Lebanese Mankousheh Recipe

A mankousheh is a popular Levantine food consisting of dough topped with thyme, cheese or ground meat. It is often referred to in the plural form, manakish (also manaqish, manaeesh or manakeesh), or in the singular form, man’ousheh, mankousheh or mankoushe (Arabic: مناقيش).

This Lebanese Mankousheh recipe is topped with thyme.

The way we make it at home is on a hot pizza stone on the grill. You can easily make it in the oven instead, but I highly recommend the stone-on-the-grill method to achieve the perfect brick-oven-like result.

There are several ways to prepare the dough. Our go-to method is well documented in another post where we talk about our trusted pizza dough recipe. We use the same dough for all the pizzas and manakeesh we make.

More on the thyme blend

The thyme mix is very easy to prepare. Just mix the thyme (zaa’tar) with olive oil. You will want enough olive oil to make the mix easy to spread on the dough.

The thyme mix is a natural blend of deep green roasted thyme, roasted wheat, tangy sumac and toasted sesame seeds.

Just spread and press the dough by hand first, then use a rolling pin to form it into a 12″ circle. Dust with flour as needed as you roll the dough on both sides.

Baking mankousheh on a pizza stone on the grill

Dust a pizza peel with flour, pick up the mankousheh and slide it onto the pizza stone. The stone should already be sitting in a grill preheated on high for about 10 minutes.

It usually takes 3 to 4 minutes. The time varies based on your grill and how well the stone is preheated. Open the grill after 3 minutes to check on it, lifting it with the peel to see if it’s to your liking. When it’s done, simply pick it up with the peel. You can then slice it like you would a pizza, or cut it with scissors if you prefer.

A mankousheh goes well with veggies and herbs like tomatoes and mint on the side, or even inside it if you want to roll it into a sandwich.

Enjoy! 🙂