Turkish Spicy Lamb Pizzas (Lahmacun)

Fancy a twist on the classic Italian style pizza? Why not make these delicious Turkish Spicy Lamb Pizzas! A simple flatbread base topped with spicy lamb mince, herbs and feta cheese and served with a simple middle eastern style salad – so simple, but utterly delicious!

When I first heard of Lahmacun, I just knew I would love it – I love pizza, I love Turkish flavours and I LOVE lamb – so the idea of combining all three was just too exciting. So obviously I needed to create my own easy peasy version.

As you know, I am all about food that is easy peasy to make…but I absolutely do not believe that easy food has to equal boring food! I like my food full of flavour and excitement. I love being adventurous with food and coming up with creative ways to make delicious flavours easy and achievable…even on a busy weeknight!

It took me a few goes to get this recipe just right – I tried initially with not frying the lamb at all (you know me, always looking for a way to cut out a step and make things quicker), but the uncooked lamb just made the base soggy.

I also tried this with my easy 2 ingredient flatbread recipe, which works great as a flatbread, but was not quite sturdy enough to be used as a pizza base. I figured I needed to use a yeasted dough…but at the same time, I didn’t want this to turn into a very longwinded or complicated recipe…

So as a quick cheat, I used a bag of pizza base mix and it worked a treat. However to make things even quicker and easier you could use ready-made pizza bases (or shop-bought flatbreads). Or if you have a little more time, make the base from scratch using white bread flour, water, yeast and salt.

Either way the result is pretty awesome – super thin and crispy base, delicious spicy lamb mince, and the feta and herb topping just compliments it all perfectly.

I served this up with one of my favourite salads ever – my Easy Shirazi Salad, it’s just a simple combination of red onion (soaked in lemon juice to take away the sting), cucumber and tomato, chopped small, plus a little salt and pepper. But the flavour is so much better than the sum of its parts. I just love it! As an alternative you could serve this with a simple green salad or a Greek salad instead.

These pizzas would go well with a Grenache based red from France or Spain. If red wine’s not your thing, go for a Grenache rosé instead.

5 from 4 votes

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Turkish Spicy Lamb Pizzas (Lahmacun)

Fancy a twist on the classic Italian style pizza? Why not make these delicious Turkish Spicy Lamb Pizzas! A simple flatbread base topped with spicy lamb mince, herbs and feta cheese and served with a simple middle eastern style salad – so simple, but utterly delicious!

Recipe Type Main Course, Pizza

Cuisine Turkish

Prep Time 20 minutes

Cook Time 10 minutes

Total Time 30 minutes

Serves 8 pizzas

Calories 374 kcal

Author Eb Gargano

Ingredients

Turkish Lamb Pizzas

• 1 tablespoon olive or rapeseed oil plus extra for greasing
• 1 small red onion diced
• 500 g lamb mince
• 1 teaspoon chilli flakes
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon smoked paprika optional
• ½ teaspoon cinnamon optional
• Salt and black pepper to taste
• 2 tablespoons fresh parsley chopped (plus extra for garnish)
• 350 ml passata or tinned chopped tomatoes, blended
• 250 g pizza base mix see note
• 100 g feta cheese

Easy Shirazi Salad

• 1 small red onion diced very finely
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 150 g cherry tomatoes diced
• 150 g cucumber diced
• Salt and black pepper to taste

Metric - US Customary

Method

Turkish Lamb Pizzas

1. Preheat your oven to 240C / 220C fan / gas mark 9 / 475F and lightly grease 2 large baking trays with oil.

2. Place the diced onion and oil in a large frying pan and gently fry for 3 minutes until softened. Turn the heat up and add the lamb. Fry for 3 minutes, or until lightly browned.
3. Lower the heat and add the chilli, cumin, paprika, cinnamon, salt and pepper. Fry for 2 more minutes.
4. Add the parsley and passata and allow to bubble and reduce for 10 minutes.
5. Meanwhile, make the pizza base mix up according to packet instructions. Knead for 5 minutes and then divide into 8 balls. Roll the balls out into ovals roughly 30cm by 15cm and place on the greased baking trays.
6. When the lamb mixture is ready, divide evenly between the pizza bases and place in the preheated oven for 10 minutes or until the bases are fully cooked and tinged with brown.
7. Scatter the pizzas with feta cheese and more chopped fresh parsley and serve with my Easy Shirazi Salad, a simple green salad or a Greek Salad.

Easy Shirazi Salad

1. While the pizzas are cooking, make the shirazi salad
2. Place the onion in a serving bowl and squeeze over all the lemon juice, stir to combine.
3. Add the chopped cherry tomatoes and cucumber, plus salt and pepper to taste.
4. Give everything a good stir and serve with the pizzas.

Notes

(1) To make things even quicker use ready-made pizza bases instead of making your own.
(2) Alternatively, make the pizza base from scratch using 250g strong white bread flour, 4g instant/easy blend yeast, 1 teaspoon salt and 150ml warm water. Mix the dry ingredients together thoroughly first, then add the water. Knead and shape as above.

Nutrition information is approximate and meant as a guideline only.

Nutrition Facts

Turkish Spicy Lamb Pizzas (Lahmacun)

Amount Per Serving

Calories 374 Calories from Fat 171

% Daily Value*

Total Fat 19g 29%

Saturated Fat 8g 40%

Cholesterol 56mg 19%

Sodium 198mg 8%

Potassium 499mg 14%

Total Carbohydrates 32g 11%

Dietary Fiber 2g 8%

Sugars 4g

Protein 16g 32%

Vitamin A 13.3%

Vitamin C 15.6%

Calcium 9.9%

Iron 21.3%

* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.

This is a collaborative post with the ‘LAMB. Tasty Easy Fun’ campaign. ‘LAMB. Tasty Easy Fun’ is an EU funded campaign which aims to increase the use of lamb in everyday cooking.  Lamb is often considered difficult to cook, expensive, or something to be saved for Sunday roasts. The aim of the campaign is to demonstrate just how tasty, easy and fun lamb is to cook with every day of the week! They also have a wonderful website, full of tasty and easy lamb recipes that go way beyond the traditional roast lamb we all know and love.

Want more delicious lamb recipes? Find more here…

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