Mediterranean Flatbread Recipe with Arugula and Smoked Salmon
You might call today’s flatbread recipe semi-homemade. I take a major shortcut by using store-bought pizza dough; it cuts prep time by more than 1 hour. Since the bakery at my local grocery store carries freshly prepared pizza dough, I’ve been taking advantage and making all sorts of flatbread (have you seen my recent Lahmacun recipe?) Of course, if you really want to make your own flatbread dough from scratch, it is not difficult. Use my dough from this za’atar manaqish recipe or this pizza recipe. The draw for me is that you can prepare the flatbread crust in advance, then load on the toppings just before serving.
Guide for Flatbread Toppings
With this particular flatbread recipe, you can really get creative with the toppings. Use what you have on hand and make it your own! But as a guide, here’s what I like to do for toppings: 1- Something to spread on the crust. In this particular recipe, I used hummus (you can use homemade or a quality store-bought hummus you like.) You can use smoky baba ganoush (eggplant dip) or basil pesto. Or, skip that all together and keep things super simple by brushing the top of your freshly baked crust with an excellent extra virgin olive oil (I use Private Reserve Greek extra virgin olive oil. So much flavor!) 2- A bed of fresh greens and veggies. My go-to is a handful of baby arugula and cherry tomatoes, seasoned and tossed in extra virgin olive oil. You can switch out arugula for baby spinach, spring mix, or your favorite leafy greens. You can also add sliced cucumber or radish (if you’re not doing arugula, since arugula and radish are both quite peppery.)
3- For more substance, add seafood or meat of your choosing. Here, I used smoked salmon, but cooked shrimp, prosciutto, rotisserie chicken or turkey are all great choices. This is totally optional, of course, particularly if you want to keep the flatbread vegetarian. 4- Other Mediterranean favorites like cheese, marinated vegetables, and toasted nuts. Here I used a sprinkle of crumbled feta and kalamata olives, both add a more flavor. You can use shaved Parmesan or another cheese to your liking! You can also replace the olives or add more marinated items like artichoke hearts, roasted peppers etc. (Check the deli section or olive bar at your local grocery store.) The toasted pine nuts here are completely optional, and you can replace them with toasted slivered almonds.
How to Make this Mediterranean Flatbread
If you look at the recipe, you’ll notice this Mediterranean flatbread recipe is really easy to put together. Assuming your dough is ready, the two key steps are: 1- Prepare the crust. All you need to do is turn room-temperature dough onto a floured surface, stretch and roll it out to a nice large rectangle, about 12 x 8 inches. Transfer the dough to a sheet pan that’s been greased with extra virgin olive oil (I like to sprinkle a little cornmeal on the bottom of the pan. The cornmeal sticks to the bottom of the dough giving it great texture but also ensuring the dough doesn’t stick to the pan.) Brush dough with EVOO, season, and bake in hot oven.
2- Once the crust is ready, come the fun of adding toppings. Using the combination of toppings in this recipe, first spread the hummus evenly over the surface of the crust. Top with the mixture of arugula and tomato. Add the rest! If you’re serving this as an appetizer for a crowd, you can easily get about 15 rectangular pieces or so.
Prepare Ahead Instructions for this Flatbread
This recipe is so easy, and if you opt for store-bought pizza dough, you really don’t have much prep. Still, if you’d like to prepare a part of it ahead of time, you can bake the dough/crust. Once crust is completely cool, wrap it well in plastic and leave at room temperature for one night (or refrigerate for up to 3 days.) If you like, stick it in a medium-heated oven for a few minutes, then add toppings and serve.
More Recipes to Try:
Best Roasted Greek Potatoes Baked Salmon with Garlic Cilantro Sauce Easy Orange Harissa Lamb Chops Mediterranean Roasted Vegetable Barley 5 from 10 reviews
