Wonderfully soft and delicious, lavash bread is the perfect blank canvas for all your spiced Mediterranean and Middle Eastern dishes. Made with only six pantry staples, it’ll be on your table in 20 minutes.
Homemade Lavash Bread Recipe
Simple yet homey and flavorful, this quick lavash bread will be on your table and served with your favorite spiced foods in 20 minutes.
Made with pantry staples, it’s the perfect flatbread recipe to add a bit of tradition to your weekday meals. Best of all, it doesn’t have to feel like a whole bread-making adventure. Packed with cheats for an incredibly smooth dough and extra flavor, this lavash might be your entryway to homemade flatbreads.
Easily prepared in advance and frozen, keeping a batch in your freezer for later will be a lifesaver— especially on hectic weeks. After seeing how wonderfully soft and bendy it is, you’re never returning to store-bought ones again.
What Is Lavash Bread?
Lavash is a flatbread, just like naan or pita bread. It’s widespread in the Caucasian, Caspian Sea, and West Asia regions like Armenia and Turkey. It’s typically made in a “tandoor,” a traditional cylindrical clay and mud oven where the breads are stuck to the walls for baking. Lavash is soft and can be folded easily to make sandwiches and wraps. It is also less doughy and chewy than, say, tortillas and pita breads.
The ingredients are straightforward: flour, water, yeast, sugar, and salt. Depending on the region, different aromatics and spices can be added to give it extra flavor. For the most part, however, lavash is relatively plain because it’s supposed to be paired with spiced Mediterranean and Middle Eastern foods.
Is Lavash Low Carb?
No. Lavash bread isn’t low-carb because it’s made with wheat flour. It would have to be made with coconut flour, almond flour, Psyllium husk powder, or other kinds of non-wheat flour for lavash to be low in carbohydrates.
What’s The Difference Between Lavash and Flatbread?
Lavash is a type of pita or flatbread, though flatbread is the category of this thin bread itself. Lavash doesn’t necessarily have to be leavened, but this recipe does make them extra fluffy. Keep in mind that all flatbreads can be round or oval-shaped without being perfectly circular or oblong.
Lavash dough is rolled out thinly so that, as it cooks, it puffs up without becoming too dense. It’s served warm as a side dish and is even used to wrap all sorts of food in a naan or taco-like fashion.
Recipe Ingredients
This lavash only requires 6 basic ingredients. Check the recipe card at the bottom of the post for full ingredient amounts.
- Bread flour – All-purpose flour works too.
- Salt
- Granulated sugar – Please don’t use dark brown sugar for this.
- Instant yeast – Active dry yeast works too.
- Water
- Cooking spray
Easy Variations
You can make an additional three kinds of yummy lavash with a couple of aromatics, a change of liquid, and a different flour.
- Add more flavor. Lightly brush the uncooked lavash with olive oil and sprinkle each bread with 1/2 tablespoon of finely chopped garlic and parsley on both sides. Cook them as usual.
- Use whole-wheat. Whole wheat flour will make your flatbread healthier and give it an earthier flavor.
- Add milk. Swapping the water for milk will give you a much richer flavor.
How to Make Lavash Bread
Making lavash is like a cross between bread and tortillas. Give it a go!
- Make the dough. Add all the ingredients (except the cooking spray) to a large mixing bowl. Stir everything together using a wooden spoon. Once you get a loose dough, remove it from the bowl and place it on a lightly floured surface.
- Knead it. Knead the dough, pressing it away from you and then rolling it back in, for 7-12 minutes or until nice and smooth. If the dough is sticking to the counter too much, add 1 teaspoon of extra flour at a time until it’s no longer sticky.
- Let it rest. Roll the dough into a ball. If you press your finger into it, it should bounce back. Place it in a large bowl and cover it with a clean kitchen towel or plastic wrap. Let it rest in a warm spot for 1-2 hours or until doubled in size.
- Portion it. Remove it from the bowl and place the dough on a lightly floured surface. Section the dough into 6-8 even pieces. The more pieces, the smaller your lavash will turn out. Roll each piece into a ball. Cover them with a clean kitchen towel.
- Flatten it. Use a floured rolling pin to flatten them out into large circles. They should be thin, like tortillas or pasta. The thinner each lavash is, the more pliable it will be once cooked. Thicker lavash bread is just as yummy but they don’t fold well and take longer to cook.
- Cook it. Heat a medium pan over medium heat. Lightly grease it with cooking spray. Place one lavash in the pan at a time. Let them cook for 16-25 seconds on each side, or until lightly golden. Don’t let them burn.
- Serve. Remove them from the heat immediately and serve them warm.
