Is There A Real Difference Between Flatbread And Pizza?

If you find yourself at a bar or restaurant for happy hour you might find a flatbread on the menu. Flatbreads are perfect for sharing and snacking on when you're dining out, and chefs get to be creative with them. While it is often portioned and cut to share, a flatbread is actually different from a traditional pizza. According to Basta Pasta, flatbreads often offer a variety of creative sauces, cheeses, and toppings, and they all have that satisfying crunch. Since they are not restricted to traditional Italian sauces, cheeses, and toppings, chefs can get creative with flatbreads and try non-traditional pairings.

Making a flatbread is simple and easy, and if you don't want to make the dough from the scratch, it can be made from already baked unleavened bread types like pita bread, lavash bread, or tortillas. This Mexican tortilla flatbread is a perfect example of making a flatbread from baked unleavened bread and not from raw dough. However, a shining example is that the difference between a flatbread and a pizza has to do with the dough.

While they seem similar, the key difference between pizzas and flatbreads is that pizza dough contains yeast and is allowed to rise for a time before the dish is baked, per Cooking Clarified. When made from dough, flatbreads use an unleavened dough and are often made in a free-form shape rather than tossed into a circular form like a pizza, per Basta Pasta.

Difference Between notes that the term "flatbread" is currently used to describe a newer invention that combines pizza-making techniques with unleavened flatbread ingredients in lieu of traditional leavened pizza dough. They also note that flatbreads are traditionally made from flour, water, and salt and are found in different food cultures around the world, like Indian food, Mexican food, and Mediterranean food.

Since flatbread pizzas are novel, they are not held to the same traditional standards as you'd expect with Italian pizza and therefore are more experimental. So if you're not in the mood for a traditional pizza, try getting creative with a flatbread instead.