Lamb Shish Kabob Recipe with Yogurt Marinade

Who doesn’t love Turkish kebabs, one of the most popular Turkish foods? They are always a hit at occasions. These yogurt marinated Turkish lamb kebabs are family favorite. It’s a fun way to have dinner. Everyone is happier when they have kabobs, grilled vegetables and yogurt dip cacik for dinner. We either make chicken kabobs or lamb skewers using almost the same marinade and have the same tasty and tender result each time.

What we love most about this shish kabob recipe is that it can be prepared ahead of time. Super time saving! And if you love cooking with lamb meat, you can check out our simple lamb stew, which is perfect for colder seasons.

Yogurt Marinade

For an easy shish kabob recipe, we mostly prepare the marinade and put lamb pieces in it overnight.

This is a simple combination of yogurt, olive oil and spices. If you don't have yogurt, you can use milk instead as we do when making chicken kebabs. We use cumin, black pepper, dried oregano or preserved fresh thyme and a little chili powder but you can add extra spices that you think go well with lamb.

In addition to spices, you can flavor your marinade with garlic. That’s what mom always does. It works great with chicken or beef too.

If you don’t have time for an overnight marinating, refrigerate the meat in the marinade for at least 1 hour. This will still change things a lot.

How To Make

1. Put chopped lamb meat in the marinade and refrigerate overnight or at least for 1 hour.
2. Thread the lamb cubes and pepper pieces on skewers.
3. Light a grill and place the skewers and throw some fresh rosemary leaves over them. Grill the skewers over high heat, turning every 1 minute to cook all sides. They are done within 7 minutes. You can use a grill pan too.
4. Serve with more grilled vegetables or fresh salad.

What Vegetables To Pair These With?

Another thing we love about making lamb kabobs is that you can pair them with whatever vegetable you like. You can just thread them together on skewers or place some extra veggies on the grill and cook them altogether.

We love grilled peppers, so we always pair kabobs with them. Our son’s favorite is grilled onions, so we always put some onions on the grill too. Oh and we add some fresh rosemary on the grill when making this shish kabob recipe. They all smell so good!

Roasted tomatoes, garlic, mushrooms would all work fine. You can even prepare some vegetable kebabs and grill them altogether.

Serving Suggestions

Besides roasted vegetables, you can serve these lamb shish kabobs with several side dishes. Our favorites are Turkish salsa acili ezme, sumac onion salad and shepherd salad.

Also, you can put the kebabs on some Turkish breads like lavash, pide bread or flatbread bazlama.