Category: Sangak Blog and News

What Is Sangak Bread? Persian Flatbread Origins, Nutrition & Where to Buy

What Is Sangak Bread?

Sangak (نان سنگک), also known as nan-e sangak, is a traditional Persian flatbread that holds a special place in Iranian cuisine and culture. Unlike other flatbreads, sangak is unique for two reasons: it is baked on a bed of small, hot river stones, and it is made primarily from whole wheat flour, giving it a distinctive nutty flavor and hearty texture.

The name sangak comes from the Persian word sang (سنگ), meaning “stone” or “pebble”—a direct reference to the traditional baking method that has been used for centuries. The bread is long, typically measuring up to three feet in length, with a dimpled, irregular surface where the dough made contact with the hot stones. These small pockets crisp up beautifully while the interior remains soft and chewy.

Sangak has been recognized as one of the world’s best breads—CNN named it among the 50 best breads in the world, praising its unique texture and centuries-old baking tradition.

Persian & Iranian Origins: A Bread with Ancient Roots

Sangak originated in Persia (modern-day Iran) and has been a staple of Iranian bread-making for over a thousand years. Historically, it was the bread of the Persian army—each soldier carried a small pouch of pebbles, and when they stopped to eat, they would heat the stones and bake dough directly on them. This practical method evolved into the traditional sangak bakeries (sangaki) that still exist throughout Iran today.

In Persian culture, sangak is more than just food. It is a symbol of hospitality, community, and resilience. It is traditionally served at family gatherings, alongside kebabs, stews (khoresht), and fresh herbs (sabzi). For many Iranians, the scent of fresh sangak baking on hot stones is the smell of home.

How Sangak Is Made: The Traditional Method

The traditional method of making sangak is as distinctive as the bread itself. Here is how it is done:

The Dough: A simple dough is made from whole wheat flour, water, salt, and a sourdough starter (or yeast). The whole wheat flour is what gives sangak its characteristic nutty flavor and higher nutritional value.
The Oven: A traditional sangak oven (tanour) is a large, dome-shaped clay oven. A bed of small, hot river stones or pebbles is spread across the oven floor.
The Bake: The dough is stretched into long, thin sheets—often up to three feet in length—and carefully placed onto the hot stones. Within minutes, the bread bakes, developing a dimpled, blistered surface where it contacts the stones.
The Finish: The finished bread is pulled from the oven, often draped over racks or folded into an “S” shape to cool without becoming soggy.

In the United States, some Persian bakeries use a rotating metal bed with bumpy texture to mimic the stone-baked effect while complying with health regulations. At Breadmasters, we follow traditional recipes while baking in a modern facility, ensuring consistency and food safety without compromising on authenticity.

Nutritional Benefits: Is Sangak Healthy?

Yes, sangak is one of the healthiest flatbreads available. Because it is traditionally made with whole wheat flour, it offers nutritional advantages over white-flour flatbreads like pita or lavash.

Nutrient	Sangak (per 85g serving)
Calories	210
Protein	8g
Fat	1g
Sodium	400mg

Key Benefits:

Whole Wheat Base: Sangak is made primarily from whole wheat flour, meaning it retains the bran and germ of the wheat grain. This provides more fiber, protein, and micronutrients than refined flour breads.
Lower Fat: Traditional sangak contains no added oils or fats—just flour, water, salt, and leavening.
Sustained Energy: The complex carbohydrates in whole wheat provide steady energy release, making sangak an excellent choice before a meal or as part of a balanced diet.
Digestive Health: The fiber content supports healthy digestion and can help with satiety, keeping you fuller longer.

Dietary Notes: Our sangak is vegan, Non-GMO, Kosher, and contains no preservatives. It is made with simple, all-natural ingredients.

What Does Sangak Taste Like?

Sangak has a flavor profile that sets it apart from other flatbreads:

Nutty & Earthy: The whole wheat flour gives sangak a distinct nuttiness that white-flour breads lack.
Slightly Tangy: The sourdough or yeast leavening adds a subtle tang, similar to a good artisanal loaf.
Textural Contrast: The magic of sangak is in its texture—crisp, blistered edges where the dough touched the stones, giving way to a soft, chewy interior.
Aromatic: When fresh from the oven, sangak has a warm, toasty aroma that signals its stone-baked origins.

