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We’re not sure what we love about this recipe the most. The no-knead, no-rise crust. The robust zaatar flavor. Or the fact that it’s PIZZA!
The number one thing that intimidates people about making their own pizza is the crust. The yeast, the rising, the punching, the waiting. We’ve alleviated that problem with the simplest pizza dough recipe ever. It takes about 5 minutes and requires no mixer and no special tools. Just a bowl, a wooden spoon, and your hands.
Za'atar Pizza With Dukkah Labneh And Purple Onions + Friday Links — Molly Yeh
Now that the hard part is out of the way, let’s talk about the toppings. A margherita pizza is a simple, thin-crusted pie adorned with the colors of the Italian flag; bright red tomato sauce, white mozzarella cheese, and green basil. Since we’re using canned tomatoes and not pizza sauce (which is loaded with added sugars and artificial ingredients) we need a punch of flavor and zaatar is just the right thing for the job!
You may be asking yourself what is zaatar? It's a Mediterranean spice mix with mainstay ingredients (if premium brand) of wild thyme (native to Middle East region), sumac, and sesame seeds. Za'atar is a great way to add a delicious Mediterranean flair to just about any dish, and it even offers health benefits. Read hear about zaatar benefits. If you’ve never tried cooking with zaatar before, this recipe is the perfect excuse to buy some! But just as you don’t want unnecessary ingredients in your pizza sauce, you don’t want that in your zaatar either, so it’s important to choose a reputable zaatar brand that is honest about its ingredients with no unknown fillings and substitutes.
*This recipe can easily be halved if you don’t need 2 pizzas. You can also prepare the dough and refrigerate half of it for use at another time. Try it with our recipe for manae’esh!This za’atar flatbread recipe originates as a pizza dough recipe and has the ultimate thin yet soft and chewy crust. Hands down this dough makes the best za’atar flatbread I’ve ever made or eaten, and a tremendous pizza! Bonus: you can make the dough in advance.
Make Your Own Manakish
Growing up over on the west side, we had our DeLuca’s, the old school Italian hole-in-the-wall. After the game, for birthdays, and a place to hang out with our tight group of teen friends. I keep swearing I’ll go back to DeLuca’s now that I’m home for good, but it just never comes up. Maybe on a deeper level I’m afraid to touch those memories, now that my pizza expectations have grown so much and knowing that going back to childhood icons can as easily miff as invoke happy nostalgia.
Then there was Chicago, and fourteen years of pizza joy. Pizza Capri became the go-to delivery pizza for Peggy and me, once we finally choked down the last of the spinach-filleds from Edwardo’s, deep-dishers from Gino’s and Giordano’s, the blahs from Lou Malnati’s, and the too-crowded-to-do-this from Piece (I did come to love a white pizza with anchovies there, though). We transitioned swiftly to the thin-crusted Neapolitans at Spacca Napoli after eating unbelievable pizza in Italy, standing in line to see the David and grabbing slices for the family (got a long wait? Let’s eat!).
Pizza in San Francisco was an important part of the Maureen-love that defined that year of culinary-school-cum-self-actualization. In a word, Delfina. (Where I also discovered amarena cherries, which my brother Chris and I ate on sundaes after the pizza. We asked what they were, and he ordered them on his phone simultaneously. I’ve never been without a Fabbri jar since) I’d be remiss not to mention Liguria focaccia in North Beach as very, very, beyond very important to me as well. They wrap the bread in paper and tie it with a string. I know you understand.
Za'atar Feta & Lamb Pizza
Along the way, I was led to the pizzeria palace of the universe in Phoenix by one of my primary cooking and baking gurus in this life, cousin Jim: Pizzeria Bianco. Chris Bianco as you may well know is the king, the master, the Super Man of all the pizza kingdom.
His pizza crust is the ultimate in thin-soft-chew with the perfect spots of leoparded char, lightly topped with barely-there tomato, cheese, herb. When anyone I know says they’re headed to Phoenix, I’m so envious of their Bianco pizza opportunity.
