🌯 Saj shawarma
Saj shawarma rolls chicken shawarma tightly in paper-thin saj bread together with garlic sauce, pickles and a few fries, then toasts the roll until crisp. It is cut into pieces and eaten hot, crunchy outside and juicy and garlicky inside — a favourite fast meal at shawarma counters across the Gulf.
Diets
Allergens
Contains (in a typical recipe):
What it is made of
Recipe
Ingredients
- 600 g boneless chicken thighs
- Juice of 1 lemon, 2 garlic cloves, 1 tbsp oil
- 2 tsp shawarma spice mix, salt
- 4 large saj breads
- Garlic sauce, about 4 tbsp
- 300 g potatoes, cut into thin fries, and 1 tbsp oil
- Pickled cucumbers
Method
- Marinate the chicken in lemon, garlic, oil, spices and salt for at least 2 hours, then roast at 220 °C for 25 minutes and slice thinly.
- Toss the fries with oil and salt and bake at 220 °C for 25–30 minutes until crisp.
- Spread a little garlic sauce on each saj bread, add chicken, pickles and a few fries and roll tightly.
- Toast the rolls in a dry pan or on a griddle until crisp, then cut into pieces.
How to make it lighter
- Spread garlic sauce thinly — it is mostly oil.
- Leave the fries out of the roll and add extra pickles instead.
- One roll plus a salad is a full meal; avoid ordering a second.
History
Saj bread is baked on a domed griddle in the Levant, and Gulf shawarma shops adopted it for a thin, crisp roll packed with fries. Today saj shawarma is a common order across the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
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Values are estimates per 100 g for a typical recipe; home and restaurant versions vary. Diets and allergens are worked out from the ingredients of a typical recipe — always check with whoever cooked the dish. Not medical advice. Nutrition data: Me Nutrition dish database v13. How we count →