Meals · Grilled & kebabs

Chicken souvlaki skewers

Name: Chicken souvlaki skewers
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 12 min
Total time: 27 min
Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients: 1 1/2 lb chicken thigh, cut into 4 cm (1½-inch) pieces; 1/4 cup whole-milk Greek yogurt; 2 tbsp olive oil; juice of 1 lemon; 4 cloves garlic, crushed; 2 tsp dried oregano; 1 tsp salt; 1 tsp black pepper

The grill's most reliable dinner: thigh meat in lemon, garlic and oregano, cooked hot and fast until the edges char. The yogurt in the marinade is not a garnish — it is what keeps the meat tender when the grill runs hotter than you meant it to.

Time: 27 min (15 prep + 12 cook)
Servings: 4
Per serving: 328 kcal
Protein: 34 g

Ingredients

1 1/2 lb chicken thigh, cut into 4 cm (1½-inch) pieces700 g
1/4 cup whole-milk Greek yogurt60 g
2 tbsp olive oil30 g
juice of 1 lemon40 g
4 cloves garlic, crushed12 g
2 tsp dried oregano4 g
1 tsp salt5 g
1 tsp black pepper2 g

Every ingredient links to its food page — same data, same score, same formula.

Steps

Mix the yogurt, oil, lemon juice, garlic, oregano, salt and pepper in a bowl, add the chicken and turn it until every piece is coated.
Marinate at least 30 minutes, up to overnight. The lemon does its work early; the yogurt keeps going.
Thread onto skewers, leaving a little space between pieces — packed tight they steam instead of charring.
Grill over high heat 10–12 minutes, turning every few minutes, until the outside is spotted black and the inside reads 74°C.
Rest 5 minutes before serving. Thigh meat forgives a lot, but not being cut open straight off the fire.

No grill?

A ridged pan or the oven's top grill element, 10 cm (4 inches) from the heat, gets close. What you are after is fierce dry heat, not gentle roasting.

Breast instead of thigh?

It works and scores a little higher, but the margin between juicy and dry narrows to about ninety seconds. Pull it at 70°C and let it rest.

Why this score

solidly filling

No single route carries this one — a moderate amount of protein, volume and fiber.

Three routes to fullness — one is enough

43% of kcal

67% water

3 g/Mcal

What pulls it down

Nothing here converges the way engineered food does — no sugar, no savoury and no alcohol penalty.

How scores work

Computed on the finished dish, not an average of the parts: 1310 kcal goes into the pot, 853 g of ingredients comes out as ~700 g of food → 187 kcal per 100 g. Cooking moves water, and energy density is the score's biggest lever — so we show the math. Full formula here.

Per

Calories: 187
Protein: (43%); 20 g
Fat: (53%); 11 g
Carbohydrates: (4%); 2 g
of which sugar: <1 g
Fiber: 1 g
Sodium: 360 mg

Percentages are the share of calories from each macronutrient.

Computed from the ingredients' USDA data — nothing typed by hand. Every number is traceable, every score recomputable.

More meals

Photo: AI-generated. Nutrition and score are computed from the ingredients with the published formula — this recipe hasn't been kitchen-tested by us yet.