You can use any combination of vegetables. We choose this combo here because it’s simple, colorful and crispy. Grilled peppers always taste great – the only thing you need to worry about is not to over-grill them. If over-grilled, all vegetables become soggy and lose their otherwise apparent appeal. All vegetables we choose for the Grilled Vegetable Souvlaki here need approximately the same time to reach their full flavor on the grill – not more than five minutes or so, depending on your grill. Just wait to see when edges of the peppers’ bites become darker, and that’s it. If you prefer your veggies soft, you can let them stay on the grill longer, or broil them first and then place them on the grill.

Grilled Vegetable Souvlaki Recipe

• Zucchinis
• Bell peppers – red, green, yellow
• Red Onions
• Olive oil
• Salt and pepper
• Dry oregano

Wash and prepare the vegetables for the skewer. Cut them in bite-size pieces. Be careful not to cut the red onions in too small pieces. In the bowl of olive oil, mix the dry oregano, salt and pepper (if using), and add the cut vegetables making sure that each piece is fully covered by the marinade. Place them on the skewers now the way you want. Their different colors will give you few options to play with visual impressions!

When done, serve them with the food of your choice. We opted for rice with garlic and parmesan. Try it, you will see why we made that choice!

Salmon is one – of many – Greek beloved summer dishes. Greeks prepare salmon in many ways but be sure to have the Salmon Souvlaki at least once (well, we guarantee you that you will come again!). If you like to prepare it at your home, no problem, it’s easy and taste – bud – rewarding.

Salmon Souvlaki Recipe

• Salmon
• Lettuce
• Lemon
• Salt and pepper

Recipe for the  Marinade

• Olive oil
• Lemon
• Rosemary
• Oregano

Be sure to prepare the marinade in advance. Just add some dry oregano and rosemary in olive oil, squeeze lemon juice in the mixture, shake well and let it sit in dark space for at least few hours. The longer the marinade is “cooking’ the better.

When ready to make the Salmon Souvlaki, prepare the salmon by peeling off the dark skin and cutting the flesh in bite-size pieces. Place them in the marinade and keep there for awhile. It doesn’t need to be for hours since salmon is a very soft fish.

Prepare the skewers (wash them and dry them), add salmon pieces close to each other and place on the grill. When it’s done – and usually it doesn’t take longer than 5 minutes – place the skewers on the bed of lettuce, or any other salad you like, previously salted and seasoned with the olive oil and pepper. Serve with a few pieces of lemon since salmon never has enough of it.

When thinking about Greek souvlaki, you obviously have in mind this mouthwatering taste, the amazing flavors and the mix of tasty ingredients that make this Greek food so renowned and so special. Except for tasty, yummy and whatever else you want to call it, Greek souvlaki is also a healthy choice, especially when home made.

When reading the list, you should keep in mind that when you prepare Greek souvlaki at home, the calories, saturated and trans fat may be much lower than the ones shown here, because the ingredients used at home are usually lighter and healthier; and moreover, you can be completely sure of their quality, the oil you use or the meat.

Chicken Souvlaki is a food that qualifies for the intake of high quality proteins, calcium, iron and zinc. Even when purchased at a souvlaki store, a chicken souvlaki with pita represents a food of good cost to nutrient ratio; just be careful not to spill tzatziki on your clothes, because afterward you need to pay the dry cleaner too!

Chicken Souvlaki with Greek Salad – Calories and Nutritional Information

• Servings: 1
• Calories: 750
• Total fat in grams 23
• Daily Value 35%
• Saturated fat in grams 4.5
• Trans fat in grams 0,3
• Cholesterol in mgs 73
• Sodium in mgs 2628
• Carbs 158
• Dietary Fibre in grams 8,6
• Sugar in grams 8
• Proteins in grams 43
• Vitamin A in grams 20
• Vitamin C in grams 116
• Calcium in grams 19
• Iron in grams 34

Read more:

• Recipe for Chicken Souvlaki
• Recipe for Greek Salad

Lemon marinade is, in general, one of the favorite marinades of the Greeks. Not only for meat or souvlaki, but the truth is that the meat sprinkled with lemon, or cooked in the lemon marinade is how Greeks prefer eating their meat. Lemon marinade goes best with pork, lamb and veal souvlaki, but it’s not unusual for the Greeks to use it for chicken or seafood as well. The only difference is that when you use it for chicken, for example, the meat doesn’t need to stay in the marinade the whole night: even couple of hours will do. Veal will be good also if marinated for just few hours, while pork and lamb need more hours. Overnight marinade, as it seems sometimes, was invented for these two kinds of meat.

