The Authentic, How To Recipe For The Halifax Donair (2024)

The famous Halifax donair is much more than a spicy beef wrap with a creamy garlic sauce. It’s a Canadian culinary icon that reflects the diversity and creativity of Nova Scotia. It’s a dish that was born out of adaptation and innovation, and has become a source of pride and joy for many Nova Scotians. It’s a dish that you have to try at least once in your life, and once you do, you will never forget it. But make sure you have the real thing!

The famous Halifax Donair – Spicy grilled beef and creamy garlic sauce with vegetables on a pita. A Greek immigrant adapted the gyro for local tastes. Today it’s considered the official food of Halifax. Make your own at home with a few simple ingredients.

Ingredients

• sweetened condensed milk – I know it sounds strange. This is different than evaporated milk. You want the thick, sweet stuff that is generally used for desserts
• garlic powder – I’ve used diced garlic, too
• vinegar – just regular white vinegar
• lean ground beef
• the spices: salt, dried oregano, black pepper, Italian seasoning, garlic powder, onion powder, cayenne pepper

The Official Food of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

There are so many wonderful memories from the year I moved from my tiny hometown to the big city of Halifax. I discovered the Halifax library – immensely bigger than even our “big town” library at home. Buildings taller than anything in my small town experiences. (And they’ve rebuilt it to something even more amazing – but alas, with four young children at home, I can’t travel there to spent the day library-gawking.)

But the memory that stands out most were Halifax donairs. Does it seem odd to put so much importance on a food – a wrap, essentially?

And oh yes, these are important in Nova Scotia!

Think You Can Finish this Nova Scotia Restaurant’s Six Pound Donair? It costs $59 and if you can eat it (alone) in an hour, you get free pizza or donair for a year, $500 donated to your charity of choice, and your name on their wall of fame. So far, no one has claimed the prize.

Aren’t These Just Gyros With a Different Name?

Noooooo ….

I remember being in Ottawa back in the 1990s and just craving donairs from back home. I saw a “gyro shop” and someone told me that it’s “basically the same thing”.

It wasn’t.

I mean, really. It looked a lot like a donair, but my first warning was when I was asked “Tzatziki or sweet and sour sauce?”

What or what now?

Silly me, I replied that I wanted “donair sauce, please” and so I got tzatziki. Yogurt, diced cucumbers, unfamiliar spices.

Serve me a gyro today and I’ll enjoy it as a GYRO instead of expecting it to be something it isn’t.

Where do Donairs Originate?

Pizza Corner in Halifax, the junction of Blowers Street and Grafton Street, housed three great pizza stores – King of Donair, Sicilian Pizza, and the European Food Shop.

For starving students and the young working poor (and doesn’t that describe anyone under the age of twenty-five?) Pizza Corner was the place to get inexpensive, filling food in the 1990s.

Packed with onions, tomatoes and loads of spicy sliced beef, an extra large donair could feed one of us for several days!

We could even get donair pizzas – a normal pizza crust loaded with donair meat, chopped tomatoes and onions and lots of sauce, and then plenty of mozzarella cheese to seal in all that goodness.

And the BEST donairs came from King of Donair.

The Halifax donair was created byPeter Gamoulakos in the 1970s.

He started selling Greek gyros (a pita stuffed with grilled lamb and tzatziki) but they didn’t take off.

Nova Scotia, very much a “meat and potatoes” place, didn’t really take to that new Greek food. And while many of us in the 2020s might now appreciate traditional gyros (especially if we’ve ever lived outside the province), it was a flavour combo that didn’t work back then.

Undaunted, he switched beef for the lamb and a sweet-garlic sauce for the unfamiliar tzatziki. He still used the traditional doner kebab spit, shaving off thin slices of the mildly spiced meat. It was a hit!

That is why Halifax donairs are made from beef.

You no longer have to visit Pizza Corner to get Halifax donairs. They are popping up all over Canada.

And if you would rather make your own? Well, they won’t be entirely authentic since you likely don’t have the right rotisserie grill for them, but you can make a really delicious copycat.

What is the Difference between Gyro and Donair?

Gyro – a mixture of lamb and beef, generally seasoned with oregano, majoram, thyme and rosemary, this delicious wrap comes from Greece. The meat is thinly shaved and served on pita bread, along with tzatziki sauce, onions, tomatoes, and french fries.