Compared to other breads:

Sangak vs. Lavash: Lavash is thinner and more flexible; sangak is heartier with more texture.
Sangak vs. Pita: Pita is pocketed and leavened; sangak is long, dimpled, and whole wheat.
Sangak vs. Naan: Naan is often enriched with yogurt or milk; sangak is simpler and whole grain.

How to Use Sangak: Serving Suggestions

Sangak is one of the most versatile breads in Persian cuisine. Here are traditional and modern ways to enjoy it:

Traditional Persian Serving

With Kebabs: Sangak is the quintessential companion to grilled meats like koobideh, barg, or joojeh kebab. Wrap the kebab in a piece of sangak with fresh herbs and grilled tomatoes.
With Stews (Khoresht): Use sangak to scoop up rich Persian stews like ghormeh sabzi or fesenjan.
With Breakfast: Serve warm sangak with feta cheese, fresh herbs (sabzi), walnuts, and honey or jam.
With Mast-o-Musir: This yogurt and shallot dip is a classic pairing—tear off a piece and scoop generously.

Modern & Creative Uses

Sangak Pizza: Top sangak with sauce, cheese, and your favorite toppings, then bake until crisp. The whole wheat crust adds depth.
Sangak Sandwiches: Use sangak as a wrap for grilled vegetables, chicken, or falafel. Its length makes it perfect for rolling.
Sangak Chips: Cut sangak into triangles, brush with olive oil, sprinkle with za’atar or sea salt, and bake until crisp. Our pre-made Sangak Crisps offer the same great flavor ready to enjoy.
Soup Accompaniment: Warm sangak alongside lentil soup, bean stews, or any hearty broth.

How to Store Sangak for Freshness

Sangak is best enjoyed fresh, but it stores and freezes exceptionally well:

Method	Duration	Instructions
Room Temperature	3–5 days	Keep in a sealed bag or wrapped in a cloth.
Refrigerator	2–3 weeks	Store in an airtight sealed bag.
Freezer	Up to 6 months	Stack flat with parchment between layers, wrap tightly, and freeze. Do not bend.

To refresh: Warm frozen or refrigerated sangak in a toaster, skillet, or low oven for a few minutes to restore its crisp edges and soft interior.

Where to Buy Authentic Sangak Online

The freshest sangak is the one that arrives at your door. Breadmasters ARA-Z is the #1 sangak producer in the United States, baking fresh daily in California and shipping nationwide. Our sangak is made using traditional recipes with the highest-quality ingredients—no preservatives, no shortcuts.

Our Sangak Collection:

Product	Description	Best For	Shop
Sangak Plain Flatbread 5-Pack	The classic, traditional whole wheat sangak. 14×32-inch sheets.	Kebabs, stews, everyday meals	Shop Now →
Sangak Multi-Grain Flatbread 5-Pack	A nuttier, heartier version with sesame and nigella seeds.	Added texture, robust flavor	Shop Now →
Sangak No-Seed Crisps	The same great sangak flavor in a crunchy, snackable form.	Dipping, snacking, charcuterie	Shop Now →
Sangak Sesame-Seed Crisps	Crispy sangak chips topped with sesame seeds.	Snacking, entertaining	Shop Now →

Not sure which to try? Our Sangak Crisps are the perfect introduction to the flavor of authentic Persian sangak—order a box today!

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What does sangak bread taste like?
A: Sangak has a nutty, earthy flavor from whole wheat flour with a slight tang from fermentation. The texture is the star—crisp, blistered edges give way to a soft, chewy interior.

Q: Is sangak bread healthy?
A: Yes! Sangak is one of the healthiest flatbreads. It is made with whole wheat flour, which provides more fiber, protein, and nutrients than refined white flour. Traditional sangak contains no added fats or oils.

Q: Where can I buy sangak bread online?
A: You can buy authentic sangak directly from Breadmasters. We bake fresh daily in California and ship nationwide. Shop our full collection at breadmasters.com/shop.

Q: How is sangak different from lavash or pita?
A: Sangak is made with whole wheat flour and baked on hot stones, giving it a distinct nutty flavor and dimpled texture. Lavash is thinner and more flexible; pita is pocketed and leavened with white flour.

Q: How should I store sangak?
A: Keep sangak in a sealed bag at room temperature for 3–5 days, refrigerate for 2–3 weeks, or freeze for up to 6 months. Refresh in a toaster or low oven before serving.