Tips for Making Armenian Lavash
With these tips, you’ll be making this fuss-free flatbread in no time:
- Speed up the process. If your dough isn’t rising, make sure it’s in a heat-proof bowl. Then preheat the oven to 200˚F for 10 minutes and turn it off. Place the bowl inside (make sure it’s not covered in plastic wrap) and let it rise with the residual heat. It should be ready within 20 to 40 minutes.
- Use hot water. This is often swapped for cold or room-temperature water, but I don’t recommend it. The dough will be stiff, not supple. Always use hot water if you want to avoid any issues with the dough.
- Don’t use unrisen dough. Never try to work with unrisen dough. The weather won’t always be in your favor, but just be patient and let the dough rise. If it hasn’t risen, your bread will be stiff.
- Check the yeast. Always check the expiration date on your yeast unless you want to spend hours waiting for a dough that’ll never rise.
Serving Suggestions
This recipe is great with Mediterranean and Arab-inspired sides and mains like baked chicken or light salads. I love it with my Jennifer Aniston’s Bulgur Salad and shredded leftover Chicken Marbella to make tasty tacos.
You can also pair it with my Spinach Artichoke Chicken Breasts, Artichoke Chicken, and Classic Baked Chicken Pieces. For salad options, try my Spring Vegetable Potato Salad with Lemon Dijon Vinaigrette, Bacon, Crab and Avocado Salad with Green Onion Yogurt Salad Dressing, and Olives and Avocado Salad with Tomatoes and Feta Cheese.
How to Store
Once fully cooled, you can store it at room temperature, in the fridge, or in the freezer for later.
- At room temperature: place them in paper bag for up to 2 days or in a paper towel-lined airtight container for up to 3 days.
- Fridge: keep them in an airtight container for up to a week. In case it hardens and becomes a little stale, sprinkle them with a teaspoon of water before reheating to help soften them up.
- Freezer: pop them into a freezer-friendly bag or container. Freeze for up to 6 months. Thaw them overnight in the fridge before reheating.
Reheat it by placing the flatbread on a warm griddle or skillet for 1 to 2 minutes on each side or until soft and pliable again. You can also sprinkle them with a few drops of water and pop them into the microwave for up to 20 seconds or until warm.
More Homemade Bread Recipes
ENJOY!
Whisk together the bread flour, salt, sugar, and yeast in a large mixing bowl. Add the hot water and stir everything together using a wooden spoon.
Once you get a loose dough, remove it from the bowl and place it on a lightly floured surface.
Knead the dough, pressing it away from you and then rolling it back in for 7 to 12 minutes or until nice and smooth.
Roll the dough into a ball. Place it in a large bowl and cover it with a clean kitchen towel or plastic wrap. Let it rest in a warm spot for 1 to 2 hours or until doubled in size.
Remove it from the bowl and place the dough on a lightly floured surface. Section the dough into 6 to 8 even pieces. The more pieces, the smaller your lavash will turn out.
Roll each piece of dough into a ball. Cover them with a clean kitchen towel.
Then, working with one dough ball at a time, flatten them out into large circles using a floured rolling pin. They should be thin, like tortillas.
Heat a medium pan over medium heat. Lightly grease it with cooking spray. Place one lavash in the pan at a time. Let them cook for 15 to 25 seconds on each side or until lightly golden.
Remove them from the skillet and keep covered while cooking the rest.
Serve warm.
- Kneading: Traditionally, kneading the dough by hand is the way to make authentic Lavash, but you can also use your mixer. Kneading in a mixer for 2 minutes is equivalent to kneading for about 10 minutes by hand. When finished kneading, the dough should feel supple and soft but not sticky.
- Dough: Let the dough rise. If it hasn’t risen, the bread will be stiff. Also, always keep the dough balls covered while rolling out the rest.
- When the lavash is cooked, transfer it to a plate and keep them covered while working with the rest.
- Flavor: Add more flavor by lightly brushing the uncooked lavash with olive oil and sprinkling it with minced garlic and parsley.
- Whole Wheat Flour: You can use whole wheat flour, but use 50 percent whole-wheat and 50 percent bread flour to avoid a dense result.
Serving: 1 g | Calories: 175 kcal | Carbohydrates: 35 g | Protein: 6 g | Fat: 1 g | Saturated Fat: 0.1 g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 0.3 g | Monounsaturated Fat: 0.1 g | Sodium: 294 mg | Potassium: 61 mg | Fiber: 2 g | Sugar: 0.5 g | Vitamin A: 1 IU | Vitamin C: 0.01 mg | Calcium: 9 mg | Iron: 0.5 mg | Net Carbs: 33 g
Nutritional info is an estimate and provided as courtesy. Values may vary according to the ingredients and tools used. Please use your preferred nutritional calculator for more detailed info.
