This stuffed flatbread is a common upgrade in the kebab shops you’ll find in nearly every major city in France. Soft, golden brown, and puffy and filled with melty Laughing Cow cheese, this easy flatbread recipe is delicious served with soup, curry, or used as a wrap.
This cheesy flatbread is one of those foods that makes me nostalgic. I associate it with beer and wine and friends and late night food runs or hearty hangover meals whenever you finally scrape yourself out of bed and realize you need food.
These days I make it because naan/flatbread is a bread recipe I can pull together without much thought. It’s forgiving, it’s (relatively) fast and it’s the perfect complement to any meal.
Ingredients You’ll Need
- Water
- Buttermilk: Many recipes use greek yogurt, but I created this recipe to use up leftover buttermilk. I almost always have it on hand for weekend pancakes and I love the subtle tang it gives the cooked flatbread.
- Olive oil: Adding oil to the dough is going to make the dough extra soft and slightly chewy. Not traditional, but so delicious!
- Instant yeast: Like I mentioned above, I often make flatbread as more of an afterthought. Using instant yeast allows me to eliminate the need for proofing and it rises faster to boot. I’ve successfully shortened the rise time in this recipe to 45 minutes when I’m in a pinch and still had great results! (FYI: Apparently there are corners of the internet that believe that instant yeast is superior to all other types of yeast. Read about it here.
- Sugar
- Salt
- Laughing Cow cheese: Laughing Cow cheese is a blend of cheeses including gouda, emmental and other French cheeses that, according to the brand’s site, has been melted down ‘fondue style’ and individually packaged in wedges. Kids are the most common consumers of this type of cheese in France and it’s often given in cafeterias as part of lunch or used as a sort of precursor to the gourmet stinky stuff they’ll transition to as they get older. It’s a cheese that melts easily. Aldi’s actually sells an off-brand version of it branded under Happy Farms Spreadable Cheese Wedges. If you can’t find Laughing Cow or you don’t have an Aldi’s that carries it, you can substitute it with cream cheese for a similar texture.
How to Make Cheesy Stuffed Flatbread
- Mix water, instant yeast, sugar, oil, buttermilk and salt in a large mixing bowl.
- Add half of the flour to the large bowl, stirring to combine.
- Reserving ½ cup flour, add the other 2 cups of flour to the large mixing bowl and start to stir it with a spatula. I do this so that flour doesn’t fly everywhere when I transfer it all to the mixer. Move the bowl over to a mixer with a dough hook attachment.
- Gradually add the remaining ½ cup of flour, kneading until the dough starts forming into a cohesive, elastic ball and pulls away from the sides of the bowl. You should end up with smooth dough that slightly stick but still manageable.
- Shape flatbread dough ball and place back in the bowl. Cover and let rest 45 minutes to 1 hour or until doubled in size.
- Once the dough has risen, use your hands to gently deflate it and transfer to a lightly floured surface.
- Divide dough into 8 roughly equal pieces and roll into balls.
- Cover and let rest for 15 minutes. Meanwhile, unwrap cheese triangles and set on a plate or in a bowl.
- After 15 minutes, take a portion of dough and flatten slightly into a disc with the palm of your hands on a lightly floured surface. Dust top of disc with more flour and smooth onto the dough. Using a rolling pin, start to flatten the dough, so you have a large enough circle to place 2 cheese triangles into the middle of the dough. Pull sides of dough up and around the cheese. Then, gently roll the dough on the counter to shape it into a ball again. Repeat with remaining dough portions.
- Once each portion is filled with cheese, heat a large non-stick skillet on medium-high heat.
- While heating the large skillet, start rolling naan into thin circles (6-inch circle or 7-inch circle) on a lightly floured work surface. Prepare a small bowl of neutral oil, such as vegetable or canola.
- Once the pan is hot, brush with oil. Place a dough round in the skillet. When it puffs up and you start to see lot of little air bubbles, flip it over and cook the other side. Repeat until each portion of dough has been cooked.
- Cheese stuffed flatbread (or naan), is best eaten fresh, while still warm because of the melty cheese. I reheat over an open flame on my stovetop, but you can also reheat in a skillet or the microwave.
- Optional: brush with melted butter and top with a little green onion, parsley or other fresh herbs. Keep naan warm by covering them with a tea towel.
Can I Stuff This Flatbread with Anything Else?
Of course! You could try stuffing these simple flatbreads with a salty feta filling, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, or even various sweet fillings!
What to Eat with Stuffed Flatbread
Flatbread like naan is typically associated with countries in Asia and the Middle East.
It’s great with appetizers for a party or light lunch, which I love for hosting because I can make the dips a day or two in advance:
- Mechouia Salad (a grilled pepper and veggie salad that gets turned into a dipping sauce.
