Chicken Kofta Recipe on Kebabs

At a glance

What stands out: This chicken kofta is made with ground chicken flavored with parsley, onion, and warm spices. Broiled chicken kofta is straightforward to prepare and so tasty!

How long it takes: 25 minutes
Equipment you’ll need: mixing bowl, skewers
Servings: 5

Remember we mentioned that we had a great recipe to go with the tahini sauce recipe? Well, look no further — here it is!

We love recreating recipes from our favorite Lebanese carry-out place, like chicken tawook, tahini sauce, and grilled chicken shawarma drumsticks. Today we have chicken kofta. This recipe doesn’t come out exactly like the chicken kofta at our usual carry-out place, but dare we say…it’s better? Ben definitely likes it better. Restaurant kofta is quite different from our version, so it’s a little difficult to compare the two.

We're pretty sure the version we order from the restaurant doesn’t include the seasonings we use (cinnamon, allspice and nutmeg), but we love what they bring to this recipe. We also love the freshness of the lemon and parsley that’s in the restaurant version. Clearly we need to make chicken kofta Version 2.0 in the future.

Both versions are a combination of ground chicken with lots of great flavors. You may be more accustomed to using ground turkey but we've found that ground chicken is great for a number of recipes (try southwestern mini meatloaves, air fryer egg rolls, or chicken lettuce wraps). It can be subbed in for ground turkey or even ground beef in many of your favorite recipes. Often, we'll brown it up for spaghetti sauce or use it for tacos instead of ground beef.

How it comes together

Mix the ingredients. We mix yogurt, chopped parsley, garlic, and onions into the ground chicken, along with cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg. We season the mixture with salt and pepper, and just a pinch of cayenne pepper.

Mix this together in the same way you would do for meatballs or burgers. We like to use our hands so that we don’t overmix the meat mixture which can make it tough.

Shape meat mixture. After you get the meat combined with all the other ingredients, form it around wooden skewers. (we recommend soaking the skewers in water for at least 30 minutes so they don’t start on fire.)

Broil. Place the chicken kofta on a baking sheet lined with foil for straightforward cleanup and broil until they’re cooked through, turning once. Sometimes chicken kofta is grilled but this mixture is fairly loose and you might have some problems with it falling through the grates of the grill. We'd recommend broiling or maybe using a grill pan.

Serve. You can eat chicken kofta straight off the kebabs or you can slide the meat off and use a fork and knife, whatever you prefer! Serve it with rice, tahini sauce, and a salad.

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• Yield: 5
• Prep: 15 minutes
• Cook: 10 minutes
• Total: 25 minutes

Ingredients

• 1 pound ground chicken breast (or ground turkey, if you prefer)
• ⅓ cup finely chopped yellow onion
• ⅓ cup chopped parsley
• 2 tablespoons plain Greek yogurt (we usually use full fat)
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon allspice
• ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
• ⅛ teaspoon cayenne pepper

Method

1. Preheat broiler to high with the oven rack positioned 5 to 6 inches from the heat. Line a rimmed baking sheet with foil and spray foil with nonstick cooking spray.
2. In a large mixing bowl, combine all ingredients and mix together using your hands until just combined. Do not over mix.
3. Wet hands and shape chicken mixture evenly around 5 to 6 skewers (if using wood, make sure to soak them in water for a couple hours first).
4. Broil for 8 to 10 minutes, turning once, or until cooked through and golden brown.

Notes

Cooking tip: The meat mixture is quite soft and slightly difficult to form around the skewers, so they probably won’t work on the grill. The broiler adds that same great grilled flavor without the risk of your kofta falling through the grill grates. If you prefer to grill them, we would omit the Greek yogurt from the recipe.