What can I make with pita bread?
Pita Bread is the most-wasted item in most kitchens and one of the most useful. Recipes using pita bread are below, organised from fresh to properly stale.
10 recipes with pita bread
Fattoush
Crunchy pita salad with sumac and pomegranate molasses.
Middle Eastern20m4Falafel Wrap
Crispy chickpea fritters in a pita with tahini sauce.
Middle Eastern35m3
Shawarma
Spice-marinated chicken shaved off a vertical spit into flatbread.
Middle Eastern50m6Falafel Pita
Crisp chickpea fritters in pita with tahini sauce and salad.
Middle Eastern60m4
Roast aubergine with goat's cheese & toasted flatbread
step 1 Heat oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6.
Turkish4
Roasted chicken with creamy walnut sauce
step 1 Heat oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6.
Turkish4
Turkish-style lamb
step 1 Heat grill to high.
Turkish4
Falafel Pita Sandwich with Tahini Sauce
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F (230 degrees C).
Syrian4
Egyptian Fatteh
To prepare bread for bottom of dish: Take pita bread and rip into bite size pieces.
Egyptian4
Lamb and Lemon Souvlaki
Pound the garlic with sea salt in a pestle and mortar (or use a small food processor), until the garlic forms a paste.
Greek4
Best uses for pita bread, fresh or stale
- 1Fresh: toast hard, rub with a raw garlic clove, and finish with good oil and salt.
- 2A day old: cube, toss with oil and season, and bake at 400F for croutons or a panzanella base.
- 3Properly stale: blitz into breadcrumbs and freeze them - they last months and rescue any weeknight dinner.
- 4Soaked in an egg-and-milk custard it becomes French toast or a savoury bake with almost nothing else.
What goes well with pita bread
Pita Bread is at its best with butter, garlic, olive oil, cheese, eggs and herbs. Any two or three of those, plus pita bread, is already a dinner rather than an ingredient list.
Storing pita bread
Keep pita bread at room temperature in paper or a bread box for 2-3 days - the fridge makes it stale faster. For anything longer, slice and freeze it, then toast straight from frozen.
Substituting pita bread
If you are out of pita bread, look for something that behaves the same way in the pan rather than something that tastes the same. Match the moisture level, the cooking time, and the richness, and adjust the liquid slightly if your substitute releases more water. When in doubt, describe what you actually have in the chat and Mr. Chef will rewrite the recipe around it.
Pita Bread recipes: common questions
- What can I make with pita bread and not much else?
- Plenty. With pita bread plus an onion, garlic, oil, and salt you already have the base of a skillet dinner, a soup, or a simple sauce. Add a starch - rice, pasta, bread, or potatoes - and it becomes a full meal. The recipes above are ordered so the ones needing the fewest extra items come first.
- What is the quickest pita bread recipe?
- Look for the entries above marked 20 minutes or less. As a rule, anything cut small and cooked in a hot pan beats anything roasted whole, and one-pan recipes save more time in cleanup than in cooking.
- Can I substitute pita bread?
- In most recipes yes, as long as the replacement plays a similar role - similar moisture, similar cooking time, similar richness. Swapping across roles (a watery vegetable for a starchy one, for instance) usually needs a change in liquid or cooking time too.
- How do I use up leftover pita bread?
- Fried rice, a frittata, a grain bowl, a soup, or a quesadilla will absorb almost any leftover pita bread without a recipe. If you want something specific, tell Mr. Chef exactly what is in the fridge and it will build a recipe around it.