Made with just a few simple ingredients and cooked on the stovetop, the thin crust skillet manakish is delicious, soft in the middle with crispy edges, just a bit chewy, pliable and perfect for folding. If you’ve never made stovetop manakish before, I hope you’ll try it. It’s an easy and delicious way to fix up a Lebanese inspired breakfast, watch the detailed video tutorial below.
What do you do when you are craving manakish but you don’t want to crank up the oven? You make thin-crust skillet manakish!
If you’re a regular reader on our blog, you must have encountered our popular oven baked manakish recipe with 4 different toppings. This is equally good but with different dough texture, here is a thin dough similar in a way to saj bread. The heat that the skillet holds gives a crispy dough that has a nice crunch on the edges, and will hold up to whatever toppings you want to throw at it! I started making stovetop manakish years ago, when manakish crave hits and when I wasn’t in the mood of cleaning up my oven, (lazy lady) yes, it’s a simple project that just requires a non-stick skillet and a stovetop. Other toppings would work well too, check our manakish recipe for inspiration.
Make Ahead
The manakish dough needs an hour to rise, but after that process is done, you can refrigerate for about 24. Having leftover manakish dough and zaatar, kishik filling or any other filling in the fridge will make this an easy breakfast project to get going on the second day, just make sure to let the dough come back to room temperature, before stretching it.
Dough Ingredients
- All-Purpose Flour
- Sugar
- Salt
- Sunflower Oil
- Warm Water
Zaatar Topping
- Zaatar
- Olive Oil, or a combination of olive oil and sunflower oil
Kishik Topping
- Kishik
- Onion
- Tomato Paste
- Olive Oil, or Sunflower Oil
- Pine Nuts, Optional
- Cayenne Pepper, Optional
- Salt to Taste
How to make it:
- Make the dough: In a medium bowl, combine together the flour, sugar, instant dry yeast and salt; mix the ingredients with a fork or spatula until well combined. Add the water and knead well, until the dough begins to come together. Add the oil and knead one more time until you end up with a malleable soft dough.
- Rest the dough: Cover with clingfilm and set aside in a warm place for 1 hour; resting the dough makes it easier to roll.
- Prepare the filling: In a bowl, mix the zaatar and olive oil or a combination of olive oil and sunflower oil to form a moderately thick paste, cover and set aside. To make the kishik filling: In a small bowl mix together the onion, kishik, olive oil, tomato paste, a pinch of salt, cayenne or hot pepper and pine nuts (if used) until you end up with a moderate thick paste, cover and set aside.
- Portion the dough: Divide the dough into 16 equal sized mounds and shape them into small balls.
- Roll out the dough: On a lightly floured surface, roll each ball, separately into an 8-inch/ 20 cm round, I prefer it thin, stack the rolled dough with a piece of parchment paper between each to prevent them from sticking together.
- Cook the manakish: Preheat a dry non-stick skillet over medium-high heat. Cook each flat dough for 1 minute until bubbles form and golden spots appear on the underside. Flip and spread roughly 1 tablespoon of the zaatar and oil mix, or your favorite mix on the dough leaving a ¼ inch border, and cook another minute on the other side, if this is taking a long time, raise the heat. If the pan browns the manakish too quickly, reduce the heat.
What to serve with the thin-crust skillet manakish?
Serve the warm skillet manakish with labneh, labneh balls olives and brewed black tea. Heavenly delicious.
Tips and Tricks
- Heat a non-stick skillet over medium heat, depending on how thin your manakish has been rolled, the heat and timing will need to be adjusted. If you want your manakish to be crispy, roll it on the thin side, if you want it soft, roll it a bit thicker.
- To make the dough, I call for lukewarm water, and recommend it to be around 100° F./ 38 °C. Water that’s too hot will kill the yeast and too cold will affect the rise.
- Don’t put too much filling (watch the video). It doesn’t take much topping to make manakish, and too much can result in a soggy man’ouche, just a thin layer will be perfect.
- Skillet manakish are best eaten on the spot while they are still warm right from the skillet, but if for any reason you need to eat later, cover it in a tea towel; it will steam, stay warm and soft.
