How to Make Shish Tawook in the Oven, Grill or Air Fryer

Shish tawook is the chicken skewer you get at every Lebanese grill: cubes of chicken breast soaked in yogurt, lemon and a frankly rude amount of garlic, then cooked hot and fast until the edges char. This shish tawook recipe gives you that same juicy, tangy chicken at home, with times for the oven, the grill and the air fryer, so you can make it on a busy weeknight just as easily as at a summer cookout.

The marinade does the heavy lifting. Yogurt and lemon keep lean breast meat tender, oil helps it brown, and two hours in the fridge is enough. Each serving of two skewers has about 43 g of protein and 340 calories.

What Is Shish Tawook?

Shish tawook (also spelled shish taouk) is a Levantine dish of marinated chicken grilled on skewers. The name is borrowed from Turkish, where şiş means skewer and tavuk means chicken, a trace of the Ottoman era. The garlicky yogurt-and-lemon version most people know is the one sold in grill houses across Lebanon and Syria, usually wrapped in thin bread with toum (whipped garlic sauce), pickles and fries, or served on a plate with rice and salad.

It is easy to mix up with shawarma, which you will find on the same menus. Shawarma is spiced meat stacked and roasted on a vertical spit, then shaved off in thin slices (our chicken shawarma bowl takes that route at home). Shish tawook is cut into cubes, threaded onto skewers and grilled over direct heat, and its marinade leans on lemon and garlic more than warm spices.

Shish Tawook Marinade and Ingredients

Serves 4 (8 skewers) · Prep 20 minutes · Marinate 2 hours · Cook 20 minutes

• 1 1/2 lb (680 g) boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1 1/4-inch (3 cm) cubes
• 1/2 cup (140 g) plain nonfat Greek yogurt
• 1/4 cup (60 ml) fresh lemon juice, plus the zest of 1 lemon
• 3 tbsp (40 g) olive oil
• 6 garlic cloves (18 g), grated or crushed
• 2 tsp sweet paprika
• 1 tsp dried oregano or thyme
• 1/2 tsp ground white or black pepper
• 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon or allspice (optional)
• 1 1/2 tsp kosher salt
• 1 large onion (150 g), cut into 1-inch (2.5 cm) chunks
• 1 red or green bell pepper, cut into 1-inch (2.5 cm) chunks (optional)

A few notes on the shopping list. Breast is the usual choice and gives the leanest result, but boneless thighs work beautifully and are harder to dry out. Use thick Greek yogurt rather than regular, so the marinade clings instead of sliding off. And please use fresh garlic and fresh lemon here; bottled versions taste flat once they hit the heat.

How to Make Shish Tawook

1. Whisk the yogurt, lemon juice and zest, olive oil, garlic, paprika, oregano, pepper, cinnamon and salt in a large bowl until smooth.
2. Add the chicken cubes and toss until every piece is coated. Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours and up to 12 hours.
3. If you are using wooden skewers, soak them in water for 30 minutes. Thread the chicken onto 8 skewers, alternating with the onion and pepper chunks and leaving a little space between pieces.
4. Cook the skewers in the oven, on the grill or in the air fryer (times below) until the thickest piece of chicken reaches 165°F (74°C).
5. Rest the skewers for 5 minutes, then squeeze over a little extra lemon and serve with garlic sauce, warm pita, pickles and salad.

Cut the chicken into even pieces. If some cubes are twice the size of others, the small ones dry out while you wait for the big ones to hit 165°F (74°C), the safe minimum internal temperature for all poultry according to FoodSafety.gov. An instant-read thermometer takes the guesswork out of it.

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Shish Tawook in the Oven, on the Grill or in the Air Fryer

Every method below starts with marinated, threaded skewers. Shake off excess marinade first; a thick coat steams instead of browning.

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Method	Heat	Time	Tip
Oven	425°F (220°C)	18 to 22 minutes, turning once	Set the skewers on a wire rack over a lined sheet pan, then broil for the last 2 minutes for char.
Grill	Medium-high, about 400 to 450°F (200 to 230°C)	10 to 12 minutes, turning every 3 minutes	Oil the grates well; yogurt marinades stick to a dry grill.
Air fryer	400°F (200°C)	12 to 14 minutes, flipping halfway	Use short skewers or cook the cubes loose in a single layer, in batches if needed.

