Real souvlaki gets marinated in olive oil and grilled. The flavour you actually taste, though, is lemon and oregano. The oil is mostly there for the grill. Take it out, lean on the acid and herbs, and bake it, and you keep the part that matters.
This is my go-to “I want a proper plate of food” dinner. It looks like something you’d order out.
Serves 4. Roughly 5 g fat and 315 kcal per serving.
Phase & care: Chicken breast, potato, lemon and oregano are P1 for me. Fresh garlic is a hard no on my list, so this leans on lemon and oregano instead. If you’ve reintroduced garlic powder in phase 2 and tolerate it, a pinch works here, but that’s personal, mine and yours won’t match.
Ingredients
- 600g skinless chicken breast, cubed
- Juice of 2 lemons
- 2 tbsp dried oregano
- 1 tsp olive oil (one teaspoon for the whole tray)
- 600g potatoes, cut into wedges
- Salt, fresh parsley
- Optional (phase 2): a little garlic powder
Method
- Marinate the chicken in lemon, oregano and salt for at least 30 minutes. The acid does the tenderising the oil usually does.
- Parboil the potato wedges for 8 minutes, drain, then toss with the single teaspoon of oil, more lemon and oregano.
- Spread potatoes on a lined tray, bake at 200C for 20 minutes.
- Add the chicken to the tray, bake another 18-20 minutes until cooked through and the edges catch colour.
- Squeeze over more fresh lemon, scatter parsley.
The lined tray matters. No oil to stop sticking means you want baking paper doing that job.
Stepan’s rule: Fat is often a delivery system, not the flavour. Work out what the fat is actually carrying and you can usually deliver it another way.
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Also low fat and easy on a sore pancreas: the minestrone and the spaghetti al pomodoro that doesn’t need olive oil. The full system, with the fat budget in grams and all 75 recipes, is in the book.
Not medical advice. This recipe reflects one patient’s low-fat approach grounded in published guidance. Fat tolerance is individual. Check with your own healthcare team before changing your diet.