- Please do not miss the chance to take the last one off the skillet, butter it and add generous pinch of sugar; enjoy it while it’s steaming, fattening, and maybe a crime, but heartwarming.
- Thinly rolling the dough with a rolling pin and regulating the skillet heat as you cook creates those signature bubbles of a favored man’ouche that make manakish soft and flexible.
Rate and Review!
If you’ve made this recipe, please leave a rating and review! I love to hear how you’ve adapted my recipe to your own tastes, so please share how it went for you. It helps other readers find my recipes. Hadia
Looking for more savory Lebanese baking? We got you covered.
- Manakish, Lebanese Flat Bread
- Sfeeha, Lebanese Meat Pies
- Meat Fatayer, Lebanese Meat Turnovers
- Kalita North Lebanese Flat Kaak
- Kaak Alasrieh
- Vegetable Manakish
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Thin-Crust Skillet Manakish
Description
Made with just a few simple ingredients and cooked on the stovetop, the thin crust skillet manakish is delicious, soft in the middle with crispy edges, just a bit chewy, pliable and perfect for folding. If you’ve never made stovetop manakish before, I hope you’ll try it. It’s an easy and delicious way to fix up a Lebanese inspired breakfast.
Equipment
- 1 large non-stick skillet
Ingredients
For the Dough:
- 500 grams all-purpose flour and some extra for rolling the dough
- 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon instant dry yeast
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup warm water or as needed to make a melleable dough
- 1 tablespoon sunflower oil
For the zaatar topping:
- ½ cup zaatar
- 1/3 cup olive oil or a mix of olive oil and sunflower oil
For the kishik topping:
- ½ cup kishik, check the note below
- 1 small onion, finely chopped
- 1/2 teaspoon tomato paste
- 1/3 cup olive oil or more to form a paste
- A dash of chili flakes optional
- 3 tablespoons pine nuts optional
- A pinch of salt
Instructions
- To make the dough: In a medium bowl, combine together the flour, sugar, instant dry yeast and salt; mix the ingredients with a fork or spatula until well combined. Add the water and knead well, until the dough begins to come together. Add the oil and knead one more time until you end up with a malleable soft dough. Adding oil at the end of mixing makes the dough exceptionally silky and soft. Cover with clingfilm and set aside in a warm place for 1 hour, resting the dough makes it easier to roll.
- Divide the dough into 16 equal sized mounds and shape them into small balls.
- On a lightly floured surface, roll each ball, separately, into an 8-inch/ 20 cm round, I prefer it thin, stack the rolled dough with a piece of parchment paper between them.
- Preheat a dry non-stick skillet over medium-high heat. Cook each flat dough for 1 minute until bubbles form and golden spots appear on the underside. Flip and spread roughly 1 tablespoon of the zaatar and oil mix, or your favorite mix on the dough leaving a ¼ inch border. and cook another minute on the other side, if this is taking a long time, raise the heat. If the pan browns the manakish too quickly, reduce the heat.
- Serve right away with a cup of brewed tea, labneh and olives
Video
Notes
Note 1- Kishik is a powdery cereal that consists of bulgur and yogurt. The mix is first fermented then dried and eventually turned into a powder. You can find it at Middle Eastern stores.
Note 2-Storage: Store skillet manakish in a plastic bag in the refrigerator for 1 week or frozen up to 3 months
Note 3-To reheat leftovers: Heat stack of skillet manakish in oven, wrapped in aluminum foil, in a preheated oven at 300ºF / 150 °C for 10 minutes.
Our elders were right!
When we were young we were encouraged by the elders to eat zaatar and olive oil wraps before heading to school, especially on exams as zaatar makes us smarter; years later passed and we thought this was a faked myth invented during the war in Lebanon to encourage the young ones eating za’atar, as food and supplies were low at the time and za’atar was available in every household provision. Now scientific studies confirm that zaatar is high in antioxidants and have immune-boosting properties. Consuming it regularly can help strengthen your immune system, it is full of health-benefits minerals, antioxidants, vitamins, and essential oils that help improve memory and mood, our elders were right. Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!
