Description
This Homemade Flour Tortilla recipe yields soft, flexible, and flavorful tortillas perfect for wrapping your favorite fillings or serving alongside meals. With simple pantry ingredients and easy steps, you can create authentic tortillas at home, cooked on a hot non-stick pan until lightly blistered and golden.
Ingredients
Scale
Dough Ingredients
- 3 cups all-purpose flour (plus extra for rolling)
- 1 1/2 tsp fine sea salt
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 5 Tbsp unsalted butter (softened)
- 1 cup hot water (or as needed to form dough)
Instructions
- Mix Dry Ingredients: In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the all-purpose flour, fine sea salt, and baking powder until evenly combined.
- Incorporate Butter: Add the softened unsalted butter to the flour mixture. Use your hands to work the butter into the flour until it forms a sandy, fine crumb texture.
- Add Hot Water and Knead Dough: Slowly drizzle the hot water into the flour-butter mixture while mixing with your hands, careful as the water is hot. Continue to add water incrementally until a sticky dough ball forms that easily pulls away from the bowl edges. Transfer the dough to a clean countertop and knead for 5 minutes until the dough becomes soft, elastic, and smooth, becoming less sticky as you knead.
- Portion and Rest the Dough: Lightly oil a baking sheet and a sheet of plastic wrap. Pinch off golf-ball-sized portions of dough and roll each into smooth balls. Place the dough balls on the oiled baking sheet, cover with the oiled plastic wrap, and let rest at room temperature for 20-30 minutes to relax the gluten.
- Preheat Pan: Heat a large 12-inch non-stick pan or a traditional comal over medium heat until very hot (about 500°F as measured by an infrared thermometer).
- Roll Out Tortillas: Lightly flour a clean work surface. Flatten a dough ball with your fingers, dust with more flour, then roll the dough evenly by rotating and rolling repeatedly. Continue rolling, flipping the dough occasionally to prevent curling, until you have a very thin, roughly 10-inch diameter circular tortilla. The dough should start to look slightly translucent when thin enough.
- Cook Tortillas: Place the rolled tortilla on the hot pan and cook for 20-30 seconds until bubbles form on top and golden brown blistering appears on the bottom. Flip and cook the other side for about 20 seconds. Repeat with remaining dough balls.
- Keep Warm and Store: Stack the warm tortillas and wrap them in a dry kitchen towel to keep soft. Once cooled, store in a zip-top plastic bag to prevent drying out.
Notes
- Use hot water to help soften the dough and make it easier to knead.
- Resting the dough allows the gluten to relax, making tortillas easier to roll out thinly and preventing shrinkage during cooking.
- If the tortillas puff up while cooking, gently press them down with a spatula to help them cook evenly.
- For best results, cook on a very hot, dry non-stick pan or comal to achieve characteristic blistered spots.
- Tortillas are best eaten fresh but can be frozen and reheated later wrapped in foil or briefly on a hot pan.