Lemon Marinade for Souvlaki Recipe

• 4 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon oregano leaves
• 3 teaspoons olive oil
• 3 garlic cloves
• Salt and pepper to taste

Squeeze fresh juice from the lemon. That’s the most important part, to have fresh lemon juice. Add it to the olive oil and mix well. Chop garlic cloves, or minced them which is even better. Add dry oregano leaves, salt and pepper to taste, and mix everything well. Depending for how long you want to marinade the meat, prepare the bowl or plastic bags. If marinated for only couple or few hours, place the meat in the bowl. If marinated overnight, place the meat in the plastic bags, and store them in the fridge. Be sure to shake those bags a few times so that meat can be evenly marinated, or stir the mix in the bowls a few times and make sure that the meat is covered. The next day, or a few hours later your meat will be ready to be grilled and will be perfect and tasty!

Grilled, juicy, lean meat – pork or lamb preferably (but you won’t regret other combinations either) – with tzatziki is just a holiday for taste buds. Greeks used to pay much attention on their tzatziki but modern life style doesn’t leave them much time to make the “old recipe” every single time they are in a mood for a bowl of tzatziki. Still, whenever you have a chance to try that old one, made of home strained yogurt – don’t miss a chance. In addition to being perfect itself, it’s more than mesmerizing if eaten with souvlaki!

Strained yogurt definitely makes tzatziki what it is. Mind that Greek yogurt is a little bit different than yogurts in some other countries – it has particular density and texture. It slides through your mouth when you take a spoonful of it. Now you can imagine how it feels when eaten with meat! The point is that if, for some reason, you don’t like yogurt (no matter which one), you can try with sour cream as well.

Here, we will make our tzatziki for souvlaki with yogurt, and with the strained yogurt, to encourage you to try it at home.

Tzatziki for Souvlaki Recipe

• Plain yogurt or strained yogurt if you can find it
• 2 -3 cloves of garlic crushed
• Cucumber
• Olive oil
• Salt (to taste)
• Fresh lemon juice

If you are using the strain yogurt, you will have to make it a day before -or at least a few hours before – you plan to eat souvlaki. You need a strainer, covered by a sturdy paper (or cheese cloth if you can find it). Put the strainer in a bowl, and scope the yogurt from the tub into the strainer and let it in the fridge for 8 or 10 hours. Obviously, the easier way is to buy already strained yogurt from the market, but if you cannot find it, this is how you will make it. The best option is to prepare it before going to bed.

The following day, discard the water from the strainer and bowl, and place the yogurt in another bowl, where you will make the tzatziki. Now, shred the cucumber with a grater and squeeze the extra water out from the cucumbers. Add to the yogurt along with garlic. Salt to taste, add olive oil and finally, freshly squeezed lemon juice or vinegar. Mix well but don’t overdo it – and make sure that it’s dense enough. Tzatziki for souvlaki needs to be creamy enough! Grill your meat, cut some slices of tomato and onion, take some pita bread and your souvlaki is ready!

One thing about pita bread, if making it at home, you have to have in mind is that pitas have to be cooked at the very high heat. In other words, your oven needs to be a really powerful one in order to achieve the best result. It’s not going to be bad anyway and you can always improve it: additional grilling (grill), heating (skillet) or roasting (oven) will make it just perfect right before serving it. And don’t let me start with all the dishes and combination of food you can serve pita bread with. You can even half it horizontally when warm and fill the inside of pita with a sauce, dip, cheese, ham, anything… The most common way the Greeks serve pita bread is a plate of pita wedges.

