Paper-thin flatbread blistered under a spiced lamb, pepper, and parsley crust — rolled with lemon and herbs.

Where does Lahmacun come from?

Lahmacun is a Turkish (Antep) dish from Gaziantep, Turkey.

Can Lahmacun be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?

Yes. This Lahmacun recipe includes ingredient substitutions to make it vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, or egg-free — including several of those at once, such as gluten-free and dairy-free together.

How long does Lahmacun take to make?

About 50 minutes total (30 minutes prep, 20 minutes cooking), serving 4.

Recipe

Name: Lahmacun
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 20 min
Total time: 50 min
Yield: 4 servings
Cuisine: Turkish (Antep)
Ingredients: 3 cups all-purpose flour; 12 oz ground lamb (or beef); 1 + 2 red bell pepper + tomato, grated; 1 onion, grated and squeezed; 2 tbsp Turkish pepper paste (biber salçası); 1 bunch parsley, chopped (topping + serving); 2 tsp Aleppo pepper; 1 tsp cumin; 1 tsp instant yeast; 1 tsp sugar; a platter lemons + extra parsley + sliced onion, to roll

Asia → 🇹🇷 Turkey → Gaziantep

Lahmacun

Turkish (Antep) · medium · serves 4

prep 30 min · cook 20 min

~602 cal · 33g protein · 82g carbs · 14g fat (estimated, per serving)

🍽️

Thin blistered flatbreads with spiced meat topping, lemon and parsley

🇹🇷 Gaziantep

Gaziantep — UNESCO’s city of gastronomy — treats lahmacun as a precision instrument: dough rolled to translucency, the topping scraped thin, ninety seconds in a furnace-hot oven. Then you roll it around parsley and lemon and eat it walking.

Make it yours

Toggle a diet and the ingredients rewrite themselves with regional substitutes.

🥕 Vegetarian

🌱 Vegan

🌾 Gluten-Free

🥛 Dairy-Free

🥜 Nut-Free

🥚 Egg-Free

Ingredients

Serves 4 —

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3 cups all-purpose flour

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12 oz ground lamb (or beef)

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1 + 2 red bell pepper + tomato, grated

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1 onion, grated and squeezed

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2 tbsp Turkish pepper paste (biber salçası)

•

1 bunch parsley, chopped (topping + serving)

•

2 tsp Aleppo pepper

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1 tsp cumin

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1 tsp instant yeast

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1 tsp sugar

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a platter lemons + extra parsley + sliced onion, to roll

Instructions

Knead flour, yeast, sugar, salt, and warm water into a soft dough; rise 1 hour.

Mix the lamb (or mushroom-lentil) with grated vegetables, pepper paste, spices, parsley, and salt into a spreadable paste.

Roll the dough into dinner-plate rounds, thin enough to nearly read through.

Scrape a thin layer of topping edge to edge and bake on a preheated steel or upside-down tray at your oven’s max, 4–6 minutes until blistered.

Serve stacked, with lemon, parsley, and onion to roll inside. Eat with your hands or not at all.

Gaziantep oven tradition.

Ratings & reviews

No reviews yet — be the first to cook it.

🌏 While it simmers — know your destination

📍

Gaziantep. UNESCO’s city of gastronomy, where lahmacun leaves the oven blistered.

🗺️

Turkey. Where Ottoman palace cooking met Anatolian village fires.

🌍

Asia. From street-cart woks to slow monastery kitchens.

The story behind this dish is up top — worth a read while the pot works.

👩‍🍳

Richard Moore & Kelsey Tucker

Recipes cooked, tested, and researched by the creators of Spin the Globe. How we build our recipes →