- Hummus
- Babaganoush
It’s delicious as a wrap:
In fact, this is how I discovered this bread. In France, you can upgrade from plain naan to cheese naan when you order a doner kebab. Our family’s favorite is falafel (homemade or from Trader Joe’s), freshly sliced cukes and diced tomatoes, and a bit of tzatziki (extra points if it’s packed with garlic, lemon and mint).
And as a side dish for:
- Butter chicken
- Lentil soup
- Moussakhan (a Palestinian recipe for for chicken and red onion that I learned from one of my favorite cookbooks, “Zaitoun” by Yasmin Khan)
- Any soup, curry, stew, or even salad!
What Can I Do With Leftover Flatbread?
- Freeze it. To freeze this cheesy stuffed flatbread, you can wrap individually in plastic wrap or separate with a piece of parchment paper and then several pieces of flatbread in a Ziploc bag. Pull out pieces and defrost on the counter before warming and serving. Once defrosted, reheat in a hot skillet.
- Make pizza. Flatbread pizza is a great way to use up leftovers and you can go gourmet (maybe some brie, prosciutto, fig jam and arugula?) or keep it super simple (pepperoni and mushrooms?).
Looking for another fun dough project? Check out this recipe for flaky empanada dough or this pizza dough recipe created specifically for wood-fired pizza ovens!
📖 Recipe
Cheese Stuffed Flatbread
This type of naan is a common upgrade in the kebab shops you'll find in nearly every major city in France. Soft and puffy and filled with a melty Laughing Cow cheese, learn how to make homemade stuffed flatbread and then serve with your favorite soup, curry, or use it as a wrap (we love it with falafel, tzadziki, and tomato).
Ingredients
- 1 cup water
- 1 tablespoon instant yeast
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- ¼ cup oil
- ¾ cup buttermilk
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 4 ½ cups all-purpose flour + more for dusting
- 2 pkg laughing cow cheese 16 triangles, total
Instructions
- Mix water, instant yeast, sugar, oil, buttermilk and salt in a large mixing bowl.
- Add half of the flour to the large bowl, stirring to combine.
- Reserving ½ cup flour, add the other 2 cups of flour to the large mixing bowl and start to stir it with a spatula. I do this so that flour doesn’t fly everywhere when I transfer it all to the mixer. Move the bowl over to a mixer with a dough hook attachment.
- Gradually add the remaining ½ cup of flour, kneading until the dough starts forming into a cohesive, elastic ball and pulls away from the sides of the bowl. You should end up with smooth dough that slightly stick but still manageable.
- Shape flatbread dough ball and place back in the bowl. Cover and let rest 45 minutes to 1 hour or until doubled in size.
- Once the dough has risen, use your hands to gently deflate it and transfer to a lightly floured surface.
- Divide dough into 8 roughly equal pieces and roll into balls.
- Cover and let rest for 15 minutes. Meanwhile, unwrap cheese triangles and set on a plate or in a bowl.
- After 15 minutes, take a portion of dough and flatten slightly into a disc with the palm of your hands on a lightly floured surface. Dust top of disc with more flour and smooth onto the dough. Using a rolling pin, start to flatten the dough, so you have a large enough circle to place 2 cheese triangles into the middle of the dough. Pull sides of dough up and around the cheese. Then, gently roll the dough on the counter to shape it into a ball again. Repeat with remaining dough portions.
- Once each portion is filled with cheese, heat a large non-stick skillet on medium-high heat.
- While heating the large skillet, start rolling naan into thin circles (6-inch circle or 7-inch circle) on a lightly floured work surface. Prepare a small bowl of neutral oil, such as vegetable or canola.
- Once the pan is hot, brush with oil. Place a dough round in the skillet. When it puffs up and you start to see lot of little air bubbles, flip it over and cook the other side. Repeat until each portion of dough has been cooked.
- Cheese stuffed flatbread (or naan), is best eaten fresh, while still warm because of the melty cheese. I reheat over an open flame on my stovetop, but you can also reheat in a skillet or the microwave.
- Optional: brush with melted butter and top with a little green onion, parsley or other fresh herbs. Keep naan warm by covering them with a tea towel.
Notes
Notes:
- Adjust heat as needed. If smoke starts coming off the pan, it is a sign the pan is too hot. I have a gas stove and usually preheat the pan on 4 and then lower to 3 (which isn’t actually a number on my stovetop dial, I just find that lowering to 2 isn’t hot enough). If the dough starts taking too long to puff up or brown, I knock the heat back up to 4.
- Cheese naan puff up as tall as pita, owing to the layer of cheese that separates the top from the bottom.
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!
