A recipe for making lamb gyro meat at home. It's easy and tastes like some of my favorite take-out places!
Ingredients:
For the Gyro Meat:
- 1poundground lamb
- 2teaspoonskosher salt
- ½teaspoonfreshly ground black pepper
- 2tablespoonsfresh oregano leaves
- ½yellow onion(cut into 1-inch chunks)
- 1clovegarlic(sliced)
- 3ouncesslab bacon(or 5 slices sliced bacon, cut into ½-inch pieces)
To Serve:
- Pocketless pita bread
- Tomato(coarsely chopped)
- Yellow onion(thinly sliced)
Directions:
- Make the Gyro Meat: In a medium bowl, combine the ground lamb, salt, pepper and oregano leaves with your hands, mixing until all of the seasonings have been evenly distributed. Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour, or overnight.
- Preheat oven to 300 degrees F. Place the lamb mixture in the bowl of a food processor and add the onion, garlic and bacon. Process until a smooth puree is formed, 30 seconds to 1 minute, scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary.
- Line a rimmed baking sheet with aluminum foil. With moistened hands, shape the lamb mixture into a rectangle about 8 inches long and 5 inches wide. Bake until the center of the loaf reaches 155 degrees F on an instant-read thermometer, 30 to 35 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to rest for 15 minutes.
- Adjust the oven rack to the highest position (1½ to 2 inches below broiler element) and preheat broiler. Slice the loaf of lamb meat crosswise into very thin pieces (they should be about ⅛-inch thick; no more than ¼-inch thick). Lay the strips on a rimmed baking sheet lined with aluminum foil and broil until edges are browned and crispy, 2 to 4 minutes. (I did this in two batches, as I couldn't fit all of the sliced meat on one baking sheet.) Be sure to keep an eye on it, as the broiler works quickly!
- Serve the Gyros: Warm up the bread either in the microwave (30 seconds), on the stovetop or in the oven. Top each with ¼ cup of tzatziki sauce, chopped tomatoes, sliced onions and gyro meat. Wrap with foil and serve.
Recipe Notes:
Nutritional values are based on one serving
Nutrition:
Calories: 607kcal
Fat: 36g
Saturated fat: 14g
Cholesterol: 97mg
Sodium: 1507mg
Potassium: 598mg
Carbohydrates: 40g
Fiber: 3g
Sugar: 3g
Protein: 28g
Vitamin A: 575%
Vitamin C: 11.7%
Calcium: 130%
Iron: 3.8%
Needs much more garlic, at least 4 cloves, finely diced (in my opinion). I also added 1/2 tsp. ground Mexican oregano that I lightly toasted in a tbsp. of olive oil before adding to the meat mixture.
I don’t have a food processor so I ran the mixture through my heavy duty blender 1/2 cup at a time until it reached a smooth consistency, and then squished the batches together like making meatloaf. I think you could possibly use a hand meat grinder too. Just run it through the grinder several times until you get a smooth consistency. Repeated grindings will heat up the fat in the meat and make it harder to grind. If you find that it’s sticking or clumping too much, pop it in the freezer for a few minutes to put a chill on the meat. It will grind more easily. You want a fine grind, not wallpaper paste.
Sorry, I forgot to leave my 5 star rating from my post. Trust me people, this is outrageously delicious. I have read some of the posts that said they had a hard time slicing it. I let mine rest for 20 mins. and it was delicious! Thank you again for a great recipe!
OMG! This was sooooooo delicious! I moved from Long Island, to Upstate N.Y. in the Adirondacks. We were use to eating gyros at least 3 times a month! When we moved to the Adirondacks, there were no such food as a gyro unless you traveled 45 minutes to buy them. Then Aldi’s, which is a store up here, carried gyro kits. They were the next best thing to a real gyro. They have since gone organic and no longer carry them! I have tried several different recipes but they don’t taste like gyros. Yours by far goes above and beyond. Now it is a permanent recipe in my file! Thank you so much.
