Turkish Pide (Turkish Flatbread)

Turkish Pide or Turkish Flatbread is a boat-shaped pastry similar to a pizza, commonly served in Turkey! It’s often loaded with a ground beef, sausage, shredded cheese, roasted red peppers or mixed vegetables. Perfect as a main course or an appetizer!

Warm and fluffy Turkish Pide!

Turkish cuisine is absolutely delicious and if you’re in doubt you just have to look at the spread of food photos of our most recent trip to Istanbul. I lived off of Turkish pide, Turkish breakfast, and the most delicious wraps!  

And who wouldn’t fall in love with pillowy soft flour-based dough, topped with a seasoned ground beef filling, or loaded up with a few different cheeses?

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What are Turkish pides?

Turkish pide bread is a type of Turkish pizza made with a simple dough and loaded with a variety of toppings and shaped like a boat. Pide is brushed with a little egg wash and sprinkled with sesame seeds or nigella seeds right before baking.

You can go uber simple with the fillings with just a handful of cheeses. Or make my ground beef filling loaded with tomatoes, onions, and a handful of seasonings. Cheese and sucuk (a type of hot or mild sausage) is also a popular filling choice. And if you’re into the veggies, make a sautéed spinach pide or roast up some eggplant, peppers, and onions, and then make a filling out of that! Add a raw egg yolk to a feta cheese pide.

The possibilities are truly endless.

Ingredients for Homemade Turkish Pide:

• Bread Flour: I like to use bread flour for this recipe instead of all purpose flour as it has better gluten development and gives the bread a better overall texture.
• Instant Yeast: I like to use instant yeast for this recipe as it cuts down on prep time. For active dry yeast, you would need to bloom the yeast first in lukewarm water with some sugar. But with instant yeast, we can just toss it all in a bowl and add the liquid ingredients. It’s what I use in most of my recipes. I buy this one in bulk and keep it in the freezer!
• Sugar: To activate the yeast. It doesn’t add much sweetness to the bread, it basically just food for the yeast to wake up and start doing its thing!
• Kosher Salt: Adds flavor to the bread.
• Olive Oil: A necessity for many bread recipes.
• Lukewarm Water: warm water helps the yeast come alive quicker. It jump starts the process. Be sure to use water between 105-110ºF. Any warmer and you do run the risk of killing the yeast.
• Warm Milk: using a couple tablespoons of milk in the recipe helps give the bread dough a more tender crumb! I have made the recipe with a tablespoon powdered milk as well (and just up the water by 3 tbsps.) and it works well.
• Egg: We’ll make an egg wash with the egg and a little bit of water and brush the dough with before sprinkling with nigella seeds or sesame seeds. You can omit the seeds if you’d like but I do suggest brushing with the egg wash.
• Filling of choice: I often like to use Akkawi cheese mixed with mozzarella. But you could also make my ground beef or ground lamb filling loaded with green peppers, tomatoes, garlic, Aleppo pepper (or red pepper flakes) and a few other key ingredients. The filling is prepared raw and then loaded into the pide and cooked in the oven in the time it takes for the pide bread to cook.

How to Make Turkish Pide Bread Recipe:

1. Make the dough. Start by combining the dry dough ingredients a stand mixer and mix until combined. Then add the oil, warm water, and milk and let the ingredients knead in the mixer. When they come together, you’ll want to let the mixer run for 10 minutes or until the dough is smooth and elastic. When you press it down with your index finger, it should spring back gently and not be too sticky.
2. Let it rest. Once the dough comes together add it to an oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap or a damp towel and let it sit in a warm place for 60-90 minutes or until it doubles in size. You’ll want to start preheating your oven and shredding your white cheese or making the ground beef filling. 
3. Divide the dough. Once the dough has risen, divide it out into 5 equal pieces. You can do this by weighing out the dough in grams or simply eyeball it. Work with one dough ball at a time, cover the others with a damp towel to keep them from drying out.
4. Roll out the dough. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough using a rolling pin into an oval shape. I like to roll the dough out into an 18-inch oval shape with the widest part of the oval being around 6-7 inches. 
5. Fill the dough. Once the first pide has been rolled out, sprinkle a baking sheet with cornmeal or semolina and place the oval on one side of the baking tray. I do not suggest using parchment paper as parchment paper as a burning point around 420-450ºF. Add your filling of choice leaving and ½ inch gap around the edges. Fold and twist the top and bottom to create the tips and then, gently pull and fold the edges over the filling. Then brush with the egg wash and sprinkle with a teaspoon or two of seeds, as desired.
6. Bake the pide. Finally, bake the pides two at time until golden brown. Remove from the oven and let them cool on a wire rack for several minutes before slicing and serving. Bake remaining pides the same exact way. Discard any semolina and add new semolina in between batches. 

