Slow cooker Gyros

When I was in high school I spent a six weeks in Germany with a student exchange program. The town I visited had a large Greek and Turkish population. We would visit some of the restaurants and WOW was the food good.  After that awesome food exposure,  anytime that I visit fairs or festivals I typically find myself visiting the Greek food tent. Every time I taste cucumber (which on just about everything I ate while visiting) I find myself right back in Germany. In attempts to use my slow cooker for something different I decided to make Gyros!

This was the first time making the Gyros in my slow cooker and I think it turned out great! I actually made this for a group of 8 adults in our church lifegroup. It was so easy to prepare and transported well! We even had a ton of leftovers.

I will tell you ahead of time this does take some extra prep work, but I prepared everything on Sunday as usual and froze the meat just like all my other meals.

Ingredients:

Misc: (Garnish your Gyros--- all optional)
Pita pockets or Flatbread (i used both)
Tomatoes
Diced cucumber
Lettuce
Onions

Gyros:
3-4 lbs of chicken breast ( use more or less depending on how may you are cooking for)
1T minced garlic
1/2 c lemon juice
1/2 onion chopped
2T EVOO
4T Red Wine Vinegar
Wisk all ingredients together and pour over chicken.

If you chose to prepare early and freeze for later as I did, make sure to pull it out the night before to defrost.
After I added everything to the slow cooker I added about 1/2 c of chicken stock to keep the chicken from getting too dry. If you prefer you can always use water. Cook on high for 3-4 hrs or low for 6-8 hrs. I cut my chicken into strips before I froze everything to save time later. If you cook the chicken breast whole, you will want to remove the chicken and dice or shred.

Tzatziki Sauce:
24oz Greek Yogurt
2 cucumbers (peeled and seeded- I used my apple corer for this part)
1T minced garlic
2t Dill
1T red wine vinegar
Salt and pepper to taste
1/2  lemon

Finely dice peeled and seeded cucumbers and pat dry. Add salt and pepper to the cucumbers and set aside. Mix remaining ingredients in a bowl and add cucumber. Make sure to prepare at least 1-2 hour before serving. I prepared mine on Sunday and used it on Wednesday.

You can eat this on a flatbread or pita pocket or on a bed of lettuce. We had lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber for garnish. Just load your gyro however you would like. The Tzatziki sauce really pulled everything together. To go with our gyros, we had buffalo chicken dip (someone brought it in their slow cooker-- she must be a smart cooker!!) hummus and pita chips. For dessert we had brownies and cookies. I guess no one was brave enough to make some baklava

Unfortunately we had such a good time laughing and eating, I didn't have time to take a picture of the end result so you will just have to do with the stock photo I found; however, it did look similar.

Next time you are craving something Greek I hope you give this a try! It was really great!