Times are a guide, since grills and air fryers vary. Start checking a couple of minutes early, and pull the skewers as soon as the thickest piece reads 165°F (74°C).

Air Fryer Shish Tawook

The air fryer is my weeknight pick. The circulating heat browns the yogurt coating quickly, there is no grill to light, and cleanup is one basket. Most baskets will not fit a full-length skewer, so either use 6-inch skewers or skip them entirely and cook the marinated cubes and onion loose. You lose the look, not the flavor.

Grilled Shish Tawook

For the most traditional result, use a charcoal or gas grill. Get the grates hot before the skewers go on, then leave them alone for the first 3 minutes so a crust forms and they release cleanly. A few dark spots are what you want.

What to Serve With Shish Tawook

At Lebanese grills this chicken usually comes with toum, a whipped garlic sauce. If you would rather not whip garlic and oil into an emulsion on a weeknight, a thick homemade tzatziki is a cooling stand-in. To build a full spread, try any of these:

• Warm pita or thin flatbread, for wrapping the chicken with pickles and a little sauce
• Fattoush salad with baked pita chips and sumac dressing
• A bright, parsley-heavy tabbouleh
• Smoky baba ganoush or hummus for dipping
• Rice with vermicelli, or a simple bowl of cucumber, tomato and pickled turnips

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Tips for Juicy Chicken Skewers

• Marinate at least 2 hours, but not for days. Lemon juice firms up the outside of the meat over time, and past about 12 hours breast meat can turn soft and mealy.
• Leave a little gap between pieces. Cubes jammed tightly together steam in the middle and never brown.
• Pull the chicken on time. Breast goes from juicy to dry in a couple of minutes. Check early with a thermometer.
• Rest before serving. Five minutes lets the juices settle back into the meat instead of running onto the plate.
• Want more color? Stir a tablespoon of tomato paste into the marinade, as plenty of shish tawook recipes do. It deepens the flavor and the char.

Shish Tawook Meal Prep and Storage

Shish tawook is one of the easiest proteins to batch for the week. Mix the marinade the night before, cook the skewers, and pull the chicken off the sticks into containers with rice, salad and a little sauce on the side. For more ways to build the week around cooked chicken, see our chicken meal prep ideas.

Storage times from the FoodSafety.gov cold food storage chart:

• Raw chicken pieces (including marinating chicken): 1 to 2 days in the fridge at 40°F (4°C) or below, so marinate and cook within that window.
• Cooked leftovers: 3 to 4 days in the fridge.
• Freezer: cooked chicken keeps 2 to 6 months at 0°F (-18°C); raw chicken pieces keep 9 months. You can freeze the raw chicken right in its marinade and thaw it overnight in the fridge before cooking.

Reheat leftovers in a skillet or a 350°F (175°C) oven until hot, or simply eat the chicken cold in a wrap or over salad. It is surprisingly good straight from the fridge.

Shish Tawook Nutrition per Serving

One serving is 2 skewers, a quarter of the recipe.

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Calories	Protein	Carbs	Fat	Fiber
340	43 g	7 g	15 g	1 g

Numbers are calculated from USDA FoodData Central values for raw chicken breast, nonfat Greek yogurt, olive oil, lemon juice, garlic and onion, and assume all of the marinade is eaten. In practice some stays in the bowl, so the real fat and calorie numbers will be a little lower. Spices, salt and the optional bell pepper are not counted. Bread, rice and sauces are extra.

Sources

• FoodSafety.gov: Safe Minimum Internal Temperature Chart
• FoodSafety.gov: Cold Food Storage Charts
• USDA FoodData Central via GetFoodFacts: chicken breast, raw (FDC 171077)
• USDA FoodData Central via GetFoodFacts: Greek yogurt, plain, nonfat (FDC 330137)
• USDA FoodData Central via GetFoodFacts: olive oil (FDC 171413)
• USDA FoodData Central via GetFoodFacts: lemon juice, raw (FDC 167747)
• USDA FoodData Central via GetFoodFacts: garlic, raw (FDC 169230)
• USDA FoodData Central via GetFoodFacts: onions, raw (FDC 170000)