Yes, Bell’s Greek in East Lansing is a favorite (and their Greek salad is triple nice, and I used to eat there every week in grad school, and Aunt Rita used to bake baklawa using her special method for them to sell, which makes it all come full circle), but ultimately, this is a talami-like pizza, and I still want—no, need—my thin crust.
Best Manakish (manakeesh) With Za'atar And Cheese
I guess I talked and squawked so much about wanting to make my own pizza in a truly hot oven that everyone and their brother knew. Or at least my own brother knew, because his wedding gift to Mr. Shaheen and me was a serious, for real Kalamazoo pizza oven. This gas-fired inferno heats up fast, and while it may look like what my friend John describes as the microwaves of pizza ovens (not a brick in sight, but hey), this thing rocks out pizza! Now that we keep the oven permanently installed up north, Dan has patiently listened to me trying to figure out how we can build a pizza oven into our kitchen downstate. God love him.
Of course, a pizza oven is only as good as its dough. I’ve tried and enjoyed many, many dough recipes, from my friend Peter Reinhart and Kalamazoo pizza oven and Nancy Silverton to Modernist Cuisine with its hit of vital wheat gluten for extra chew. One of my favorites was a recipe for
, frozen, from our pal Brad at his delicious Wood Fired Up pizza truck that used to be stationed just down the way from our house in town. Such great dough! And lots of it, at the ready. What a generous baker he was to say “sure” when I called out of the blue early one Sunday morning in summer, a-begging for his dough. Then he moved his pizza to Ann Arbor….
Za'atar Spiced Chickpea Pita Pizzas Recipe
What I’ve really yearned for after exploring all of the pizza iterations we’ve come to love (caramelized onion+fennel sausage), is to use this dough for za’atar man’oushe (in fact, early on my brother Chris of man’oushe love said: have you tried your pizzas with za’atar?). After all, this traditional Lebanese flatbread coated with za’atar and olive oil, or very often cheese, is nothing short of Lebanese pizza. But I’ve never made or eaten a za’atar bread that compares to the best of the best pizzas I’ve eaten. I figure, in the tradition of my brother Dick who won’t put anything in his mouth if it isn’t great, if you’re going to indulge in the bread, then it ought to be perfect.
One summer morning couple months back I set to making my pizza dough for the weekend, trying a new recipe by Chris Bianco I found online from his then-upcoming book, and planning to freeze it in hopes it would still shine when needed. I had an adorable, kitchen-smart 13-year-old Claire with me that morning helping me do some prep for a dinner I was hosting that weekend, so while she stirred up batches of her delicious infused waters, I stretched some of my pizza dough into a round and slathered it with za’atar and olive oil for us to eat a proper Lebanese breakfast.
Can I tell you what a revelation this za’atar flatbread is? It’s a revelation! Claire and I both went nuts over it and she almost missed sailing school for the eating. I became completely dedicated to the dough all summer long. The dough is perfection, and it wouldn’t need a blessed thing on it other than a touch of olive oil to taste divine.
Turkish Flatbread With Za'atar
Also, of major importance is that the dough can be made in the evening and put it in the refrigerator overnight, then baked off for breakfast like a true Sitti (minus getting up at 4 a.m. to make it happen, the way my Sitto did).
You (and Dan) will be glad to know that the pizza oven is pretty much unnecessary for the early morning za’atar bread. Actually, totally and completely unnecessary. When Claire and I baked some, we had no time for the pizza oven, so I fired up my kitchen oven hot as it would go with an overturned sheet pan as a heating element. Not even a pizza stone in sight. And no rolling pin, either! I love rolling pins, but here I love even more that one isn’t needed.
This dough baked up like a champ, giving me a whole new world of happy pizza za’atar flatbread memories to make and treasure.
Manakish (manakeesh) With Za'atar And Cheese
This recipe is adapted from Chris Bianco’s, published in Eater for focaccia-style bread from his book Bianco:
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