Lavash Bread Is The Secret To A Protein Rich Pizza In A Flash

Long gone are the days of a doughy, thick-crust pizza arriving at your doorstep in a greasy box, with few options for personalization. Now there's thin crust, deep dish, and stuffed, croissant, or Neapolitan crusts, as well as regionally specific crusts named for Greece, Chicago, Detroit, St. Louis, and New York. The possibilities may not be endless, but they certainly abound. Then there's an entirely different type of bread making some pizza waves, mostly because its customary role on a dinner table has nothing to do with tomato sauce, pepperonis, or oozing melted cheese. The category of bread breaking through the pizza gates is the considerably different flatbread — more specifically, lavash bread. 

It's the secret for making quick pizzas with a significant protein punch. It's thinner than many other flatbreads, so it heats quickly into a crispy crust piled high with your favorite toppings. A fairly typical piece of ready-made lavash bread provides 6 grams of protein in a thin, light sheet of flatbread. You can raise the protein count by using meat toppings and high-protein cheeses such as mozzarella, pecorino, and parmesan. The soft, pliable texture allows shaping to your preference, depending on how you like to handle your pizza pleasure. It's basically ready in the amount of time it takes to melt the cheeses and warm the sauces, meats, and veggies. 

Lavash is a unique bread that's a staple in countries such as Armenia, where the tradition involves hand-making the dough out of wheat flour and water, kneading and forming into balls, and rolling into individual flat pieces for baking. It's typically used as a wrap for meats, cheeses, and vegetables. With lavash becoming more readily available in the U.S., a lavash pizza was only a matter of time. 

Many ready-made lavash breads come in a rectangular shape, though it's possible to find brands that cut in a circular or oval shape for making a more classic-looking pizza. Either way, it will still be flat, rather than already having a pizza-style rim for containing toppings. But that's easily adaptive by placing a round lavash into a rimmed pan and gently folding the edges upward. For an oval shape, spread the pizza ingredients across the top, leaving a couple of inches for folding over into a protective crust. 

Using the typical rectangular shapes of many ready-made lavash breads expands the possibilities. Simply lay a piece of lavish on a baking sheet, spread the sauce from edge to edge, add your cheeses and toppings, and bake as usual. In minutes, you'll have a flat, thin pizza with a slightly crunchy base and a decent amount of protein. Roll up some slices and eat like a burrito, fold the four edges inward for handheld appetizers, or fold two sides of a slice together for a crispy little pizza sandwich.