Thank you sooo much for this amazing recipe! My whole family LOVED IT! It was a bit messy while using the food processor but it was worth it. The taste of the lamb loaf was amazing! I did not however make the tzatziki sauce. I will make it for sure next time :)
So easy. After 30 min, the meat didnt look cooked. Left at 300 for another 15min. Was hard to slice. Maybe should have used a serrated knife?? Getting ready to broil. So excited. Smells amazing and tastes great (on its own).
This looks amazing but ground lamb isnt that common where I live so I have to buy the lamb and then have someone ground it, they do it at the grocery store but my main question is what part of the lamb should I ground to get the perfect taste? since each part tastes somewhat different.
Hi Ed, I actually don’t know, I would ask the butcher at your grocery store, as I’m sure they would be more knowledgeable!
This was very good but wow, it really shrunk quite a bit!
I have been looking for a good gyro recipe and can finally stop looking! This was delicious and a hit with the family and the toddlers as well! Thank you for sharing!
DELICIOUS!! I will never have to go out to eat to eat a gyro again!!
I made it, and was delicious, unfortunately it fell apart when I sliced it, but it was good all the same
This recipe is outstanding. I live in a rural area where lamb is easy to find but not gyros. My family loves them after living in Chicago for decades. I followed the recipe to the Tee. I even weighed my bacon on a scale to be accurate. Don’t use favored bacon. I did everything the recipe called for but baking the lamb at 300 took longer than 30 minutes. I used a meat thermometer. After I let it rest for 30 I used
a very shape knife to cut into slices. I can’t believe how great these were.
In 2017, I had saved your recipe and then went searching for ground lamb. Only 1 supermarket (upscale) sold it and they wanted $10.99 for a lb. of ground lamb. Wow! I decided to forgo my craving. So, this year, I’ll bite the bullet and go for it. Hopefully, it is not just a seasonal item (spring). Your recipe makes quite a few slices so it would be more economical than purchasing gyros from the only place in this small town which has them on their menu.
I havent made this yet, but I look forward to it It is still winter here…no fresh oregano. What is a good substitute with dried oregano? I have both mexican and traditional. Or..would dried ruin this recipe?
I haven’t used dried, but you generally want to use 1/3 the amount, as it’s more concentrated, so you could do 2 teaspoons of dried oregano.
The absolute best!!!! I’m not one for lamb, but my husband & i LOVE this recipe!!! It will most DEFINITELY become a regular dinner around here!! My husband couldn’t stop talking about how good it was!!! TY!! TY!!!
Family Loved it. Now I need to purchase a better food processor because that did take up alot of extra time
Best gyro I’ve ever had I’m not a cook but I followed the recipe I had the half of it and it turned out delicious my wife isn’t much on lamb and she even enjoyed it she said it was just as good if not better than the ones that we have at a place we go here in Junction thank you so much is very delicious this is going to be something I do quite frequently I think
First time, I used beef not bacon and didn’t use a processor. Tasted like meat loaf. These directions it turned out great! Was totally worth the time
I made this tonight and I was not disappointed! Thanks for posting such a great recipe. I served this with some homemade naan bread, tzatziki sauce, tomatoes and feta cheese. Will definitely make again.
I am a big time lover of gyros. And lately I’ve been on a big gyros kick. I’ve been getting them from all over. Different restaurants, different cities – even frozen. So, Right now my pallet is pretty honed to what constitutes a good gyro. I just ate some of this about 30 minutes ago and – wow! My expectations where not high given the simplicity of the recipe, but this tasted extraordinarily close to a decent restaurant gyros. I think adding a half pound of ground beef to cut down on the gameness of the lamb and adding more onion, garlic, spices accordingly would probably make this perfect. I’m going to keep this recipe around and play with it to my liking but, even as is, it is fantastic. Letting it cool down to cut was so hard. It smelled and tasted great, I kept going back to the kitchen to sample it. Bravo! These were #$%&ing delicous. And before you ask, yes that expletive was necessary cause they are that good and super easy to make.
Best recipe for Gyro and tzatziki sauce!