Low Calorie Healthy Flatbread + Dipping Sauce 

There is nothing better than a healthy, satisfying snack when dieting.

But the truth is, the low-calorie stuff you buy at the store often lacks flavor.

The key is to make your healthy diet snacks from home and add lots of spices!

In this article, I’m going to show you how to make an incredibly easy flatbread and the perfect flavorful dipping sauce.

The flavorful sauce we are making today is called Harissa.

It is a North African sauce from the Maghreb region of Tunisia.

It is literally only 120 calories for a huge batch and one tbs contains less than 20 calories.

It goes perfectly with a nice warm flatbread fresh out of the pan.

It’s quick and easy so let’s get started.

Low-Calorie Dipping Sauce : Harissa

1. We need to measure out 100g of dried whole Kashmiri peppers.

You can find these at an international food store, or online.

I personally picked these up at my local Indian grocer.

Oh also, I highly recommend getting yourself a food scale online on amazon, it’s a great tool for measuring your ingredients.

2. Next, throw those into a large bowl and pour boiling water over the chiles.

This is going to rehydrate them so we can mash the peppers into a paste.

We’ll let that sit for about 30min or until they are soft.

I will mention that although Kashmiri peppers are not very spicy, if you do not like a lot of heat – you should deseed the pods before mashing them into the paste.

This will reduce the heat down significantly.

Now on to our spices for this special sauce.

We are starting with whole cumin seeds.

This gives dishes of the Maghreb region their mild and earthy undertones.

Next we will need some whole coriander seeds.

These are going to add a floral, citrus, and warming component that complements perfectly with the cumin.

We’ll also need some caraway seeds.

These are going to complement our other earthy spices with a peppery background note.

3. First add ½ tsp of the coriander seeds to a blender.

4. Next add ½ tsp of the cumin seeds.

5. And finally, ½ tsp of the caraway seeds.

6. Put the top on the blender and buzz it up into a powder.

7. Transfer to a food processor and add in 1 tsp of salt.

8. 1 tbsp of olive oil and the juice of 1 lemon.

9. Squeeze one fresh and strain it through a strainer to prevent any seeds from getting into the mix.

10. We’ll also need to add in 4 cloves of raw garlic.

Now add in the heat.

11. Throw your rehydrated Kashmiri chile peppers into the food processor.

I really like this sauce spicy so I left all of the seeds in the chiles.

12. Put your top on and buzz it until it is nice and smooth.

Your final product should look something like this.

A nice smooth texture with a beautiful color pop.

The best part about this sauce is that alone it only really has calories that come from the olive oil.

And we only added in one tbs which has 120kcal.

That means this entire sauce recipe only contains about 137kcal if you include the lemon juice.

You arent adding extra calories from the spices and the chile peppers.

Low Calorie Healthy Flatbread

Okay so what use is a healthy sauce if we have nothing to dip it with?

Next, we are going to make our low-calorie flatbreads to scoop up that delicious harissa.

1. Pour in two cups of all purpose white flour to a big bowl and then add in one tsp of salt.

2. Next we’ll need a leavening agent – so add in two teaspoons of baking powder.

3. Mix all of the dry ingredients together.

4. Now add in 1 ⅓ cups of yogurt and mix around thoroughly.

It will form a nice clumpy texture that should not be too runny. 

You want some substance.

5. Sprinkle some flour onto a clean surface and begin to knead your dough.

6. You don’t need to spend a ton of time on this but give it a good 3-5 min knead.

Just keep folding and pressing.

7. You’ll then want to start forming a ball by scooping the under surface like this with your palms.

8. Next slice your dough into 8 even slices.

They have those fancy dough cutter things but I’m just using a knife, it works just fine.

9. Okay next you want to do your scoop and spin method again and form 8 balls of dough.

10. Cover those with a towel and leave them for an hour at room temp.

Don’t skip this step, it is really going to help make your flatbread nice and fluffy.

Give your dough that hour to rest.

11. Next we are ready to roll our dough into a flat circle.

Make sure when you roll your dough that you sprinkled your surface with flour to prevent it from sticking.

12. Once you roll out your dough just slap it onto a non stick pan that is heated at a medium temp and wait for those bubbles to appear. 

Once the bubbles start to puff it up, you know it’s ready to flip.

Let it go on the other side for a couple of minutes and then take it off and you are all set.

Flatbread + Harissa : The Ultimate Combination

Now the fun part.

Cut your flatbread into little triangles and serve with your epic harissa sauce.

I’m obsessed with that deep red color, it looks awesome.

Each flatbread contains only 136 calories, 24g carbs, 4.6g protein, and 1.6g of fat.

The harissa sauce is practically calorieless, so really you are looking at around 145 calories for a nice big flatbread and a dollop of harissa sauce.

These flatbreads make the perfect low-calorie snack and there is no better way to top a flatbread than with a flavorful dipping sauce.

Homemade healthy snacks are so much better than store-bought pre-made snacks.

You get a way bigger flavor hit and way bigger satisfaction.

I’m all about making your food taste awesome when you are dieting.

You’ll have a successful diet if you can continue to explore new recipes and tastes.

Make sure you first know what your calorie deficit needs are in order to lose weight.

Then, begin filling that calorie budget with awesome homemade healthy foods like we made today.

Next, you can check out these quick & healthy weekday meals under 500 calories here!