Few shawarma are associated with a healthy diet, and it is in vain. In fact, it can be useful and low-calorie, if fatty sauce in its composition is replaced by a lighter dressing, to abandon fatty meats and from roasting the ingredients that make up the filling. After all, vegetables, which constitute a significant part of the filling, are not too high in calories, and the real Armenian lavash is prepared without oil, eggs and yeast, so it also does not have a high energy value. So, diet shawarma is not too different from traditional taste, but even those who follow a diet and keep an eye on themselves can afford it.
Cooking Features
In order for shawarma to be not too high in calories and healthy, but at the same time retaining its unique taste, you need to know a few subtleties:
- The unleavened dough, which is most often used to make Armenian pita bread, is not very nutritious, 100 g of this product contains about 250 kcal, however some manufacturers, wishing to make the pita more tasty, change the recipe. When purchasing lavash in the store, be sure to study its composition by refusing to purchase a product containing oil and eggs. If you are cooking a flat cake at home, also choose the simplest recipe, in which there is nothing but flour, water and salt.
- Use only lean meat for the filling, giving preference to chicken breast, turkey, rabbit meat. Instead of meat, you can use fish and seafood. You can do with mushrooms, vegetables, cottage cheese, low-fat cheese.
- Strive to ensure that at least two-thirds of the filling is fresh greens and vegetables.
- Do not fry the ingredients that make up the filling.
- Refuse mayonnaise in favor of Greek yogurt, low-fat sour cream, yogurt and kefir, in which you can add herbs, garlic, a little tomato sauce or mustard.
Taking into account the above recommendations, you will be able to prepare a delicious shawarma at home, which without any stretch can be called a dietary dish.
Recipe for unleavened dough for pita
Composition:
- wheat flour - 0, 3 kg;
- water (boiling water) - 150 ml;
- salt - 5 g.
Method of preparation:
- Sift flour.
- Boil water, let it stand for a couple of minutes, dissolve salt in it.
- With a thin stream pouring water into the flour, stir it with a mixer. Continue stirring the dough until the water has absorbed all the flour and the mass becomes homogeneous.
- Cover the dough with plastic and leave for half an hour in a warm place.
- Mash the dough with your hands and roll a sausage out of it. Cut it into 7 parts, from each make a thin layer with a diameter of 28-30 cm. If the frying pan on which you are going to fry the tortillas has a larger diameter, cut the “sausage” from the text into fewer pieces. And vice versa: for a smaller diameter pan, more smaller pieces will be required.
- Heat the pan without oil and put one layer of dough on it. Cook for about half a minute until the dough starts to bubble.
- Turn the cake over and fry it on the other side for the same time.
- Remove the homemade pita bread from the pan. Put it on a damp napkin, cover it with another wet napkin.
- Also fry the rest of the tortillas, remembering to shift them with wet wipes.
For one cake with a diameter of 30 cm, approximately 150 g of filling will be required. The size of the cakes corresponds to about half of the purchased Armenian lavash.
Dietary shawarma with chicken breast
Composition:
- Armenian lavash - 2 pcs .;
- chicken breast (fillet) - 0, 2-0, 25 kg;
- cucumber - 100 g;
- sweet pepper - 100 g;
- tomatoes - 100 g;
- purple onions - 50 g;
- fresh spinach - 50 g;
- garlic - 1 clove;
- Greek yogurt - 100 ml;
- salt - a pinch.
Method of preparation:
- Pepper wash, remove the stalk and seeds, cut into thin strips.
- Finely scrape a cucumber.
- Boil chicken breast, cut into small cubes.
- Cut the tomatoes into halves.
- Cut onion into thin half rings. Pour boiling water over it, pour out water.
- Finely chop the spinach with a knife.
- Skip garlic through a press and mix with Greek yogurt, adding a pinch of salt to it.
- Mix in all the ingredients and season with yogurt.
- Divide the filling into about 4 parts.
- Cut each pita in half. Lay the halves of the pita flat cut up.
- At a distance of about 10 cm from the edge, place on each sheet a fourth of the filling, roll up the side and bottom edges, roll into a roll.
- Heat the diet shawarma with chicken breast in the microwave or in a dry frying pan.
Chicken breast shawarma well satisfies hunger, but does not create a risk to spoil the figure.
Dietary shawarma with turkey
Composition:
- turkey fillet - 0, 3 kg;
- white cabbage - 100 g;
- carrots - 100 g;
- tomato - 100 g;
- onions - 50 g;
- cucumber - 100 g;
- fresh greens - 50 g;
- lemon - 0, 5 pcs .;
- soy sauce - 20 ml;
- pita bread - 2-3 pcs .;
- vegetable oil - 40 ml.
Method of preparation:
- Cook a piece of turkey fillet, better from the breast, since the meat of the breast is more tender and dietary. Cool, cut into small cubes.
- Cut the cubes and tomatoes.
- Chop a cucumber into thin strips using a vegetable peeler.
- Cut peeled carrots in the same way.
- Cut half the onion into thin half rings.
- Chop cabbage thinly.
- Chop the greens.
- Mix vegetables with turkey fillet and greens.
- In a separate bowl, squeeze the juice from half a lemon. Mix it with soy sauce and butter. Season the mixture with vegetables and turkey.
- Divide the filling into 2-3 equal parts, wrap each into a pita. Fry shawarma on both sides until crisp in a pan without oil.
Shawarma for this recipe turns out juicy, tasty, nourishing, but not too high in calories. You can take this with you on the road or to work so that you can have lunch with something useful without spending a lot of time preparing.
Dietary shawarma with seafood
Composition:
- boiled squids - 150 g;
- boiled peeled shrimps - 150 g;
- pickled mussels - 100 g;
- Chinese cabbage - 0, 2 kg;
- arugula - 100 g;
- cottage cheese - 150 g;
- kefir - 50 ml;
- unleavened dough for shawarma - 0, 45 kg.
Method of preparation:
- Slice the peeled squid, lower it into boiling salted water for 3 minutes. Take out a slotted spoon, let it drain.
- In another saucepan, boil the shrimp for 5 minutes, peel them.
- Measure out the right amount of squid and shrimp, mix them with pickled mussels.
- Finely chop with a knife arugula and Chinese cabbage, mix.
- In the cottage cheese add kefir, stir until smooth. You can add to this mass a little chopped dill or squeezed garlic.
- Divide dough for shawarma into 6-7 parts. On the same number of parts, divide the cottage cheese, cabbage with arugula and seafood.
- Roll out the dough, make cakes out of it.
- Put a little cottage cheese on each flatbread, on it - a mixture of Chinese cabbage with arugula, top with a mixture of shrimps, calamari and mussels.
- Roll each cake like a pancake. Put the “seam” down on a heated pan and, pressing the lid, fry for 15 seconds on each side.
Such shawarma will be delicious even when cold.
There are many recipes for making diet shawarma, you can invent your own if you follow the general principles of cooking this tasty and healthy dish.
