There’s something about pita pockets that my kids love, so I had a feeling that this recipe would be a hit. I was right. A friend shared the recipe with me back in the winter when I was looking for meals to stock my freezer. I decided this one would be great to take on vacation. After marinating and cooking the chicken, it is frozen in Ziploc bags. Reheating can be done in the microwave. I served a quick cucumber and yogurt sauce with the sandwiches.
Update: This recipe comes from Cooking Among Friends, which is a freezer meal cooking club. So cool! They have a cookbook available and the Chicken Gyros is part of that. I’m guessing this would be a great cookbook to own. A friend had passed along the Chicken Gyros recipe and I just found out the original source. Pop over and check out more from Cooking Among Friends!
Here’s what you’ll need:
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 3 Tbs. lemon juice
- 2 cloves garlic, minced or crushed
- 1 1/2 tsp. dried mint
- 1 1/2 tsp. oregano
- 1 1/2 tsp. ground black pepper
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 2-2 1/2 lbs. boneless chicken breast, cut in bite size pieces
Whisk all the ingredients except the chicken to make the marinade. You could put them in a tight fitting container with a lid and give them a good shake instead of whisking.
Pour the marinade over the chicken and give it a stir to be sure all the chicken is coated with marinade. Refrigerate for several hours.
Cook the chicken in a skillet over medium-high heat. Work in batches, if necessary, so that the chicken isn’t crowded in the pan. Remove the cooked chicken to a bowl and let it cool. Place the chicken in a plastic freezer bag. Don’t forget to label it with the date, recipe title and reheating instructions.
For the cucumber-yogurt sauce I used about 1/2 a cucumber cut into small pieces. I stirred the cucumber into 6 oz. of Greek-style yogurt.
If you’ve frozen the chicken, reheat it in the microwave. Fill a pita pocket with chicken and top with the cucumber-yogurt sauce.
This looks delicious. I really like the yogurt sauce – it is so fresh!
This sounds SOOO good and I have just printed the recipe. I love simple meals like this. Thank you!
I wonder if you could freeze the uncooked chicken in the marinade and then cook it in a slowcooker? I do the same kind of thing with beef to make stew.
jan, I bet it would work to cook the chicken in the slow cooker after freezing it in the marinade. Let us know if you try it!
cucumber yogurt sauce sounds great.
yum, yum, yum…. and the cucumber sauce is another yum!
Thanks so much for this recipe!! We are traveling soon and trying to cut down on costs. This looks like a great option to pb & J!!
This looks easy and excellent! We’ll have to give it a try. There’s a local Greek restaurant here that sells homemade pita bread so the next time I’m there I’ll buy some and give the recipe a go. I might add a little fresh tomato (maybe grape tomatoes halved??) to the pitas.
I’m going to try this tomorrow night. How many does this recipe serve and what did you serve it with? I’m thinking maybe a Greek salad.
Laura, I would say it serves 6-8 people. Greek salad sounds good with it. We had chips and baby carrots.
We loved these! Next time, I’ll make a double batch and freeze 1/2. Thanks for such tasty quick recipes:)
MMM, I made this but left out the mint. Added lots of garlic, lemon and dill to the cucumber sauce (hint: let the chopped/pureed cucumber drain in a sieve over a bowl so your sauce isn’t too watery) – YUM!
I do this with ranch instead of the yogurt-cucumber sauce bc I’m not big on cucumber. The ranch is really good though 🙂 Naturally Fresh refrigerated ranch is my favorite. And since I am pita-pocket impaired, I’ve been making them using a spinach wrap and they are really good that way!
Glad you liked the recipe. My co-author and I created this recipe several years ago and it is still a favorite (it’s in our copyrighted cookbook Cooking Among Friends). It is more difficult to find dried mint in the stores now. It’s easier to purchase online.
Cheers and happy freezer cooking!
Becki
Becki, I’m so glad to find the source of this recipe! I’ve included links to your site and a little bit about the freezer cooking club. This is the first time I’ve visited your site and it looks great!
For the cucumber sauce do u have to use yogurt.i want to try this but my husband is alergic to yogurt
Shannon, the only other thing that comes to mind would be to use sour cream. I’m not sure how that would be. You could just use the cucumbers as a topping.
I thought it woul be great with melted provolone cheese. Is he allergic to that too?
This turned out great. I dumper all the chicken (and marinade) in a wok to cook the meat. Once that was done, I added an equal amount of cubed zucchini for a few minutes. The whole family loved it.
Hi! I’ve made this now many times and wanted to share my feedback, even though the recipe has been up on your site for a long time. 1) I made it baked in the oven with the sauce as a marinade to make it cook “hands free” and it worked great. I think a slow cooker would work really well, too. 2) Other times, I had already cooked chicken in the freezer. I mixed up the sauce and dumped it and cooked chicken in a pan and heated it together. This method was great, too. 3) We eat this hot or cold, and especially like it as an on-the-go meal for travel sports and family day trips. 4) Recently I found the greek yogurt/cucumber sauce at Aldi-bonus for cost effective and easy cooking. Thanks!