This Easy Flatbread Pizza is made from yeast-free dough and your favorite fresh toppings, all in around 90 minutes. Fast and delicious!
There are endless ways to enjoy this Easy Flatbread Pizza. Add ingredients you have on hand in your pantry and/or garden to transform the flatbreads into marvelous meals.
Making the Flatbreads
Be sure to assemble ALL of your ingredients, utensils and cookware before you start. This is standard cooking practice, of course, but extra important for this recipe because once you begin you’ll have flour on your hands and counter and you don’t want to make ghosty fingerprints all over the kitchen. Wear an apron because you don’t want ghosty clothes, either.
Preparing the Dough
This recipe works with all-purpose unbleached flour used alone or mixed 50/50 with whole wheat flour. Both versions result in a pliable flatbread. I use olive oil; use vegetable oil if you prefer.
Sometimes I start by mixing in a big bowl with a wooden spoon, then switch to using just my hands. Sometimes I mix it all directly on a dough board, pastry mat or counter. Do what is easiest and most comfortable for you.
You can add flavor to the dough if you like – minced garlic, herbs, spices, sesame or flax seeds… Play with this recipe and make it your own!
After the dough is mixed and formed into a ball, let it rest for 10 minutes in a bowl covered with a tight-fitting lid or plastic wrap.
Once the dough has rested, divide it into 10-12 pieces. Dredge each piece in flour then roll it out on a flat surface or form it with your hands. The shape doesn’t have to be a precise circle, but the dough should definitely be flat. Make each flatbread approximately 1/4″ thick – thinner than that and they won’t cook up soft and bendable.
Cooking the Flatbread
Warm two tablespoons of oil in a pan. Fry the dough until bubbles form, then flip and cook the other side. Press the bubbles on the second side down with a spatula or wooden spoon, then flip the flatbread over again and cook for a few seconds.
My flatbreads generally wind up around 8″ in diameter. I cook them one at a time in a 10″ or 12″ cast iron skillet. If you have a gigantic pan or griddle you can make two or more at a time.
Stack the completed flatbreads on a plate as you go, and cover them with a kitchen towel – the steam will help keep them soft. I lifted the towel for the photo so you can see the stack, but you’ll want to keep them completely covered.
This Easy Flatbread is perfect for pizza, but also useful for sandwiches, dipping, and to scoop up ingredients like this Cucumber and Yogurt Salad or this Roasted Eggplant Dip.
Adding the Toppings
The ingredients below are what I used for the Easy Flatbread Pizza as it appears in my recipe photos.
Stracciatella Cheese and Pesto Base
One of the combos I favor starts with a 1Lb container of Stracciatella cheese (it’s what’s inside burrata) mixed with my Classic Basil Pesto. This makes an outstanding base for toppings (and it’s even delicious if this is all you add to the flatbread). A good ratio for the mix is half of the pesto recipe with a full container of the cheese. For those of you following a vegetarian diet, confirm that your cheeses are made with microbial rennet, not animal rennet.
There is garlic in the pesto recipe, but if you don’t use the pesto, or you just like extra garlic, add more. I usually use the garlic sliced if it’s raw, and whole cloves if it’s roasted.
Tomatoes
In the recipe photos the cheese/pesto mix is topped with an assortment of whole Currant, Matt’s Wild Cherry and Sun Sugar tomatoes, and/or slices of Big Boy, Black Plum and Metallica tomatoes. When I use tomatoes that are placed on the pizza whole, they start to pop at around the 8 minute mark. Once I hear them I start checking the pizza. At the 10-minute mark the crust is done to my liking. During the colder months when homegrown tomatoes aren’t available in our garden, I switch to jarred sun-dried tomatoes.
Peppers
The pizza in the large photo without flowers has Orange Lunchbox Peppers.
On the pizza with chive flowers the red peppers are Corno di Toro.
In the small photo the green peppers are Shishito.
For hot peppers, try jalapeño, poblano or long hots.
Jarred sweet and hot pepper rings work well too.
Olives
I frequently add olives to pizza, and almost always slice them first. I use Smoked Kalamata olives by Divina – they are outstanding, as are their green Castelvetrano olives. My number one choice for adding to flatbreads with brie or goat cheese is Divina’s Dolce K Olive and Fruit Mix.
Chive Flowers
The little white “stars” on of one the pizzas shown here are garlic chive flowers. In zone 7b they bloom from late-August through the end of September, sometimes a little longer.
The flowers are used raw and added after the pizza is out of the oven.
In the spring I use their counterpart, onion chive flowers; they look like fluffy purple pom-poms. There is the expected difference in taste – onion vs garlic – but onion chive flowers can be used on this pizza and any of my recipes calling for chive blooms.
For more about both, visit How to Grow, Harvest and Divide Chives.
Variations
Broccoli, broccoli rabe, asparagus, spinach, kale and chard all make tasty toppings. We are also fond of adding onions (or onion jam), eggplant and squash. Thinly sliced garlic or roasted whole cloves are good choices, too. Some other combos we love:
- Mozzarella with tomato sauce and fresh basil (Margherita pizza)
- Goat cheese with onion jam and/or fresh figs topped with fried egg
- Goat cheese or brie with Roasted Grapes
- Ricotta or mozzarella with mushrooms, corn, shishito peppers and hot honey
| Prep Time | 20 minutes |
| Cook Time | 1 hour |
| Passive Time | 10 minutes |
| Servings |
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- 3 cups all-purpose flour, unbleached add extra as needed
- 3 TB olive oil for the dough
- 3 TB olive oil for frying
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 cup water warm
Ingredients
Flatbread Ingredients
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- Add the flour, baking powder, and salt to a large mixing bowl. Stir until well combined. If you are adding spices, seeds, etc, add them at this stage.
- Add the oil and some of the water and mix with a wooden spoon or by hand, adding water incrementally until a ball of dough is formed. Adjust with flour as you go - the dough should be pliable and moist but not sticky.
- Cover the bowl with and let the dough rest for 10 minutes.
- Divide the dough into 10-12 equally sized balls. Dredge each piece in flour and form into a 1/4" thick circle using a rolling pin, or by shaping it with your hands. The shape doesn’t have to be a precise circle, but the dough should definitely be flat.
- Heat 2 TB of oil to a cast iron skillet or griddle. Cook the flatbreads one at a time. Fry the first side approximately 2 minutes until bubbles form, then flip and cook the other side. Press down the bubbles on the second side and flip it over for a few seconds, then remove from the pan. Use a pastry brush to add oil to the flatbread as needed (or add additional oil to the pan).
- As each flatbread is done add them in a stack onto a plate to cool. Keep a towel over them - the steam will help keep them soft.
- Store leftover flatbreads individually wrapped then placed together in an airtight bag or container for 2-3 days. Flatbreads may also be frozen.
- Preheat oven to 400.
- Add toppings to the desired amount of finished flatbreads. Place on baking sheet (or direct onto rack for crispier crust).
- Bake for 10 minutes or until the edges of the flatbread start to brown. Serve hot from the oven or cool - both ways are delicious.
- Refrigerate leftover flatbread pizza - it should be well-wrapped or in an airtight container.
