ZagLeft

The other night for dinner, I made turkey gyros (pronounced yee-ros ) for my family.  A gyro is typically made with lamb and/or beef and seasoned with lots of zesty spices piled high on a pita type bread.  It’s usually served with a delicious sauce called tzatziki (pronounced zaa-zee-kee), which is a creamy cucumber mint or dill flavored sauce.

Instead of using the traditional meats, I decided to go a lighter, healthier route by using ground turkey.  I seasoned the ground turkey with a greek spice combination from McCormick spices.  If you can’t find this particular spice blend you can create your own quite easily.  The spices in this robust spice combination are mainly onion, garlic, oregano and a touch of mint. These spices plus a little salt and pepper really kicked up the flavor of the ground turkey.  It was a huge hit!

But, the real star of this dish was the Tzatziki Sauce.  This creamy, cucumber-mint sauce was fabulous.  It tasted great on the ground turkey and I can certainly see making extra next time to keep in the fridge and use on chicken or in salads.

I used naan on some of the gyros and whole wheat tortillas on the other gyros to hold everything together.  This dinner came together in minutes and the flavors of the spiced meats along with the tzatziki sauce were perfect.

INGREDIENTS

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 pound lean ground turkey

1 medium onion, sliced

2 teaspoons greek seasoning ( or use a combination of  garlic, oregano and onion powder)

1/2 teaspoon pepper

1 teaspoon salt

DIRECTIONS

In a large skillet, heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil.  Saute the sliced onions for about 5 minutes.  Add the ground turkey and stir in the spices, salt and pepper.  Cook, stirring occasionally until meat is done.  Remove from heat and set aside.

TZATZIKI SAUCE

INGREDIENTS

1 cup greek yogurt

1 large cucumber, peeled, diced and seeded

2 cups fresh mint

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons greek seasoning

DIRECTIONS

In the base of a food processor, put in the greek yogurt, cucumber and mint.  Pulse several times.  Add the spices and the salt and pulse again until you get a creamy consistency.

TO ASSEMBLE THE GYRO

Warm either naan, pita bread or tortillas in the microwave.  After warming, fill with seasoned ground turkey and onion and add the Tzatziki Sauce over the top.