Have you ever attempted making a flatbread? I made my first batch a few years ago, and was immediately hooked. It is fairly quick to make and pretty hard to mess up. Almost every culture around the world has their own version of a flatbread, and it is easy to understand why it is so popular.
My family and I love the flavor combinations of cilantro, lime, and garlic, and I just knew it would be a delicious addition to this bread. There is a little something for everyone. There’s the earthy taste of herbs from cilantro, a sour tang from the lime, and a nutty pungency from the garlic.
Honestly, I’m a fan of bread in all forms, but when you can incorporate lots of flavor into the bread, rather than make it just a vehicle for other foods to get to your mouth, it just becomes irresistible. In fact, my kids and I had to stop ourselves from eating all of the flatbread before dinner.
And without further ado, here is the recipe!
Cilantro Lime Flatbread
Ingredients
- 4 cups flour
- 2 teaspoons dry yeast
- 1 teaspoon garlic
- 2-3 Tablespoons fresh cilantro chopped
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 2 Tablespoons olive oil
- 1 ¼ cup room temperature water
- 2-3 Tablespoons lime juice or juice of 1 lime
Instructions
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Combine flour, yeast, garlic, and cilantro in a large bowl. Add salt near the edge of the bowl and do not mix in.
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Add olive oil, lime juice, and most of the water in. Use hands to mix the dough. Add the rest of the water a little bit at a time until the dough is all incorporated. You may not need all of the water.
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Oil a surface with olive oil and knead for 10 minutes. Put the dough in an oiled bowl, cover, and let it rest for 1-3 hours or until it has doubled in size.
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Pinch off a ball of dough a little bigger than a golf ball and roll out on a lightly floured surface.
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Heat olive oil in a skillet on medium high and cook the flatbread until lightly brown, about a 1 ½ minutes, then flip and do the same to the other side.
1. Add Dry Ingredients
Combine flour, yeast, garlic, and cilantro in a large bowl. Add salt near the edge of the bowl and do not mix in.
Yeast is a living organism. It feeds on flour and exhales carbon dioxide, which produces the rise in bread. However, salt, will pretty swiftly begin to kill the yeast, so you want to keep it seperate for as long as possible.
2. Add Wet Ingredients
Add olive oil, lime juice, and most of the water in.
And let your 2 year old “help” because baby hands are so darn cute.
Use your hands to mix the dough and don’t be afraid to get a little messy. Making bread is like therapy, so really dig in.
Add the rest of the water a little bit at a time until the dough is all incorporated. It’s kind of hard to tell when this is, but if you lift your dough out of the bowl and there’s a bunch of flour sitting in the bottom, add more water. It should look a little shaggy when it’s ready for kneading.
You may not need all of the water, so don’t assume you’re doing something wrong if there’s a bit left over.
3. Knead and Rise
Oil a surface with olive oil and knead for 10 minutes. You might have never oiled a surface to knead before; typically people will flour a surface to knead. You just don’t want to dry out the dough by adding too much flour.
Also, fun fact: you should lightly flour a surface to knead a dough that has milk or eggs in it, but doughs that do not, should have oiled surfaces.
If you’ve never kneaded before, you are in for a treat. I swear, I do my best thinking when I have my hands on some dough. This world may have been a happier place before the invention of the bread machine, just sayin’.
Here’s a step by step explanation of one way how to do it:
Start with a pile of dough.
Fold over once about ⅓ of the way towards you.
Fold over again.
Turn and flip so the seam is longways toward you. Repeat for 10 minutes until the dough starts looking more smooth.
Put the dough in an oiled bowl, cover, and let it rest for 1-3 hours or until it has doubled in size.
4. Roll Out
When the dough has doubled,
pinch off a ball of dough a little bigger than a golf ball…
and roll out on a lightly floured surface.
And if you have kids, put them to work.
5. Cook
Heat olive oil in a skillet on medium high and cook the flatbread until lightly brown, about a 1 ½ minutes, then flip and do the same to the other side.
And then you can use the flatbread in about a million different ways!
I filled mine with some carne asada, rice, cheese, and salsa and it was a nice change from the typical tortilla that I would normally use.
Some of my other favorite things to eat flatbread with, is curry, hummus, or any kind of shredded and marinated meat. What are your favorite flatbread meals?