Q: Can I freeze sangak?
A: Yes! Sangak freezes exceptionally well. Stack flat with parchment paper between sheets, wrap tightly, and freeze for up to 6 months. Thaw at room temperature or warm directly in a toaster.

Q: Is sangak vegan?
A: Yes, traditional sangak is vegan—made with just whole wheat flour, water, salt, and leavening. Our sangak contains no animal products.

Q: What is the difference between plain sangak and multi-grain sangak?
A: Plain sangak is the traditional recipe with whole wheat flour. Multi-grain sangak adds sesame and nigella seeds for extra texture and a slightly nuttier flavor profile.

Experience the Taste of Persian Tradition

Sangak is more than bread—it is a living piece of Persian culinary heritage, baked on hot stones for over a thousand years. Whether you are enjoying it alongside a sizzling kebab, topped with feta and herbs for breakfast, or crisped up as a snack, sangak brings authentic flavor and texture that no other flatbread can match.

Stop searching local markets. Breadmasters delivers fresh, authentic sangak to your door—baked daily in California using traditional recipes and shipped nationwide.

Shop Sangak Now →

April 20, 2020

What Do You Eat Three-Foot Long Sangak Flatbread With?

When a wedding buffet pushes you into this spacey state of existence, making everyone in the buffet line vanish away and leaving one twisted thought lingering in your head…ah, if only I could share that goat head crowned with tempered rice with my readers. When you’re having nightmares about whether your facebook page followers have stealthily unliked your page and left you high and dry, with one pathetic like…from yourself. When you have this overwhelming feeling of needing to jump out of the car and review the first place that crosses your path…even when you really don’t have much of an appetite cause that dang flu virus in India has done this wicked black magic on your precious tummy. When you nearly kiss the camera with joy at the first moment you can pull it out and photograph the salt and pepper shaker over lunch. When you do a bunch of other nasty and embarrassing things that had best be left off of my public domain…then you know you’re having deep-rooted blog withdrawal symptoms.

I did, I had those symptoms…and boy, did I miss this blog. The big fat Indian wedding was a dream over the last few weeks – one that involved so much food and dancing and after-party karaoking that it totally wiped me off the blogging planet for nearly a month. But I’ve missed you guys. And I’ve missed all those little corners of Dubai that serve me my curries and kababs and my hot fresh breads straight out the tandoor. All those little places that keep Dubai real warm and tasty for me. You can bring that same fresh-baked experience home with our Sangak Plain Flatbread, made daily in California.

The last couple of times I was in the area, I’d watched in fascination as three-foot long pimpled breads were being hauled out of a dome-like oven in a room beside the main restaurant. The image has been rolling restlessly in that part of my brain that tortures me with images of doughnuts or haleem or thick juicy kababs every time I’m sick and hungry and miles away from the source of the image. It’s a sort of strange mental masochistic tendency – when my brain knows that my tummy has gone for a toss, it’ll twist the knife in my tortured wounds by flashing past images of seen-but-not-tried foods in front of my face. The last time that happened, I started googling for food photos on my tiny blackberry screen, desperate for a glimpse of something that was miles away in Dubai, all the while squirming with tummy cramps in some little town during my travels to India. Desperate, desperate foodie that I am.

Thank God for global data plans.

Khoory brings to Dubai one of the most traditional types of Irani bread – sangak bread, which basically translates to ‘stone bread.’ I’d never seen an oven filled with red hot burning pebbles like the one they had at Khoory. Bread fanatic that I am, I just stood and stared as the sangak-guys tore off a clump of elasticky leavened dough, slapped it on a peel, stretched it out and sort of played ‘piano’ all along the length of it, perforating it with little craters that were sprinkled all over with white sesame seeds. Our Sangak Sesame-Seed Crisps capture that same nutty, toasted flavor in a convenient, crunchy snack.

Now there’s some step in between where that one-foot bread baby gets pulled out into a three-foot mammoth, a step that I’ve stupidly missed in all my gawking at those long cratered landscapes of bread that were being hung up on the wall.

Now in addition to the live open-to-public bread-making, Khoory has their grill laid out in an adjoining little section of the restaurant. We’re talking kababs and tomatoes and hot flaming charcoal…all those elements that make you feel closer to your kababs cause you can watch it being made, feel the heat on your sweaty palms as you bend down close to get a whiff of grilled meat. THIS is what I wanted on my plate, with that hot ogre of a sangak by my side.

