Honey Harissa Chicken Gyros

These chicken gyros combine leftover rotisserie chicken with a sweet and spicy honey harissa sauce, high protein pita bread, tzatziki, reduced fat feta cheese, and all your favorite veggie toppings. The key to making this chicken amazing is using your oven’s broil function to caramelize the sauce and make the chicken crispy around the edges. Who needs a grill?

The recipe makes four giant chicken gyros with 42 grams of protein, 57 grams of carbs, and just 10 grams of fat (even with tzatziki and feta)! Or you can totally use the honey harissa chicken to make greens and grain bowls. I’ll cover all the details in the post below, and you will find a printable recipe card at the bottom of this post.

Making Honey Harissa Chicken with Leftover Chicken

In case you’re not keeping tabs on all the latest Kinda Healthy Recipes (which is a mistake), this recipe is the latest in a series of repurposing rotisserie chicken for things like tacos and Korean BBQ bowls.

All these recipes start by tossing pulled rotisserie chicken with a sauce and broiling to thicken and caramelize the sauce while reheating and slightly browning the chicken for added flavor and texture.

And this honey harissa chicken is no different. The sauce is a simple blend of harissa (a North African chili paste), honey, lemon juice, and garlic. I first used this sauce to make Mediterranean ground chicken bowls and have been raving about the combo ever since. Trader Joe’s has a great harissa, and I’ve also found a wider variety at Whole Foods. Though I’ll mention you want to use a paste, not a harissa sauce.

If you have trouble finding harissa, you can try making your own or using another chili paste like sambal oelek, chili garlic sauce, or something along those lines.

The heat level is not intense, and the honey balances it out nicely. If you find the spice is too intense in the finished dish, you can use fresh lemon juice and a drizzle of honey to tone it down. The tzatziki and other pairings will also help. Salty, sweet, and sour will all help reduce the pungency.

Making Chicken Gyros and Other Ways to Serve

Long time readers will recognize the Joseph’s Bakery pita bread. But in case you’re new, these are an excellent way to make lower calorie gyros, pizzas, flatbreads, and more. Each one has 180 calories, 8g of protein, 36g of carbs, and only 2g of fat. You can find them in Walmart, Kroger, Amazon, and more.

If you can’t find this particular brand of pita bread, that’s totally fine. The nutrition facts difference between other options isn’t that far off.

The recipe calls for warming the pita bread and using them whole, but you can totally make pita pockets for smaller serving sizes if needed. As-written, the recipe makes four BIG chicken gyros.

If you’d rather skip the pita, you can use tortillas to make snack wraps in bulk. Check out my sheet pan snack wraps for an example.

Or to skip wraps altogether, I’d recommend a high volume rice bowl with a blend of basmati rice and riced cauliflower. A 2:1 basmati to cauliflower ratio hides the cauliflower while providing some extra bulk to your bowls.

Other pairings might include super greens blends, hummus, olives, cherry peppers, avocado, corn, roasted veggies, or cabbage slaw.

The beauty of this chicken is that it’s so easy to make, you can put all your efforts into building beautiful protein bowls with the healthiest ingredients you can get your hands on.

Okay, that should cover everything you need to know about making honey harissa chicken with rotisserie chicken and all the ways to use it. If you have a question I haven’t covered, leave it in the comments down below. And if you try this recipe and dig it, I always appreciate recipe reviews!