Our 32 Best Kebab Recipes (2024)

Shawarma, satay, or spiedini; meshwy or mtsvadi; yakitori, pintxos, or anticuchos ... whatever you call your skewers, we are 100% on board. This collection of kebab recipes celebrates all manner of deliciousness threaded on sticks and typically cooked over an open flame (aka grill skewers) and served with accompanying marinades, sauces, or dips. From vegetables like peppers, zucchini, mushrooms, and tomatoes to lamb, beef, chicken, seafood, and more, we've rounded up our skewered favorites all in one place for your perusal and subsequent grilling pleasure. For cooking pointers, check out our list of kebab pitfalls to avoid.

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Lahem Meshwy (Lamb Shish Kebabs)

Simply spiced with paprika, salt, and pepper, these grilled lamb kebabs have been a mainstay at League of Kitchens instructor Jeanette Chawki's family cookouts for years. Be sure to cut the lamb into equal-size cubes to ensure even cooking, but feel free to mix and match the vegetables on each skewer.

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Baja-Style Rosemary Chicken Skewers

Chicken thighs are perfect for the grill because they stay nice and moist. Skewering them with rosemary imparts a lovely herbal flavor in this fragrant recipe from chef Marcela Valladolid.

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Shrimp and Okra Kebabs with Grilled Peaches and Jalapeño-Bourbon Vinaigrette

A splash of bourbon in the vinaigrette adds a sweet, boozy kick of flavor and helps tenderize the shrimp in 2008 F&W Best New Chef Sue Zemanick’s shrimp and okra kebabs. Cutting okra in half lengthwise keeps it big enough to skewer, becoming charred and crispy on the grill without falling through the grates.

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Steak, Potato, and Chorizo Kebabs with Red Pepper Mayo

"Almost nothing pairs better with potatoes than steak, so here I thread strips of skirt steak onto skewers with baby Dutch yellow potatoes," writes cookbook author Ann Taylor Pittman. "Slices of robust Spanish chorizo crisp up on the grill and offer bursts of intense flavor as you eat the kebabs. Coating everything with smoked paprika amplifies the effect of the grilling."

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Lamb Boti Kebabs

For these kebabs from chef Chintan Pandya, naturally sweet, juicy lamb is coated in a spicy, aromatic, warm yogurt marinade. The yogurt tenderizes the meat as it marinates, then forms a delicious crust as it roasts in the oven. Basting the meat with melted butter adds a nice richness, making these kebabs juicy, tender, and packed with flavor.

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Tunisian Chicken Kebabs with Currants and Olives

Chef Susan Feniger's sweet and tangy marinated chicken skewers are adapted from her book, Street Food. They're flavorful enough to eat on their own, but they're even better with the chunky currant and olive relish.

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Halloumi and Vegetable Skewers with Pomegranate-Tahini Sauce

Pomegranate molasses is the secret ingredient in this simple marinade. Its punchy, sweet, earthy notes add long-cooked depth of flavor to cheese and vegetable skewers in just 30 minutes of marination, with pleasantly bitter tahini rounding things out. The pomegranate-tahini marinade goes the extra mile as a final drizzle for the skewers. Thinned with fresh orange juice, it supplies the perfect, sweet-savory finish to the dish.

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Pulehu Steak Tip Skewers with Maui Onion Finadene Sauce

Pulehu is Hawaiian for "to cook over hot coals." In this grilled steak tip skewer recipe from Hawaiian chef Sheldon Simeon, a punchy, bright basting sauce of sake, soy sauce, brown sugar, sherry vinegar, garlic, ginger, and scallions flavors the beef. Pulverized toasted barley is the secret ingredient in the sauce — it thickens the sauce and helps it coat the beef so it gets crispy when grilled.

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Mtsvadi (Grilled Pork Skewers with Pomegranate and Onions)

These Georgian mtsvadi, or grilled meat skewers, are made from well-marbled pork shoulder tossed with raw onions and finished with freshly squeezed pomegranate juice. Leave the fat intact for sizzling, juicy meat with plenty of crispy bits.

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Shawarma-Style Chicken and Mushroom Kebabs

These juicy kebabs mimic the flavor of shawarma by starting over high heat and finishing over low heat, ensuring a crisp exterior and a flavorful interior.

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Pork Belly, Shrimp, and Pickled Tomato Pintxos

These simple, one-bite snacks are quick to assemble and grill just as your guests arrive. Sticky-sweet pork belly; tender, meaty shrimp; and bright, quick-pickled tomato variations offer something for everyone at the cookout.

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Lemongrass Skirt Steak Skewers

For this recipe from 2020 F&W Best New Chef Donny Sirisavath, using flat skewers helps the meat char and cook evenly by curbing any rolling around the grill. Be sure to preheat the grill; high, even heat will help guarantee strong grill marks and will caramelize the sugars in the marinade.

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Swordfish Skewers with Salsa Verde

Chef Chad Colby uses fresh bay leaves on these swordfish skewers, which impart a lovely fragrance to the dish. He threads zucchini ribbons between the leaves and fish, grills the skewers alongside lemon halves, then serves them with the charred lemon.