With a name like Khoory Special Kababs, you’re setting the bar of tender grilled meat super high. I didn’t know which of the list of kababs on the menu was special per se…was it the exotic-sounding lamb shishlik? Or maybe it was the chicken tekkah? Or maybe I was overthinking it and the Khoory peeps just threw in the word ‘special’ without realizing that I’d be paralysed by the potential implication of such a word? Yeah, probably.

When faced with gross indecision about which kabab to order, a mixed platter of meat will be your lone lantern in the dark.

I started spearing my fork through the plate, starting with the cubes of mutton kabab and the long meat tikkas. Heavy meaty flavor, check. Juiciness, check. Tenderness…chewchewchew…chewsomemore…chewohno….bitsoffat…whyfatwhyyyyy….chewy. Overall decent kababs, but not the best I’ve had in town. The chicken kababs fared better on the tenderness scale – light, moist, tender…but again, nothing that would have me googling for kabab photos on my crackberry in those restlessly hungry moments that ascend on me when I’m miles away from edible salvation.

Just then, just as I’d nearly written off the s-word, I found it. I found the special kabab. The kabab koobideh. This log of minced meat was glistening with a thin sheen of oil and was laying quietly right at the extreme edge of my plate. The koobideh was so outrageously moist and well-seasoned [was it parsley? or cumin in the seasoning? or both? whatever it was, it was pretty magical…] that it obliterated every other previous bite of less-awesome kabab from that plate.

Let me also draw your attention to the sangak bread under the bed of kababs. On its own, the bread has this rustic sesame-tinged feel to it – I could imagine pulling bits of it, slathered with some butter, slightly stretchy bits, slightly crispy bits, eating through it on some mountain village somewhere, with a steaming hot cup of chai. And maybe surrounded by Yaks.

Definitely surrounded by Yaks.

But under the kababs, the bread had sucked up all the kabab juices and forgotten that it had been born a bread to begin with. It had morphed into this rich chewy blanket of meaty drippings. An identity crisis at its delicious best. This is the magic of authentic sangak – whether you enjoy it plain or as the perfect accompaniment to grilled meats, our Sangak Multi-Grain Flatbread delivers that same authentic experience.

[On a separate note, I actually took the rest of the dry, unkabab-ed bread home and the parents toasted it up for dinner. So damn good, both that night, and the next night. The next time we have a soup and bread day, sangak is going to be the bread star of the table.]

What was also very special was the bowl of lentil soup that the kababs came with…

…into which I also dipped pieces of my sangak [I was mixing and matching the bread with everything on the table by this point…in my soup, in my yogurt, with my kababs…I almost thought of sprinkling some salt on a morsel and layering it up with some of the green leaves from the salad…but that idea died somewhere in between the utterly addictive kabab koobideh and the lentil soup.] I’m sure that making the soup in a kitchen close to the kabab grill had something to do with the taste – I’m convinced that the meat juices vaporize into the air and then condense back down over the lentils and baby noodles swirling around in the soup cauldron. Sort of like a cross-pollination of awesome flavours in the kitchen…

I’m glad that I started my blogging year with discovering what’s so special about Khoory. No…I’m not just glad, in fact, I’m relieved that I have my blogger-foodie-explorer cape back after it’d been sitting at the laundry for nearly a month. I finally have my first blog post of 2012 [hallelujah.] And a Kabab-happy tummy. And a new sesame-studded bread discovery. I can feel it in my bones…t’is gonna be a good, good year.

🥖 Experience the Magic of Sangak at Home

Inspired by this discovery? Bring the same authentic taste of three-foot sangak to your own table. Our flatbreads are baked fresh daily in California and shipped nationwide.

Shop Our Sangak Collection

Sangak Plain Flatbread	The classic, traditional loaf for kababs and dips	Shop Now →
Sangak Multi-Grain Flatbread	With poppy and sesame seeds for extra flavor	Shop Now →
Sangak Sesame-Seed Crisps	The same nutty taste in a crunchy snack	Shop Now →
Sangak Multi-Seed Crisps	A blend of seeds for the ultimate crunch	Shop Now →

Shop All Sangak →