarma platter (for shawarma wraps using pita or flatbread) or beef shawarma bowls (with rice or bulgur pilaf as the basis of the bowls).

Best Ways to Serve and Eat Beef Shawarma

Serve Shawarma delicious in a variety of delicious ways. This is great “feed a crowd” food, piled high on a platter with accompaniments nestled all around the shawarma. Eaters can make their own wrap with fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, sumac-spiced red onions, fresh mint, pink turnip pickles, and anything else you love!

Shawarma also makes an ideal, flavorful protein in a bowl-style meal. Layer cooked shawarma with rice or bulgur pilaf and all of those same trimmings used in a wrap and top with a generous drizzle of tahini sauce. I like to add chickpeas to my shawarma bowls for an extra hit of texture, flavor, and above all: fiber and protein.

Drizzle garlicky tahini sauce on top to serve, or add even more fiber and protein by using my hummus recipe.

Storing Leftovers

If you end up with leftovers, you can store them in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.

More Shawarma Recipes

Grilled Chicken Shawarma

Yogurt Marinated Chicken (shawarma-style, oven-baked)

Roasted Cauliflower Shawarma

Homemade Pita for your Shawarma!

Lebanese Rice for Shawarma Bowls

Bulgur Pilaf for Shawarma Bowls

Here’s how to make great Tahini Sauce