Is the famous baked Turkish flat bread that comes stuffed with a variety of toppings, including cheese, sausage, spiced meat and spinach. Often described as a Turkish pizza, the greasy, gut-busting takeaway Pides sold at neon-lit corner kebab shops have long been my secret food shame. But shame no more: this delicious homemade Pide recipe trumps takeaway 10 times over – and then some!
Turkish Pide has been my Secret Food Shame* for as long as I can remember. Not authentic, freshly made Pide crafted lovingly by the hands of someone’s Turkish grandma. I’m talking about the greasy, low-rent versions sold from hot glass cabinets at late night takeaway shops, filled with cheap cheese and piles of meat shaved from giant Doner Kebab punching bags turning lazily on vertical rotisseries.
It’s a bit wrong, I know, but I cannot help myself. I have always had a soft spot for bad takeaway Pide. What can I say? When you’re nursing battle wounds from a bad week at work, cheese + bread + tasty toppings will do it every every time!
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But like all things, there’s a time and place. Pide can be trash food but it can also be incredible, going toe-to-toe with the best artisan Italian pizzas. Made totally from scratch like today’s recipe, it’s apples and oranges to the takeaway junk – even a chronic takeaway Pide tragic like me will admit it!
* Food you secretly love but are ashamed to be caught eating. Think: McDonald’s drive-through. The Dirty Bird (aka KFC). Panda Express. Instant mac and cheese. We are all guilty!
Originating from Turkey, Pide is an oval-shaped flatbread baked with various combinations of toppings or stuffings. You could say it’s a cousin of Gozleme, only Pide dough is fluffier and more bread-like. Spiced mince meat (
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, Pide is typically open-faced, though sometimes you also see closed versions. With the latter, the filling is completely sealed within the bread. While both are delicious, the extra flavour you get from the toppings sizzling away in the oven is irresistible to me, so that’s the version I’ve opted for today!
Traditionally, Pide is cooked in a stone oven, but this recipe today is for a boring old home oven. 🙂 We will survive!
In this section, I’m going to step through how to make Pide, from the dough through to assembly and baking. I’ll also cover how to make each of the topping variations. A content summary:
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Heads up!: This section is quite long because I walk through each step, including the ingredients for the three topping options. My goal is to provide enough information so even those of you who are not experienced using yeast are armed with all the information you need to make this. You’ve got this! I promise!
(If you’re an old hand at all things baking and don’t need this level of information, just skip to the recipe or recipe video!)
Here’s a close up photo of inside the bread. You can see how there’s nice large irregular size holes, a clear sign of how fluffy this bread is. Just because it’s a flatbread, that’s no excuse for dense bread!!
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And it’s a Turkish cheese made from sheep’s milk sometimes mixed with a bit of goat’s milk. It has a similar taste, texture and melting qualities of for example, mozzarella. So if you can’t find it, use mozzarella instead.
To prepare the spinach topping, simply sauté the onion then add the spinach to wilt it. Finally mix in some subtle flavourings (cumin, salt, pepper).
Let the spinach filling cool before using so it doesn’t make the dough wet from the spinach steam, and so the Pide rises better.
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Sujuk is a spiced Turkish beef sausage with intense garlic, cumin, sumac and herb flavours. It is semi-cured and has a softer texture than, say, salami and is sold refrigerated.
The best substitute is chorizo, which has similar cooking qualities and fattiness. Though it doesn’t have quite the same flavour profile (chorizo has strong garlic and paprika / pimentòn seasonings), it has very similar intensity of flavour and importantly, fattiness.
The other thing just to note is that chorizo is made from pork so it’s not used in Turkey, which has a predominantly Muslim population.
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If you are keen to experience the real thing, you can find sujuk at Turkish and some Eastern European / Continental grocery stores. The sausage pictured below is from the Turkish Gima Supermarketin Auburn (Sydney).
To prepare the Turkish sausage, chop it roughly then blitz to mince it up so it can be scattered across the pide. The effect of blitzing is twofold – for better coverage of the sausage across the surface of the pide, and also to release flavour. It’s so much tastier than just scattering the pide with chopped sausage! However if you prefer, you can just dice finely or slice.
For the making part, there’s nothing tricky here. Sauté the onions, cook off the mince, then add everything else and cook it down until all the juices from the tomato evaporates. We don’t want the lamb filling to be wet otherwise it will tend to make the bread soggy.
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For the Lamb Pide, I garnished with sesame seeds and fresh coriander / cilantro. The bright green from the herb breaks up the sea of browns nicely, I think. 🙂 I also sprinkled with a pinch of sumac because the tangy freshness of this sour dried berry plays well against the spicing of the lamb, but you can’t see it in my photos!
Traditional Pide is typically sprinkled with a variety of garnishes just before serving. However I wouldn’t say it’s essential, it’s more an optional extra.
Here are some of the more common options which I’ve chosen to use. These are just ideas! So mix and match as you wish – no need to use all of them!
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A combination of any of the above will work with any of the Pide topping options I’m covering today. I’ve listed the combinations I used in the recipe card.
And with that, my friends, you are now armed with everything you need to know to make your very own homemade Turkish pide!!
I know this is a long post but it’s actually quite straightforward to make. Don’t be daunted – I covered 3 different topping options, whereas one batch of the recipe requires only one topping if you choose. As I mentioned earlier, I just wanted to ensure you have all the information you need to make Pide, even if you’re new to baking with yeast.
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If you’re on the fence about whether to make this or not, well let me put it this way. Traditional Turkish Pide is few and far between here in Sydney. Even Turkish restaurants are a bit hit and miss, especially if they’re not made fresh. I have tried many in my time and while “researching” for this recipe! Too often the topping is disappointingly dry or worse still, skimpy. Or the bread is too yeasty (a common offence!). Or it’s too dry and too crispy, rather than pillowy soft and moist inside with
I may be a trash-pide lover too but you can see I’m also fussy about my pide when I want to be! And so I created this homemade recipe, which ticks all my Pide boxes. And I’m confident it will yours too! – Nagi x
PS. This is fun food for sharing with family and friends. Assemble multiple Pide ready for baking, then bake them 2 at a time in the oven. Just keep them coming out, one after the other until your guests beg, “Stop!” 😂
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Recipe video above. It's hard to get great pide outside of Turkey. It's hit and miss, even at many Turkish places. Solution: make it yourself! Pide is easier than you think, and it will tick all your pide boxes: pillowy soft bread inside with a crispy base, generous on the toppings. SO GOOD!
1. Yeast – recipe works with dry active yeast too, but the bread is a bit softer with instant yeast. Also note, rapid-rise/instant yeast normally does not need to activated in warm water but during testing of our naan recipe we discovered that by blooming instant yeast, breads are softer (in some cases) than adding the instant yeast directly into the dough.
2. Warm water – If you don’t have a thermometer, the test is that it should be a temp you’d happily take a bath in. Not scorching hot – it kills the yeast. If too cold, yeast will not activate.
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3. Bread flour has a higher protein than plain/all purpose so breads have a nice chew/elasticity to them. I wouldn’t make a special trip to get bread flour because it’s still great with plain flour. But if making to impress, get bread flour!
4. Kasar cheese – a Turkish cheese made from sheep’s milk and sometimes a bit of goats milk mixed in, melts and stretches well. I got this from a Turkish grocery store. Sub with mozzarella – it is very, very similar.
5. Sujuk sausage – Turkish beef sausage used for Pide. Substitute with chorizo – it’s extremely similar in
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