Pita Bread Recipe

• 1 tablespoon active dry yeast
• 1 tablespoon of sugar
• 1 1/2 cup of warm water
• 4 cups of flour
• 2 -3 teaspoons of salt
• 1 tablespoon of olive oil

Start with dissolving the yeast and sugar in ½ cup of warm water and let it sit, covered, for 15 -20 minutes. In another cup of warm water add salt and let it dissolve. When this is done, add flour in a big bowl and make a hole in the center where you’ll add both mixtures (yeast and salt). Now, have some patience since you have to knead with your hands for about 10 minutes. When the mixture starts looking like dough, add olive oil and keep kneading until the oil is mixed with the rest. Be sure to knead it well since the better the dough is kneaded the better final result is going to be. When done, form the ball of the dough, leave it in the bowl and cover it. Now you have to wait for about 1 ½ or two hours, depending on the environment. The dough has to be at the warm place in order to grow and it’s done when it doubles its size. Once that happens, you need to knead the dough for another 5 to 10 minutes.

Before you start final kneading, preheat the oven at 300 C. Now, while waiting for the oven to heat up, make pitas from the dough – take pieces of dough according to what size of pita you want, and roll them out on a surface sprinkled with flour. Flatten each piece of dough and make a shape of pita. Finally, prick each of them several times with a fork. Now, place pitas on baking sheets (previously lightly oiled) and bake them for about 5-6 minutes total at the lower rack, turning them on the other side after first couple of minutes. When done, place warm pitas between two clean dishtowels for some time. When pitas are cooled, or not eaten, they can be stored in the fridge or frozen. When using pitas later, be sure to “roast” them a little either in the oven or in the oiled frying pen, turning them over in the process.

Or, unexpected guests arrive and you want to offer them something but except for some fruit (maybe some cheese) you don’t have anything else in your fridge: cut a few pieces of that fruit, put them on skewers, and your host face is saved. And so on – it’s up to you to find a reason or excuse to make it.

The best thing about fruit souvlaki is that you can combine all possible kinds of fruit. It’s hard to imagine what can’t go on the skewer. Let me think – blackberries maybe! But if they are big enough and the skewer is small enough, this will work too.

Another good thing about Fruit souvlaki is that you can combine it with some vegetables if you like, or even with pieces of meat – let me remind you how well pineapple, for example, goes with grilled pieces of chicken, or apples and prunes with pork, or prosciutto and white grapes, etc. You can also add mint leaves between the fruit pieces, especially if you keep the Fruit souvlaki in the fridge for awhile, so that the nearby piece of fruit will soak the flavor of mint.

Fruit Souvlaki Recipe

• Strawberries
• Banana
• Apricots
• Kiwi
• Grapes

There is no particular preparation recommended here. Cut the fruits in a bite size and layer them on the skewer. If the strawberries are smaller in size, there is no need to cut them. The only suggestion we can give is, depending on the fruit you are using, to try to put more juicy fruit after the less juicy one, and to start and finish arranging the Fruit souvlaki with the firmer pieces of fruit – grape, banana, apple, pear, melon… Fruit souvlaki can be eaten on its own or accompany and decorate some other plate, with meat or seafood.

Pieces of the pork loin, previously marinated of course, could be just put on the skewer as they are, or layered with very thin slices of red onion. That’s up to one’s taste. Both versions are very common in Greece. What matters the most when preparing the meat is to add finely chopped garlic in each piece of meat and then place it in the bowl with the marinade.

One interesting detail about Pork loin Souvlaki is that it is probably one of the souvlaki recipes when Greeks put their beloved herbs in abundance. What you will use depends on your taste as well, but in any case, keep in mind that all herbs and spices for grilled meats can go there; you can definitely add some dry oregano in the marinade, but the best flavor comes out of the simplest marinade made just of olive oil and freshly squeezed lemon juice, simply seasoned with salt and pepper.

Pork Loin Souvlaki or Kovtosouvli is commonly served with fresh tomatoes, cut red onion and peppers.

Pork Loin Souvlaki – Kontosouvli Souvlaki Recipe

• Pork Loin
• Garlic, finely chopped
• Olive Oil
• Lemon, fresh juice
• Red Onion, sliced very thin
• Peppers
• Tomatoes
• Salt and pepper

Prepare the meat and cut in bite size pieces, adding small pieces of garlic in each piece. In the bowl, mix olive oil and freshly squeezed lemon juice, add salt and pepper to taste, and whisk vigorously until all the ingredients blend. If making bigger quantities, use plastic bags and place the meat with the marinade in each bag, shake well and store in the fridge overnight or at least for a few hours. Make sure to shake the plastic bags several times so that the marinade can distribute evenly. If marinating the meat in the bowl, turn it with a spoon several times.