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Anticuchos de Pollo (Peruvian Chicken Skewers)

These Peruvian skewers are coated in a thick chile marinade that withstands the heat of the grill and clings to the chicken, yielding caramelized, charred bits. Huacatay, or Peruvian black mint, is hard to come by fresh in the States, but the jarred paste is smooth and creamy with notes of green tea; look for it online or in Latin markets.

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Salmon Yakitori

Double-pronged skewers give delicate, flaky proteins like salmon a bit more stability so they can be turned repeatedly without spinning around or falling apart. A soy sauce, mirin, and brown sugar glaze caramelizes on the fish and baby bok choy as it grills, and also serves as a dipping sauce.

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Turkey Kibbe Kebabs with Two Sauces

Kibbe kebabs are made from chopped meat and (very often) bulgur, formed into sausage-like shapes. Here, turkey replaces the traditional lamb.

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Beef Shish Kebab

The inexpensive, tough beef cut called flap meat is full of flavor, with a coarse grain that absorbs marinades well. Marinate it 24 hours and pound it with a meat mallet for the juiciest, most tender kebabs.

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Chicken Satay with Peanut Sauce

These deliciously spiced grilled chicken skewers are perfect with a sweet and tangy peanut sauce.

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Seafood Spiedini

Fish with a firm structure, like swordfish, tuna, and mahi-mahi, holds up best when cut into pieces and skewered. Los Angeles-based Italian chef Daniele Uditi uses swordfish for these herb-lashed skewers.

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Turkish Shish Kebabs with Garlicky Tahini

Turkish pitmasters devised an ingenious "divide and conquer" approach to shish kebabs: They grill the meat and vegetables separately to allow foods with different cooking times to reach the perfect degree of doneness. Serve with a creamy tahini sauce.

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21of 32

Red Curry Chicken Kebabs with Minty Yogurt Sauce

For spicy chicken kebabs as irresistible as Buffalo wings, chef Kerry Simon created a fantastically simple marinade using just jarred red curry paste, vegetable oil, and salt.

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Spiced Shrimp and Tomato Kebabs

This is a perfect party dish because it's so easy to assemble, and you can marinate and skewer the shrimp ahead of time.

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Smoky Mushroom Skewers with Labneh and Salsa Verde

Thick-stemmed king trumpet mushrooms grill up meaty and tender, while feathery oyster mushrooms get nice and crispy — both are great options for these quick-cooking kebabs. Piled into warm pitas with a smear of tangy labneh and a drizzle of intensely herby salsa verde, this dish is a fun, fresh way to enjoy mushrooms.

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Salmon Skewers with Almond Charmoula

Simply grilling fish is TV chef Andrew Zimmern’s favorite way to eat what comes out of the ocean. For these skewers, he pairs rich salmon with North African charmoula, a brightly acidic herb paste tempered with sweet fruit and — his personal twist — crunchy nuts.

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Chicken Lule Kebab

Freshly grinding chicken thighs with lamb fat gives these kebabs a rich, savory flavor and juicy, tender texture. Mini Kabob in Los Angeles grinds all the meat in-house, and you can, too, if you have a grinder (or ask your butcher). If you don't have a meat grinder, no problem: The F&W test kitchen developed an alternative (and less rich) version you can make using pre-ground meat.

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Grilled Squash Ribbons and Prosciutto with Mint Dressing

Grilling zucchini and summer squash ribbons on skewers is terrific because the edges become wonderfully charred and crisp, while the insides stay tender and juicy.

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Chicken Tikka Kebabs

The Kashmiri red chile powder used to season the chicken in these kebabs from chef Chintan Pandya gives them a mild, warm heat. The yogurt marinade ensures that the chicken thighs are juicy and tender when they emerge from the oven, and a quick baste with melted butter makes the dish especially rich.

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Green Curry Beef Skewers with Fried Basil Oil

"Although green curry paste goes well with all types of meat, it brings out the best in red meat. I use beef here, but just as often I use boneless lamb from the leg," says cookbook author Leela Punyaratabandhu. "The basil oil is a finishing touch that perfumes the dish with the scent of Thai basil and provides richness. I call for quite a lot of curry paste here, but feel free to adjust the amount to suit your taste."

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Vermicelli with Chicken Skewers and Nuoc Cham

In this version of a Vietnamese dish, individual piles of cucumber, fresh herbs, and grilled chicken are arranged on a platter of vermicelli and bean sprouts. Tangy nuoc cham sauce is poured over all. As each diner takes a portion, the components intermingle.

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Glazed Korean Rice Cake Skewers with Spam

These Korean street-food-inspired kebabs from chef Sohui Kim of Insa in Brooklyn involve skewering Korean rice cakes (which taste like thick noodles) with Spam and crunchy vegetables.

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Chicken Thigh Yakitori

At Hong Kong's Yardbird, the cooks don't just cut up chicken thighs to skewer for yakitori: They separate the meat into several different muscles and grill each individually. "This allows each piece to be cooked at the same speed," says co-owner Lindsay Jang.

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Herb-Marinated Mixed Skewers

Chef Matteo Gambi grills these marinated pork and bacon-wrapped turkey skewers for a great charred flavor, then finishes them in the oven to keep them juicy.

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