Yes, fries.

We don’t commonly see that in North America, but if you have gyro in Greece, please don’t tell them they’re making their gyro wrong. 🙂 They also might serve it with ketchup, mustard or mayonnaise – another variation you probably won’t see here.

A Simple Recipe to Make Donair Sauce

The sauce is what really makes the difference between the Halifax Donair and a gyro. Make this up ahead as it should have a few hours to chill in the fridge.

I’ve made this a few times with friends around and they’re usually wide-eyed. Sweetened condensed milk and vinegar – THAT is supposed to somehow taste good?

And yet it does. Incredible, in fact.

I wish I knew how Peter came up with this sweet, garlicy ‘soured milk’ replacement for tzatziki, because it can’t really have been an accident, could it?

Who thinks “I’ll just sour this milk with vinegar and whisk it smooth – that should taste great.’

You need just three simple ingredients – sweetened condensed milk, garlic powder, and white vinegar – which you whisk together in a bowl and chill.

Donair sauce is delicious on so many things, though. I mean, it really IS delicious. Sweet, creamy, garlicy, with just enough vinegar to offset the sweetness. Try any leftover sauce on your next hamburger. My children love using it as a pizza dipping sauce.

Donair Meat

If you wanted to be truly authentic, you would pack this around a rotisserie spit and slowly roast it.

I don’t have a doner kebab spit, though, so I use my oven.

Mix the meat with the spices and press firmly into a loaf pan. Bake it at 350F until cooked through. Be sure to check frequently and pour off any fat that accumulates.

When the meat is cooked, let it cool completely and then cut it into long, thin slices.

You can also buy pre-cooked donair meat at grocery stores across Canada.

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It’s NOT AS GOOD.

I mean, it’s pretty good, and if you’re really craving donair, it’s convenient. And yes I buy it sometimes.

It’s just not remotely AS good as homemade or better yet, rotisserie. And it’s ridiculously expensive for the tiny amount of meat you get.

I’ve gone to restaurants that clearly buy their donair meat, pre-sliced in little packages.

Boo, hiss, avoid.

Whether you buy the meat pre-cooked or make it yourself, the next step is to saute it in a skillet.

Stir frequently. Don’t worry if the slices break. In fact, it’s even better if the pieces break because then it will start to resemble (just a little) proper rotisserie donair meat.

Just keep stirring and cooking until it’s all well browned and crispy.

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Assembling Your Halifax Donair

To soften the pita, do what the pizza shops do – place the pita on top of the sauteed meat slices and put a lid on top. Since I was visiting at a friend’s house, I used her little non-stick frying pan. You can also use a seasoned cast iron pot with a lid.

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You can put a lid on top. Donair shops that have a rotisserie use a big scoop to catch the sliced meat – that is then used to flip and toss the cooking meat AND to cover the steaming pita. (It’s an amazing thing to watch)

While that’s softening, dice some onion and tomato.

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How much? Well, how much do you think you can stuff into your pita? You have to leave plenty of room for the meat, too.

Assembling the donair is simple – just add sauteed meat, onions, tomatoes, and plenty of donair sauce to your pita.

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WHY is my meat so meager in this photo? Because I was making it with store bought donair meat and I had a limited amount. Reason number I’ve-lost-count for why not to use the pre-cut meat. The package said it was supposed to make four donairs. Ha. I made two and it was still pretty meager.

Whoever sells this may never have stood in line on Pizza Corner waiting for their week’s meat in a hefty, overstuffed pita.

ALSO I live in rural Nova Scotia and these teeny little pitas are the largest I can find.

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A note on the aluminum foil. I don’t use it often, in fact, almost never unless I need to cover a particularly large turkey. But when it comes to donairs, the foil is necessary to hold it together. Even if you buy a (good) donair in a restaurant, it will come wrapped in aluminum foil.

Especially if you’ve packed it with meat (and is it really a donair unless it’s busting at the seams with meat and vegetables?), you’ll have a sloppy mess unless you wrap it up.

I didn’t steam my pita enough because it split a bit.

Fold the donair in half, then fold the aluminum foil around it to hold it in shape.

To eat, just fold the aluminum foil down.

You’ll still get messy, just less than if you don’t use the foil!

So now you know how to make the famous Halifax Donairs of Nova Scotia, Canada.

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