I'm a HUGE fan of gyros! Salty, garlicy goodness contrasted with the cool cucumber sauce and fresh tomatoes. So satisfying, so flavorful, so good!
Those of you that have been hanging around here for a while know that I like to try to make things as easy and simple as possible. Some may call it lazy. I call it efficient. 🙂 Or lazy...whatever! Traditional gyros are made with lamb that is ground, spiced, made into a loaf, cooked, and sliced very thin. Although super delicious, I don't have time to go to all that trouble on a typical day. I'm not even sure I would go to all that trouble even when I did have time.
That's why I thought this ground beef gyros version would be perfect for a simple weeknight meal. It cooks up like taco meat, just spiced differently and served on flat bread with a delicious cucumber yogurt sauce and other typical gyro fixings.
For the flat bread, I used my easy pizza dough recipe, but after rising, I divided it into 8 portions, rolled them out, and cooked them a few minutes on each side on a hot griddle. Very easy.
If you don't do grains, you could also skip the flat bread and serve it as a deconstructed gyro salad. It's super delicious that way as well. Top a salad with cucumbers, tomatoes, spiced ground beef, and cucumber-yogurt sauce.
I think you'll really like these ground beef gyros. Easy, satisfying, delicious, and out of the norm for your typical weeknight fare. I also love that it's made with ground beef, which means it's much more economical than traditional lamb.
Make sure you eat this before the summer is over so you can take advantage of the fresh seasonal tomatoes and cucumbers! Enjoy!
Ground beef gyros
Ingredients
Cucumber Sauce
- 1 cup organic thick yogurt or sour cream storebought or Homemade
- ½ cup diced cucumber
- 1 clove minced garlic
- juice of half a lemon
- ¼ tsp. sea salt
Beef
- 1 lb. grass fed ground beef
- 2 cloves minced garlic
- 1 ½ tsp. oregano or more to taste
- 1 tsp. sea salt
- ½ tsp pepper
Instructions
- Mix yogurt, salt, garlic, lemon juice, and cucumber together in a small bowl. Chill in refrigerator until ready to eat.
- Meanwhile, add ground beef, garlic, oregano, salt, and pepper to a skillet or shallow dutch oven. If you are using lean grass-fed beef, there won't be any fat to drain.
- Evenly distribute spices throughout beef and cook beef over medium heat until brown and cooked through.
- Serve spiced beef on flat bread with a generous helping of yogurt sauce and other desired toppings.
- Possible toppings: lettuce, tomatoes, sliced onion, feta cheese
Gloria Jean
What an awesome idea. I buy ground beef and chicken in 5lb bulk bags and have always divided it up ready to cook and stored in the freezer, but pre-cooking would save so much more time. Have you found that the cooked/reheated meat does or doesn’t absorb your spices as well? That would be my only concern, although I think you could avoid the bland meat scenario by putting some garlic, salt, pepper and some other “general” seasonings (parsley, minced onion) in there when you cook in the crock pot. I would think these are common enough to most things you do with the finished meat that you wouldn’t endanger the final dinner product.