Chicken Souvlaki Gyros, Built From Scratch The Greek Way

Shereen Pavlides builds a full chicken souvlaki gyro from the marinade up, treating each component as its own small recipe rather than a shortcut. The video moves through a yogurt-based chicken marinade, a homemade tzatziki, grilled skewers finished with lemon, and an assembled gyro on warm pita. It runs like a compressed cooking-class demo: fast cuts, tight ingredient callouts, and a plated result at the end. The through-line is that every layer gets made deliberately, down to the parsley she adds "because you can."

The Marinade Does The Work

The chicken starts in a Greek yogurt marinade rather than a straight oil-and-acid mix. Shereen combines lemon zest, two grated garlic cloves, a few drops of liquid smoke, Greek olive oil, Greek oregano, a little paprika for color, and fresh thyme. The frames show the zest and garlic going into a glass bowl before the liquid smoke gets added, then everything whisked together. Two pounds of boneless, skinless chicken thighs get cubed and folded in, then marinated for several hours. Yogurt is the key choice here: its acidity and enzymes tenderize the meat while the fat carries the herb and garlic flavor, which is why the grilled cubes later look juicy rather than dried out.

Tzatziki Made The Greek Way

The tzatziki is treated as a real component, not a garnish. Two grated garlic cloves ("or one big fatty") go into 16 ounces of full-fat Greek yogurt with three tablespoons of red wine vinegar and one and a half teaspoons of Greek oregano. She grates a peeled, seeded English cucumber, squeezes out the water, and folds it in with Greek sea salt and olive oil on top. The squeeze step matters: cucumber holds a lot of water, and skipping it leaves the sauce thin. She also adds lemon and calls out a personal reason, which sets up the next layer of the recipe.

Cypriot Lemon And A Note On Gyros

Shereen frames the lemon as a family influence, saying her husband's family is Cypriot and that Cyprus is a small island where lemons grow everywhere. She also opens the video by separating the pronunciations of "gyros," a common point of confusion for the dish. These asides do more than add personality. They signal that the recipe is a specific household version of souvlaki and tzatziki rather than a generic template, and they explain why lemon shows up in both the sauce and the grill step.

Grill, Then Assemble In Layers

The cubed chicken goes onto skewers and cooks over medium heat, two to three minutes per side, and she squeezes fresh lemon over the skewers right on the grill. Assembly happens on warm homemade pita, which she notes she covers in a separate video. The build is ordered: tzatziki schmeared on the pita, then chicken souvlaki, tomatoes, "deflamed" onion, Greek feta, French fries, parsley, and a final drizzle of Greek olive oil. The fries inside the wrap are a traditional touch in Greek-style gyros, not an improvisation. The last frame shows the folded gyro in hand, ready to eat.

Key Takeaways

Yogurt is the base of both the marinade and the tzatziki. Full-fat Greek yogurt tenderizes the chicken and forms the sauce, so the same core ingredient anchors two components.
Squeeze the cucumber before mixing. Removing the water keeps the tzatziki thick instead of watery.
Lemon appears in three places. Zest in the marinade, juice in the tzatziki, and fresh lemon squeezed over the skewers on the grill.
The gyro is built in a set order. Sauce, then chicken, tomatoes, onion, feta, fries, parsley, and olive oil, with fries inside the wrap as a traditional element.
Each part is made from scratch. Marinade, tzatziki, and pita are all prepared rather than bought, matching Shereen's "from scratch" approach.