What to Serve With Seekh Kabobs at Home: 8 Easy Sides

What should you serve with seekh kabobs at home?

Serve seekh kabobs with warm naan or pita, basmati rice, green chutney, raita and a plate of sliced onions with lemon, and you have the same spread that comes out of the Ribs 'n' Kabobs kitchen in Artesia. Add a simple salad, or roll the kabobs into wraps or tacos, and a 1 lb pack from the freezer turns into a full dinner for a family anywhere in Southern California.

RNK Foods is the frozen-food line of the family behind the Ribs 'n' Kabobs restaurant at 18925 Norwalk Blvd, Artesia, CA 90701. Our beef seekh kabobs and chicken seekh kabobs are hand-mixed, grilled and frozen in 1 lb packs, ready in under ten minutes from frozen. The kabob is the easy part. What goes around it decides whether dinner feels like a snack or a meal, so here are the eight sides we reach for, with a practical note on each, and then a weeknight plan and a weekend plan.

Which sides go best with seekh kabobs?

Naan or pita

Naan is the classic, pita is the quick substitute, and both do the same job: something soft to wrap around the kabob and mop up chutney. Warm them. A dry pan on medium for half a minute a side, or a few seconds over a gas flame, makes store-bought bread taste far better than it does cold from the bag. Brush with a little butter if you like.

Basmati rice

Plain basmati keeps the focus on the kabob. Rinse it well, cook it so the grains stay separate, and add a few whole spices to the water if you have them. Rice turns two kabobs per person into a filling plate, which matters when you are stretching a pack across a family. A chicken yakhni pulao or a biryani from the restaurant menu is the upgrade on a weekend.

Green chutney

Mint and cilantro chutney is the one sauce every kabob table needs. It is sharp, cool and a little hot, and it cuts the richness of the beef kabob in particular. Make a jar at the weekend and it keeps in the fridge for days. If you are short on time, a good store-bought one from a halal grocery in Norwalk or Lakewood is perfectly fine.

Raita

Yogurt with cucumber, a little salt and roasted cumin. Raita is there to calm things down, especially for children and for anyone who finds the kabobs or the chutney too lively. It also doubles as the sauce in a wrap. Keep it cold until the moment you serve.

Sliced onions with lemon

The side that costs almost nothing and makes the biggest difference. Slice red or white onion thinly, squeeze lemon over it, add salt and a pinch of chili or chaat masala, and let it sit while the kabobs heat. The acid and crunch against a hot, smoky kabob is the whole point of kabob eating.

A simple salad

Tomato, cucumber and onion with lemon and salt is the kabob-house salad. It takes five minutes, needs no dressing beyond lemon and oil, and gives the plate something fresh. Shredded cabbage with lemon works the same way and holds up longer on a buffet.

Kabob wraps

Warm naan or a large tortilla, a smear of green chutney or raita, a hot kabob, onions, a few slices of tomato, roll and eat. This is how a lot of our customers in Los Angeles County turn leftover kabobs into lunch, and it is the format children ask for again. The chicken kabob is the softer, milder choice for a wrap. See our beef vs chicken comparison for the differences.

Kabob tacos

Break a hot kabob into chunks over a warm corn or flour tortilla, add onion, cilantro, a squeeze of lime and a spoon of chutney or salsa. It is a Southern California habit and it suits seekh kabobs surprisingly well. The restaurant's own menu has beef and chicken tacos for the same reason. Two tacos per kabob is about right.

What does a weeknight kabob dinner look like?

The goal is dinner in about twenty minutes with one pan. Exact times for each method are in the kabob cooking guide.

1. Take a pack of kabobs out of the freezer. No thawing needed.
2. Put rice on, or decide on naan and skip the rice.
3. Slice onions, squeeze lemon over them and set them aside.
4. Heat a non-stick pan on medium with a teaspoon of oil or butter and cook the kabobs from frozen for 4 to 6 minutes, turning often. Or use the microwave for 2 to 3 minutes if the evening is really tight.
5. Warm the naan in the same pan after the kabobs come out.
6. Serve with a spoon of chutney and a spoon of raita from the jar in the fridge.

That is a kabob plate with four sides, and nothing in it needed a recipe.

What does a weekend kabob spread look like?

With more time, build a table rather than a plate.

• Both kabobs, beef and chicken, so there is a rich option and a lighter one. Use the oven at 375°F for 8 to 10 minutes to do a full pack at once while the pan is free for naan.
• Basmati rice or a pulao.
• Fresh green chutney made that morning, plus raita.
• The onion and lemon plate, and the tomato and cucumber salad.
• A stack of warm naan, and tortillas on the side for anyone who wants tacos.
• Something sweet to finish, like kulfi or gulab jamun.

Lay everything out and let people build their own plates and wraps. It feeds a crowd in Long Beach or Cerritos, on a game day or any weekend, for far less effort than cooking a curry from scratch, and the kabobs come out of the freezer still tasting of the lava rock grill.

What drinks go with seekh kabobs?

Chai after, lassi during, and plain water or a lemon soda alongside. A mango lassi is the cooling partner to a spicy plate, and hot chai is how a kabob meal ends in most Pakistani homes. If you want to keep it light, sparkling water with lemon and a pinch of salt is enough.

Where do the kabobs come from?

Every kabob is made from scratch in the Ribs 'n' Kabobs kitchen in Artesia, 100% Zabiha halal and verified by HFSAA, with no pork and no alcohol on site. Order from the RNK Foods menu and we ship in insulated packaging to California addresses with ZIP codes starting 900 to 935, which covers Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, Riverside, San Bernardino, Imperial and Ventura counties. The free-shipping threshold is on the shipping policy page. Or pick up at the restaurant and buy fresh naan there while you are at it.