Full episode · 5:07 · Sep 24, 2026
80 pounds of chicken shawarma. Two sauces. One lunch.
From the yogurt marinade to the lunch trays, with Golden Sauce, roasted red pepper Spidey Sauce and the kids’ pick at the end.
Watch it in the kitchen
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Make it at home.
Chicken shawarma, Golden Sauce and Spidey Sauce, with a printable recipe card.
In this episode
Use the video’s timeline to find a part, or read the transcript below.
- Chicken shawarma for school lunch
- Yogurt marinade and shawarma spices
- Why the sauces matter
- Golden Sauce
- Spidey Sauce
- Chopping and finishing the chicken
- Food science, football and why I cook
- Iceberg and carrot topping
- Lunch hits the trays
- The sauce winner
- A sauce trick for dinner
Read the episode transcript
Jared’s spoken words from the episode.
Chicken shawarma for school lunch
I ate in NFL cafeterias for over a decade and never saw this hit the plate. But today it's hitting the lunch trays for my school. Today I'm making 80 pounds of chicken shawarma. And there's definitely some stuff in here you'd think that kids would not touch. But we have a plan for that.
Yogurt marinade and shawarma spices
You give me some allspice by itself, it's gross. Don't like it one bit. But you marry it with some ground coriander, with a little bit of cinnamon, but really make sure that curry powder base is there. And then combine it with some Greek yogurt and garlic, and it's game over. And that yogurt's really clutch because it keeps this chicken from drying out as it's going to roast in the oven, and it gives really nice flavor and tang. Right now I'm using chicken tenders, so they're a smaller cut. 30 to 60 minutes before you're cooking it is going to put a ton of flavor into it. Yeah, tight, but in rows so they're not like clumped up. You just want that sweet spot of a nice light coating like these chicken tenders.
Why the sauces matter
So one of the big things about getting kids to approach a dish that they've never had before or that you're cooking the first time is making sure that you have a sauce that's completely dialed in. And it can't just be like a ugly sauce, all right? You're looking for something that's going to have color and pops on a plate so the kids feel comfortable eating it.
Golden Sauce
We're making some Golden Sauce right now to go on top of this chicken shawarma. And the sauce is going to be a nice curry-based sauce with some tang to it. So we got the mayo there. We're going to go sour cream. Here we go, our salt. Olive oil. Honey. Fresh garlic. Curry powder. Apple cider vinegar. Lemon juice. Max line. It's just a recommendation. In retrospect, should have divided this into two batches. The at-home batch fits nicely. We don't want chunks of anything. This needs to be velvety and silky for the kids. Whenever you're building up a sauce too, you want to taste it as you go. Recipes can lie to you. You never know if you need to add a little more salt, a little more acid.
Spidey Sauce
And then the other sauce, it is a red garlic sauce, and that is going to be Spidey Sauce. It rolls off the tongue nice. Spider-Man's red. We're going to call it Spidey Sauce. Kids are eating with all of the senses other than taste before they take the first bite. What do they hear about the sauce? What do they see about the sauce? We have these roasted red peppers. I just want to take the core out. And I can open it up. You can scrape out the seeds. Just toss it in the blender. Three tablespoons of tomato paste. And add the paprika. Grab our garlic. Quarter cup extra virgin olive oil. And we got our lemon juice. Then adding in our sour cream. It's tasting fantastic, but... I need a little more garlic. It's going to be interesting to see what sauce outperforms today.
Chopping and finishing the chicken
Plus this is going in a pita anyway. It's going to be a little finer chop. When chopping and serving all this chicken, one of the things you run into is it drying out as it sits there. And so we basically whipped up a secondary marinade of some garlic, olive oil and some of the spices that went into the shawarma seasoning. We're going to hit it with that. We're going to hit it with a little lemon. Touch more salt. This one's tasting pretty dialed in.
Food science, football and why I cook
I was a bio guy in college, took all the pre-med classes. And I've always enjoyed the food science perspective and how to eat well for fueling, recovery, and how I could eat to play better on the field. And being able to get into this cafeteria and like do it consistently definitely kind of like leveled up everything, because you're doing it so much.
Iceberg and carrot topping
All right, when you're making some kind of side salad or something that's going to go on top to add a fresh element, it's really easy to dress it as you go. So I just added salt to my shredded iceberg and shredded carrots, and all I'm going to do now is just go a little sumac in here. In this case I'm going to hit it with some red wine vinegar. I'm going to toss it, taste it. But in this case I want it to be just vinegar because I want it to be really an acidic, crunchy element for a more rich, savory, soft sandwich.
The sauce winner
Consensus for the first group is Spidey Sauce so far. We've still got two more groups to go. The second group, I've heard more Golden Sauce than Spidey Sauce. So one more group to go. Things are starting to even out. I think Spidey still has a little bit of a lead. Let's see if Golden Sauce can make a true comeback or Spidey's going to run away with it. And then Spidey pulled away in the third group, and... Came away with the victory.
A sauce trick for dinner
You put a little sauce on their plate with it, name it something fun, put it in a squeeze bottle, let them squeeze it a little bit. And now all of a sudden they're bought in, they're taking that first bite and they're going back for more, and now they've finished their food.