Kafta kabob! Tender ground beef (or ground lamb) loaded with minced onions, garlic, fresh parsley, and so many spices that work beautifully together. I love serving this up with a batch of homemade extra smooth hummus or toum and lots of Shirazi salad or fattoush on the side with vermicelli rice! If you’ve never had kafta before, think of it as extra flavorful meatballs just in an oblong shape! I can’t tell you how afraid I was to make kafta at home before. Putting the ground meat mixture on the wooden skewers terrified me. It stems from my early days of cooking when I attempted making them and I just couldn’t get the meat to stay on the skewers! Well, 10 years in and I’ve done away with the skewers entirely. We’re freestyling these kabobs and never looking back!
Ingredients for homemade kafta:
Ground beef: I like to use 90:10 ground beef for this recipe. It’s just the right amount of fat to help the kafta hold together without the kabobs being greasy. You could also use 95% lean ground beef but I definitely do prefer this recipe with a little more fat than that! Feel free to swap the ground beef or lamb here or use a 50:50 of each of those.Fresh Parsley: adds both color and flavor to the kebobs.Onions: I use a roughly cut-up yellow onion that I pulse along with the parsley and garlic in the food processor. You could also use a red onion for this recipe.Garlic: Fresh garlic, onions, and parsley are the base of the beef kebabs along with the ground meat.Spice blend: You’ll need ground sumac, kosher salt, allspice, ground cumin, coriander, white or black pepper, cinnamon, ground cloves, cayenne pepper, and ground nutmeg for this recipe!
How to make homemade beef kofta kebabs:
If you like this recipe, you might also like:
Lebanese Meat-Stuffed Pitas (Arayes)Persian Chicken Kebabs (Jujeh Chicken)Beef Shawarma BowlsMost Delicious Homemade Shawarma SeasoningCheesy Zaatar Bread (Manakish)
Shaped Kofta: can be placed on a freezer paper-lined baking sheet and flash frozen. Simply transfer them to a zip-top bag afterward. I stick to grilling these on an outdoor grill and do so from frozen!
