Lebanese Zaatar Bread - Manakish, Manoushe Flatbread Recipe (2024)

Zaatar Bread is a soft flatbread topped with a zaatar seasoning mixed with olive oil paste, which is then baked like a pizza.

The bread is enjoyed still hot in the middle east for breakfast or with a meal.

You will love this seasoned flatbread if you are into pizza, pita, and other middle eastern/Mediterraneanbaked delicacies!

Zaatar Bread is the English name. The flatbread is better known by various names.

Man'ousheh is the single form for one zaatar bread and manakish the plural.

Other writing variations include manoushe, manoush, manakeesh, manaeesh and manaqish.

This particular flatbread is usually associated with the Lebanese and Syrian cuisine.

Yet, zaatar bread, in general, is super popular across the middle east as is the seasoning used on the bread, Zaatar.

I got to taste my first zaatar bread in Austria when the village organized that the Syrian men refugees prepared Manakish for the yearly village celebrations.

The point was to introduce their culture closer to the population, so to say to integrate them and keep them busy with things to do.

With that said,... looks like Zaatar bread is going to be more common in Europe from now on!

🥖 Zaatar bread ingredients

So when I tasted Zaatar bread, prepared by the refugees, I instantly fell in love with the flatbread.

Yet I think the men who prepared it were missing an essential ingredient to prepare the zaatar (which is kind of the main ingredient here anyway).

As I mentioned in my zaatar seasoning recipe, the blend of spices is prepared with sumac, which is a sour spice.

It adds tartness to zaatar and that is why zaatar is such a big deal!

The refugees obviously didn't have sumac when they prepared their own zaatar. So the taste was slightly off.

Nonetheless, the locals in the village enjoyed the flatbreads and the event was kind of a success.

Anyhow, this brings us back to the fact that the few ingredients that are used to prepare this zaatar bread should be spot on and of great quality!

So, keep that in mind when you buy the ingredients.

You will need a Pizza dough, which is prepared with flour, yeast, water, salt and olive oil.

You can see in my how to make pizza dough video that preparing pizza from scratch is the way to go.

The flavors are way better and you know whats in your dough.

To top the rolled out pizza dough you will need a zaatar paste, which is simply zaatar mixed with olive oil.

The Zaatar bread is soft when finished baked and has layers and at times it creates air pockets and blows up a bit when you bake it.

When it's baking, you will smell it from afar because the herbs with the olive oil are getting infused into the bread surface.

You won't be able to stop yourself from finishing the whole thing by yourself.

The amount of Zaatar Olive oil paste can be adjusted. I don't add that much.

I think it' s sufficiently seasoned, however, feel free to double the amount of paste which you spread over the rolled out bread dough.

Serve the hot Zaatar Bread for breakfast or enjoy with a meal, homemade Labneh or even with a delicious olive tapenade or my green cashew basil pesto.

👁️ More Mediterraneanrecipe ideas:

• Shakshuka with Feta Cheese
• Greek Salad

💡 Flatbread Recipes from around the world

• Colombian Arepas
• Indian Chapati

Dear Reader, how did you get to know about this flatbread?

📖 Recipe