Recipes › Chilli Pepper (Hot) › Chilli Pepper and Halloumi Flatbreads with Cucumber Yoghurt
Chilli Pepper and Halloumi Flatbreads with Cucumber Yoghurt
Blistered fresh chillies and salty pan-fried halloumi are piled onto warm homemade flatbreads with a cool, garlicky cucumber yoghurt. This is a proper weeknight dinner — fast, satisfying, and the kind of thing you will make on rotation through late summer when your chilli plants are going mad. The chillies are the point here, roasted directly in the pan until they char and soften into something sweet, smoky, and genuinely hot.
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Ingredients
- 300 g hot chilli peppers, mixed colours if possible, whole, stalks left on
- 500 g halloumi, sliced 1cm thickor use firm vegan halloumi-style cheese
- 300 g plain flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp fine salt
- 160 ml full-fat natural yoghurt
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 200 full-fat Greek yoghurt
- 150 g cucumber, coarsely grated, excess water squeezed out
- 2 garlic cloves, finely grated
- 1 lemon, juice only
- 1 tsp dried mintor 10g fresh mint, finely chopped
- 1 tsp sumac (optional)
- 15 g flat-leaf parsley, roughly torn (optional)
Contains: milk, cereals gluten.
Method
- Make the flatbread dough first. Put the flour, baking powder, and salt into a large bowl and stir to combine. Add the natural yoghurt and 1 tablespoon of olive oil, then mix with a fork until it comes together. Tip onto a lightly floured surface and knead briefly for about 1 minute until smooth. Divide into 4 equal pieces, roughly 120g each. Cover with a clean tea towel and leave to rest while you prepare everything else.About 4 min
- Make the cucumber yoghurt. Combine the Greek yoghurt, grated cucumber, garlic, lemon juice, and dried mint in a bowl. Season well with salt, stir together, and set aside. This will sit happily at room temperature while you cook.About 3 min
- Place a large, dry cast-iron or heavy-based frying pan over a high heat. Once the pan is very hot — it should feel ferociously hot when you hold your hand 5cm above it — add the whole chillies in a single layer. Cook without moving them for 2 minutes until they blister and char on one side. Turn and cook for another 2 minutes on the other side. The skins should be blackened in patches and the chillies should be collapsing slightly and smelling sweet and smoky. Transfer to a plate, season with a pinch of salt, and set aside.About 5 min
- Keep the pan over a high heat. Add the remaining tablespoon of olive oil, then add the halloumi slices in a single layer — work in two batches if needed to avoid crowding. Fry for 1–2 minutes per side until deeply golden and a little crisp at the edges. Transfer to a plate and keep warm.About 5 min
- Roll each piece of flatbread dough out on a lightly floured surface to a rough oval about 3mm thick. Wipe the pan clean with kitchen paper, return to a high heat, and cook each flatbread for 90 seconds per side until puffed, scorched in places, and cooked through. Keep warm wrapped in a tea towel while you cook the rest.About 8 min
- To serve, spread a generous amount of cucumber yoghurt over each warm flatbread. Pile on the halloumi slices, then lay the charred chillies on top — use 3–4 chillies per flatbread depending on their size and your heat tolerance. Scatter over the sumac and torn parsley if using, and serve immediately.About 2 min
Tips
- The pan must be genuinely screaming hot before the chillies go in — anything less and they steam rather than char, and you lose all that smoky sweetness. Open a window.
- Squeeze the cucumber very firmly in your hands before adding it to the yoghurt, otherwise it will make the whole thing watery within minutes.
- If your chillies are very thin (like cayenne types), they only need about 90 seconds per side. Fatter chillies like jalapeños or serranos need the full 2 minutes and benefit from a splash of water added to the pan and a lid clapped on for 1 minute to help them soften through.
Ring the changes
- Swap the halloumi for sliced merguez sausages cooked in the same pan for a spicy lamb version that keeps the same spirit but adds meat.
- Use shop-bought pittas warmed in the oven at 180°C for 5 minutes if you are pressed for time — the charred chillies and yoghurt are the real story here and they are just as good.
Keeping it
The flatbreads and charred chillies are best eaten the moment they are made. Leftover cucumber yoghurt keeps in the fridge for up to 2 days, covered. Cooked halloumi can be stored in the fridge for up to 2 days and re-crisped in a dry pan.
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