Socca, chickpea flatbread, savoury gluten-free chickpea pancake – call it whatever you want. I call it unmistakably delicious.
Ā Longtime readers of this blog will know and recognise socca as one of my all-time favourite things to make. It’s a staple that’s been part of my cooking repertoire for just about as long as I have been vegan, over 5 years now (time flies!)
But as with many staples, how I make it has varied over the years. My earlier recipes include a step to bake and set in the oven, and some feature sauteed veggies as aĀ main component like my easy vegan omelet.
So for today’s 2016 iteration, I share with you the simplest, most foolproof version of this time-honoured classic.
Easy Vegan Socca (Chickpea Flatbread)
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup chickpea flour also known as gram flour, besan, or kabab flour
- 1/2 cup water
- 1/2 tsp sea salt
- Freshly ground black pepper
- 1 tsp olive oil
- 1-2 tsp coconut oil or desired cooking oil
Instructions
- In a medium bowl combine the chickpea flour, water, salt, pepper and olive oil. Whisk with a fork until a medium thick batter forms. You don't want it to be too watery, but it shouldn't be too thick either. Depending on your brand of chickpea flour you may have to adjust and add in more water, but do so one tablespoon at a time until the desired consistency is reached.
- Grease a non-stick pan with coconut oil (or desired oil of choice) and allow to heat on a medium flame before adding in half the batter. Swirl it around slightly to spread and cook on low heat until the edges start to brown and the top has firmed up, roughly 3 minutes. Flip over and cook for an additional 1-2 minutes. Repeat for the remainder of the batter.
More often than not, I serve mine with half an an avocado, mashed with lemon, sea salt and black pepper on top.
But sliced avocado and cypriot olives make for a nice, and let’s face it – far more photogenic, change.
Things worth mentioning:
- You can definitely double or triple the batch and make a bunch all in one go, then freeze them and use as you would normal flatbread throughout the week. They re-heat brilliantly.
- Adding a pinch of herbs de provence (or whatever herbs tickle your fancy) is a great way to spice up the base.
- You can make this without the added oil in the batter, if you so wish, but definitely make sure you’re using a non-stick pan otherwise things will get a bit messy.
Make this, and soon. You have no excuse now.
Until next time, dear readers!
This looks so yummy and easy to make! I can’t wait to try it with avocado and zaatar š
I love it with Za’atar and olive oil! Such a easy and healthy alternative to mana’eesh.
Yummm I just made this for the first time and I loove it. Thank you for sharing your delicious recipes!!
Hi Nada, thanks for sharing this. I’m a big fan of everything chickpea and everything bread, so naturally I am very curious to try this. And no rolling pin needed? I’m in!
No rolling pin required! It’s a batter based recipe so more like a pancake/flatbread hybrid.
So perfect, because I’m not gifted with one! I just bought some chickpea flour specifically to try this. Made one with as a wrap for falafel and one simply with strawberry jam…the first few bites I wasn’t sure about, but I started getting more and more into it. Overall, very good, and so easy and quick to make!
Hi! So I just tried a Socca recipe for the first time, and tried the stove top crepe-like method, and my Socca GLUED to the pan, and was absolutely impossible to remove…I had half a scrambled Socca and a half a Socca cooked onto the pan. That led me to researching more versions of the recipe, finding most are cooked in a hot hot oven, with tons and tons of oil, which grossed me out….I wasn’t after fried dough! But it worked, and was tasty albeit yucky-oily. So I kept searching for more info, with less oil, and I found your recipe. I THINK my first mistake was having a batter a little too thin, and the second mistake was not having the skillet so hot that a crust would form immediately. ***Can you share your thoughts?*** ~ Should I give up until I buy a Gotham Steel pan?
Hi PJ! So I’ve had this problem before – I think you definitely need to change your pan – a truly non-stick one shouldn’t give you any issues even if you’re using a small amount of oil. Also – in terms of thickness you want it to be somewhere in between, not too runny or thin but not so thick that its hard to whisk with a fork. Hope that helps!
This was so good!!! I made it for the first time tonight! My husband loved it too! It was so good, we ended up eating them plain! Thank you!
What size pan do you recommend? 6″, 8″10″12″?
Also – what is the consistency – is it soft like the Ethiopian pancake bread, or is it more firm like Naan?
an 8 inch pan should be just fine – the texture is like a soft pancake!