Easy Grilled Chicken Gyro Salad

This easy grilled chicken gyro salad is a quick, healthy meal that comes together in less than 20 minute. The Gyro style chicken is nice and juicy thanks to a trick that you should use for all your chicken dishes.

The juicy, tender, flavorful chicken will be the hit of your meal if you use the trick below!

The Salad

The salad in this recipe is a Greek salad but you can improvise with whatever you have. We will get back to this salad later but first the most important ingredient, the juicy grilled chicken breast.

The Chicken

I used boneless skinless breast and grilled in a grill pan. You can use whatever chicken parts you want and cook them however you want. You can grill, sauté, or cut it up in pieces and stir fry, as long as you do this one important step. Brine it!

Brining! The Trick!

Brining will make your chicken more flavorful, tender, and juicy. It is easy and a gamechanger. Read more about the science behind brining here but make sure you DO IT!

It has to do with how salt interacts with the proteins and create an osmosis. Salt is the most important ingredient in cooking and not only for flavor!

Brining (cont.)

There are two types of brining methods, dry brining (salting the meat) and wet brining (soaking in salt water). This recipe is wet brined because it is easier for chicken breast.

How, you ask? First different cuts and sizes of meat takes different amounts of salt and time. For chicken breast use 1/4 quarter cup of kosher salt per quart of water and brine fore 30 minutes.

Marinating and Cooking the Chicken

Marinade the chicken in rosemary, garlic, lemon zest, lemon juice, black pepper, and olive oil. Since the chicken was brined do not add salt or the chicken will be a salt bomb. Marinate for at least 1/2 hour to overnight.

Cook the chicken to 160 degrees for breast or 170 for drumsticks and thighs. I used a grill pan but you could bake, sauté, grill, or broil. If you cook it a little to long it will still stay juicy because of the brine.

The Rest For The Best Grilled Chicken Gyro Salad

The chicken is the star and the supporting cast is very flexible. Use what you have, carrots, peppers, beets, roasted veggies etc.. I used…..

• iceberg lettuce and baby romaine (use what you have, baby greens, arugula, kale etc…)
• tomato, cucumber, red onion, shaved red cabbage (optional)
• Kalamata olives,
• pickled hot yellow chili peppers (pepperoncini is traditional but I like these better, hotter, crisper)
• feta cheese
• our Italian/Greek dressing (add feta to dressing if you like)
• easy home made stovetop pita or naan
• extras below

Use what you have, the chicken is the star.

Extras! Make it Fun!

I always have lots of home made salsas and pickles so I always put them out with this salad. In the picture I put out a yogurt sauce, and two salsas I make it so people can customize their salad or make a pita sandwiches. I always like to have the option “to have it your way.”