Pizza Burek Recipe: Italian & Balkan Fusion

Burek – a filled filo pie found throughout the Balkan region of Europe – has many iterations. While in Bosnia, the term is only referred to those pastries filled with meat, in other Balkan countries, Burek can be filled with anything. Commonly, you will find minced beef, spinach and cheese, potato, pumpkin or – occasionally – pizza flavour!

It wasn’t until we stopped at a bakery in rural Slovenia that I encountered this particular variety, however, I quickly learned that it’s a popular iteration. Basically, it’s the flavours of a pizza wrapped into the crispy filo pastry and, as you might expect, it’s absolutely delicious.

This isn’t a variety of burek that’s easily found outside of the Balkans, so if you want it – you’re going to have to make it at home! My recipe is simple to follow and uses frozen, store-bought filo pastry to make it that much easier.

How to Make Homemade Pizza Burek

The first step is to make the pizza sauce, which is super tasty and flavourful. It’s also super simple to make with a can of tomatoes and some herbs and spices.

To begin, add some olive oil, chili flakes and fennel seeds to a skillet. Set it over medium heat.

Once shimmering, add some garlic and tomato paste. Cook this until the tomato paste darkens and starts to stick to the bottom of the pan – about 2-3 minutes.

Then, add in some pureed canned tomatoes, a bit of dried oregano and a few sprigs of fresh basil. Bring the sauce to a simmer and allow to bubble away, stirring occasionally, until the sauce is thick and it has reduced significantly – this will take about 20 minutes.

After this, take the sauce off the heat and remove the basil. Let the sauce cool a little bit while you get your pastry together.

Set a dish of olive oil and a pastry brush on your clean work surface and lay one sheet of filo pastry down.

Brush it lightly with the oil and then lay another sheet of pasty next to it, so that the short ends are overlapping by about 5 centimetres (2 inches).

Brush this with oil, too, and repeat with another sheet of filo, so that you have a single sheet that’s about a metre long.

Repeat this process until you’ve added another even layer of filo and covered any gaps – you’ll use roughly 5 sheets.

Now, positioning the filo strip lengthwise across your work surface, spread the sauce evenly over the top quarter of the pastry. Then, sprinkle that with some grated low-moisture mozzarella cheese.

Make sure you’re using low-moisture mozzarella and not fresh mozzarella – the latter will add way too much moisture and result in giving you a soggy burek.

And to make this taste a bit more “Balkan,” I also like to include a bit of crumbled feta. Sprinkle this evenly over the mozzarella.

Now, all you need to do is very carefully roll the pastry over the fillings. Work as slowly as you need to not tear the pastry. In the end, you should have something that resembles a very long cigar.

With the seam side facing inward (to prevent leaks when baking!), gently twist the filled pastry into a spiral. Tuck the outer end underneath the formed burek to prevent it from breaking free when baking and then place it on a parchment-lined baking sheet.

Brush the burek with a bit more olive oil and then bake it in a 190°C/375°F oven for about 40 minutes – you want the pastry to be deeply golden brown and crisp and for the filling to be hot and bubbling.

Now comes the hardest part – waiting for the burek to cool before eating! Unless you want to burn your mouth with hot sauce and cheese, it’s best to wait at least 10 minutes before digging into your burek.

You can use this time to find more fun Balkan recipes to make – perhaps my Croatian blitva to serve alongside some fish?

And that’s all there is to making a pizza-flavoured burek. Though it’s certainly not the most “traditional” variety, there’s no doubt that it’s absolutely delicious and fun to make!

Do you want to make pizza burek? Have any questions about this recipe? Let me know in the comments!