When ready to make, put the meat pieces on the skewers (with or without the thin slices of onion) and grill them for a few minutes. Don’t overdo it since pork loin gets harder when extensively grilled.

Is you ask Greeks why they have the chicken-thigh souvlaki, they would probably knowingly smile back at you: if you haven’t already learned that souvlaki is the Greek magic cuisine word it’s time to learn it.

Chicken-thigh souvlaki simply tastes better that the ordinary roasted and/or grilled chicken thigh! The most obvious reason is that in the form of souvlaki, it gets grilled equally all over. If you can prove the opposite, go ahead!

Chicken-thigh souvlaki is easier to eat: it doesn’t need to go off the skewer and you hands will remain clean (this is a matter of relativity, but to some extent it can be true). You will look more dissent carving your way down to the thigh bone through the juicy chicken-thigh souvlaki then if you do the same to the ordinary grilled thigh, since the latter could be “slippery”. And so on, and so on…. Chicken thigh souvlaki is common in Athens, especially in downtown and in some eccentric restaurants, and it can be found in the islands of the Ionian Sea – as the locals there like putting everything on skewers!

Chicken-Thigh Souvlaki Recipe

• Chicken thighs
• Olive oil
• Lemon juice, fresh
• Salt and pepper
• Dry oregano
• Thyme
• Mustard

Ah, how easy it can be! Just prepare the marinade, put the chicken thighs in it, and keep overnight in the fridge. For the marinade, the Greek way, you need olive oil, freshly squeezed lemon juice, dry oregano and thyme, mustard, salt and pepper to season, and –voila! Mix all marinade ingredients well, and place the thighs. Add as many thighs as you wish in one bowl but be sure that thighs are abundantly covered by the marinade. Place in the fridge. You will have amazing results the following day – when grilled, the chicken thighs will be so juicy that you would always want to eat them exactly this way. If you decide to serve them with salad and mustard dressing or even tzatziki, you won’t regret it .

The best for veal is to grill it since the meat gives the most when processed in a dry, hot heat. But don’t overcook it: if you keep it on the grill for a long time it will dry out and lose its nice taste. It’s much better to have it medium-done and juicy. Veal has a somewhat specific flavor, more delicate than other meats, and Greeks know that their basic marinade – just olive oil and a couple of light herbs – are the veal’s best friends. Even if you use only olive oil and salt and pepper as its “coat”, it will taste just great.

So, don’t be surprised if you don’t see many additional ingredients in Veal Pita Souvlaki since the whole point is to preserve the taste of meat.

Veal Pita Souvlaki Recipe

• 1 kg. of veal cuts
• 2 – 3 medium tomatoes
• 2-3 medium red onion
• Pita bread
• Salt and pepper
• Mustard-lemon sauce and/or tzatziki
• Pita bread

For the Marinade

• Olive oil
• Dry oregano
• Thyme
• Lemon

Prepare the marinade of olive oil, dry oregano and thyme. Cut the meat in bite-size pieces and leave in the marinade preferably overnight in the fridge – Even few hours will do just fine since it’s very tender meat.

Before grilling the meat, make a mustard-lemon sauce or tzatziki, depending on what you would rather have as a sauce in your pita souvlaki. Some people use both, they actually don’t offset each other, but it’s better not to mix the flavors that much. For the mustard-lemon sauce, you just need to mix well the olive oil, mustard and freshly squeezed lemon juice to get a smooth, creamy sauce.

When grilling the veal, put pita bread on the side of the grill so it becomes crispy. While waiting for meat to be done (don’t forget, don’t overdo it!), cut tomatoes and red onion in slices. Now, you only have to place the veal in the pita, add some onions and tomatoes, pour the sauce over it, and here you have a Veal Pita Souvlaki. If ordering it in Athens or central Greece, you can ask for pita kalamaki souvlaki moscharisio.