If you like this recipe, you might also like:

• Manakeesh (Zaatar bread with cheese)
• Frozen Mint Lemonade (Limonana)
• Easy Zaatar Puff Pastry Twists
• Homemade Beef Shawarma (use the meat on a pide!)
• Luxurious Turkish Lentil Soup (with Potatoes)

Continue to Content

Yield: Makes 5 Pides

Turkish Pide (Turkish Flatbread)

Prep Time 40 minutes

Cook Time 30 minutes

Additional Time 1 hour 20 minutes

Total Time 2 hours 30 minutes

Turkish Pide or Turkish Flatbread is a boat-shaped pastry similar to a pizza, commonly served in Turkey! It's often loaded with a ground beef, sausage, shredded cheese, roasted red peppers or mixed vegetables. Perfect as a main course or an appetizer!

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Ingredients

• 3¼ cups (396 grams) bread flour, plus more
• 2 teaspoons instant yeast
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 1¼ teaspoon kosher salt
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 cup warm water (105-110ºF)
• 3 tablespoons warm milk
• 1 large egg + 1 tablespoon water
• Sesame or nigella seeds, for sprinkling (optional)
• Kesar, Akkawi or mozzarella cheese (see notes)
• Sucuk, sliced or chopped (see notes)
• Prepared meat filling (in notes)

Instructions

1. DOUGH: In the bowl of a stand mixer, add the dry ingredients and mix to combine. Add the oil, warm water, and milk to the mixing bowl. With hands, a dough whisk, or in a stand mixer set on speed 4, combine. Once mixed, knead the dough for 10 minutes or until smooth and elastic with the mixer, longer if by hand. The dough shouldn’t be sticky when you poke it with your finger. It also shouldn’t be too dry or wet. If it is, you can use 1-3 more tablespoons of flour or water and mix it into the dough well. I usually check if the dough comes together around the 5 minute mark, and if it’s still wet, I’ll add the flour 1 tbsp at a time. And if it’s too dry, you’d just add water.
2. REST: Gather and form a dough ball. Place in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let sit in a warm place to proof for 60-90 minutes or until doubled in size (see notes.) When 10 minutes are remaining, position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 500ºF. If you’re preparing this on a pizza stone/steel, allow it to preheat in the oven for at least 45 minutes.
3. DIVIDE: Transfer the dough to a lightly floured work surface and divide the dough out into 5 equal pieces. Let the dough sit covered for 20-30 minutes. Working with one dough ball at a time, cover the others with a slightly damp tea towel.
4. ROLL: Roll the dough out with a rolling pin, into a long oval shape about 18 inches in length about 6-7 inches at the center widest part. Sprinkle a baking sheet with semolina or cornmeal. Place the oval on one side of the baking sheet. We’ll bake 2 pides on a sheet pan at a time.
5. FILL: Add the cheese, cheese/sucuk, or ground beef filling (see notes) in the center of the oval leaving a ½ inch gap around the edges. Fold the top and bottom to create the tip and then gently pull and fold the edges over the filling. Brush with a lightly beaten egg and water and sprinkle with nigella or sesame seeds, if desired.
6. BAKE: Bake the pides in a preheated oven for 14-17 minutes or until the dough is golden brown. Remove to a wire rack and let cool for several minutes before slicing and serving. Bake remaining pides the same exact way. Discard any semolina on the tray and add new semolina in between batches.

Notes

• Cheese: You’ll need roughly a total of ¾ cup of cheese for each pide.
• Filling ingredients: combine ½ pound of uncooked ground beef, ½ cup finely chopped onions, 1 chopped Roma tomato, 4 cloves garlic, pressed, 1 deseeded jalapeño (or ¼ green bell pepper), 2 tablespoons chopped parsley, 2 teaspoons Aleppo pepper, 1 teaspoon tomato paste, 2 teaspoons red pepper paste, 2 teaspoons lemon juice, ¾ teaspoon kosher salt, 1 tablespoon olive oil in a bowl until mixed. Add this to the prepared dough in step 4.
• Meat filling: To make life easier, you can chop the onions, tomatoes, jalapeno, and parsley in a food processor first and then combine in a bowl with the raw ground beef. Note that this makes enough filling for 3 pides, you’ll need to double the recipe for more.

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