Vegan Flatbreads

👩🏽‍🍳 What can I serve with my flatbreads?

You can use these lovely, soft flatbreads in all sorts of ways - a perfect accompaniment to so many different meals. How about:

• With a vegan BBQ You can actually cook the flatbreads on the BBQ (exactly as per the recipe, just 1-2 minutes each side), and then serve with your grilled vegetables, homemade vegan burgers or shop-bought sausages. Don't forget the vegan coleslaw and potato salad!
• Piled with Mexican treats These flatbreads are soft enough to be a homemade fajita-style wrap. How about serving with my Vegan Chilli con Carne, salad and guacamole?
• With an Indian feast A delicious accompaniment to a selection of curries and rice - see my flavour suggestions below to give the flatbreads an Indian twist. You could try my vegan korma, easy biryani and creamy coconut courgette curry.
• As a vegan pizza base You can part-cook the flatbreads in a hot frying pan, then quickly pile with passata, your favourite pizza toppings (how about finely chopped onion, pepper, sun-dried tomatoes, sliced olives and jalapeños). I like to dollop on a bit of vegan pesto then finish with a scattering of vegan mozzarella and pine nuts, olive oil and oregano. Pop under a very hot grill for just a minute or two until sizzling and voilà - super-speedy pizza!

How will you serve yours?

👩🏽‍🍳What you need

Ingredients

Self-raising flour and baking powder These flatbreads are a no-yeast recipe, (similarly to my Vegan Soda Bread loaf), and their modest rise and trademark 'bubbles' of dough come from the raising agent in the self-raising flour and baking powder.

If you don't have any self-raising flour you can make your own by adding ½ teaspoon baking powder to each 100g plain flour. So in this recipe - in total you would need 260g plain flour + 1 ¾ teaspoon baking powder.

Dairy-free yoghurt Make sure you use an unsweetened yoghurt for these flatbreads. Either coconut, soya or oat will all work well - whatever you have to hand.

Salt The key to a good bread flavour is getting the right amount of salt, so don't skimp. I like ½ teaspoon between these six flatbreads, but once you've made these once you will know if that's right for you too.

Olive oil Adding oil to the dough makes these flatbreads deliciously soft and foldable, so you can stuff them with lovely things or scoop up curries and stews. But if you prefer a crisper flatbread that really holds it shape, you can just leave it out. I like to use a good quality olive oil as it adds an extra flavour, but any oil will do the same job so use whatever you have handy.

Dairy-free margarine for the garlic 'butter'. The good quality block margarines melt a lot better than tubs of spread, which tend to split and become watery. I like to use Flora Plant butter or Naturli Block margarine.

Garlic I've specified fresh garlic cloves which are a bit of a pain to peel and crush but in my opinion absolutely worth the effort in this recipe. But of course if you're in a hurry you can use ready-chopped garlic from a jar, or one of the other flavour combinations I've suggested instead.

Fresh herbs You can match the herbs you use to what you're serving these flatbreads with - any combination of parsley, coriander, thyme or a little mint will work really well. So you might choose coriander if you're serving with curry, parsley and thyme with a thick British stew, or coriander and mint with a Moroccan tagine.

👩🏽‍🍳 Flavour Variations

Once you've tried making these they will become a firm favourite, and you'll want to serve them every time you are entertaining.

You can make all sorts of tweaks so that the flavours 'match' your main meal. Here are some ideas:

• Indian flavours Add 1 teaspoon turmeric and 1 teaspoon cumin seeds to the flour, and make up the dough as per the recipe. Brush with garlic 'butter' and scatter with coriander to serve. Perfect to serve with a selection of curries and rice.
• Mexican flavours Add 1 teaspoon ground cumin and 1 teaspoon ground oregano to the flour, and then add 1 tablespoon tomato purée to the yoghurt. Brush with garlic 'butter' and scatter with coriander to serve. Perfect to serve with a vegan chilli, salads and guacamole.
• Moroccan flavours Add ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon, ½ teaspoon ground coriander and ½ teaspoon paprika to the flour. Brush with garlic 'butter' and scatter with coriander to serve. Perfect to serve with a vegan tagine and cous cous.
• Italian flavours Add 1 teaspoon ground oregano to the flour and 1 tablespoon sun-dried tomato paste (or tomato purée) to the yoghurt. Brush with garlic 'butter' and scatter with basil to serve. Perfect to serve with your favourite pasta or gnocchi dish.

❄️ Can I freeze my flatbreads?

These vegan flatbreads freeze really well - but make sure you freeze the rolled-out dough before it has been cooked. It is a fun activity for a wet weekend to make a big batch of dough and roll each one out to freeze.

Just layer up your pile of uncooked flatbreads with a sheet of greaseproof or baking paper in between each one. Then you can take one or two out of the freezer as you need them, and just cook in the same way (though they will need an extra minute or two on each side if cooking straight from frozen).

I love to do this in BBQ season, when it is so lovely to have ready-made flatbread dough in the freezer to whack on the grill just before serving the food. So very little effort for something so lovely!