Learn how to make soft homemade flour tortillas using only 4-ingredients with this quick and easy step-by-step! This simple Mexican flatbread without yeast is so versatile and perfect to use for quesadillas, tacos, wraps, burritos, and more!
Homemade Tortillas Recipe
There are many foods that I eat almost every day and simple Mexican flatbread without yeast is one of them! I totally love that these homemade tortillas are so quick and easy to make and require only a few ingredients which I always have in my pantry. If you’ve never made your own tortillas, you should definitely give this recipe a try! They’re soft, tender, chewy, and way better than store-bought ones!
How to use Tortillas
Tortillas are very versatile and can be served in so many different ways. You can fry or bake them to make crispy Burrito Samosas or stuffed Quesadillas. Another great idea is to use them instead of pasta sheets to make a casserole like my Enchilada Lasagna. You can also fold them into Breakfast Burritos or wrap them into Spinach Wraps to take to work, school or university. Anyway, I also love to serve them as “Naan” as a side to a Creamy Vegan Curry, Lentil Dal, or Crispy Chickpea Salad with healthy vegetables!
Easy Tortillas from scratch
As mentioned before making flour Tortillas at home is really super easy! You only need 4 simple basic ingredients, all of which are very readily available. It’s just flour, baking powder, oil, and a pinch of salt.
How to make Homemade Tortillas
Start to whisk together the flour, baking powder, and a pinch of salt in a bowl. Next, add the oil and water and mix everything together with a chopstick or fork.
When the ingredients are combined and clump together, transfer the dough to a working surface and knead with your hands until the dough is smooth, about 2-3 minutes. Then shape the dough into a ball, cover with a kitchen towel and allow to rest for 15 minutes.
Make-ahead Tip
You could also form two balls – one to use immediately and the other to cook the next day. Simply wrap in foil tightly and store in the fridge until ready to use the next day.
After the chill time, divide the dough into 8 equal portions, depending on the size of Tortilla you want or how much dough you prepared. I recommend making smaller balls for tacos and larger balls for burritos. Now dust the pieces with a little flour, form into a ball and flatten with the palm of your hand. Work with one piece at a time and cover the rest so the dough won’t dry out. Roll out the first piece of dough with a rolling pin. Then roll out the next piece and repeat with the remaining pieces of dough.
How to cook Tortillas
What I also love about this Homemade Tortillas Recipe is that not only the preparation is pretty easy but also the cooking time is super short. About 30-45 seconds or until brown spots appear is all you’ll need! If you want to roll out all of the tortillas first and then fry one by one, please make sure to place a piece of parchment paper between the uncooked flatten flatbreads before stacking them or they will stick to each other. Alternatively, you can also fry one Tortilla while rolling out the next one. Just be sure the skillet is well preheated before frying them.
How to keep Tortillas soft
As soon as they are done cooking wrap the tortillas in damp paper towels so they won’t dry out. Alternatively, you can also stack them in an airtight container or ziplock bag to keep them soft but please be sure to not skip that step if you want soft tortillas.
How to store Homemade Tortillas
You can use these easy soft flour Tortillas immediately or wrap them in foil and store in an airtight container in the fridge. Furthermore, they freeze very well, so you can prepare more flatbreads ahead to use for future Mexican meals. Just make sure to lay a piece of parchment paper between each tortilla before placing the stack into the freezer bag so they won’t stick to each other. Anyway, I don’t know about you but I totally love when I can have homemade foods like Dumplings, Ravioli or Tortillas in no time!
How to reheat Tortillas
It’s totally normal that these flatbreads will not be as soft as on the day of cooking when they’re chilled. But you can easily microwave them for a few seconds to soften or reheat in the oven. To reheat the Tortillas in the oven, heat the oven to 350°F. Then, just wrap the Tortillas in aluminum foil and heat for 5 to 7 minutes or until the flour Tortillas are as warm as you’d like.
Vegan Mexican Recipes
As mentioned earlier in my blog post, there are already many recipes here on the blog for which you can use Homemade Tortillas. If you’re looking for some tasty Mexican vegan recipes here are some of my favorites
- Sweet Potato Quesadillas
- Burrito Samosas
- Mexican Tortilla Casserole
- Spinach Cashew Cheese Wraps
- Mexican Pasta Salad
- Mexican Sweet Potato Skins
If you like this Homemade Tortillas Recipe, you may also like my Scallion Pancakes, Aloo Paratha, or my Spinach Tortillas. Anyway, if you try anything, please leave me a comment below sharing how you liked it! And if you take a picture of your Mexican dish and share it on Instagram, please make sure to tag me @biancazapatka and use the hashtag #biancazapatka, so I won’t miss your post! Happy cooking! 😊
Homemade Tortillas Recipe
Author:Ingredients
- 3 cups all-purpose flour 375 g
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
- ¼ cup vegetable oil 60 ml
- ⅔ cup warm water 160 ml
Instructions
*Note: Be sure to watch the recipe video and check out the step-by-step photos in the blog post above!
- Add the flour, baking powder, and salt to a large bowl and whisk to combine.
- Then add the oil and water and mix to combine with chopsticks or a fork. Transfer to a working surface and knead with your hands until a smooth dough forms, about 2-3 minutes.
- Form the dough is into a ball, cover with a towel (or wrap in foil) and allow to rest for 15 minutes.
- Divide the dough into 8 equal portions, depending on your desired Tortilla size.
- Dust each piece with a little flour, form into a ball and flatten with the palm of your hand. Work with one piece at a time and cover remaining flattened balls of dough with a kitchen towel.
- Roll each dough piece into a thin circle, about 1/16-inch thick, keep the work surface and rolling pin lightly floured. (If you want to stack up uncooked tortillas, make sure to place a piece of parchment paper between each other or they will stick together).
- Heat a large non-stick skillet over medium heat and lightly grease with oil. Cook the Tortilla for about 30-45 seconds or until brown spots appear. (If browning too fast, reduce the heat a bit. If it’s taking longer than a minute, increase the heat a bit). Then flip and cook the other side too.
- Remove from the pan and wrap the tortillas in a clean damp kitchen towel (or paper towels) or stack them in an airtight container or ziplock bag to keep them soft. (It's just an optional step but if you want soft tortillas, please be sure to not skip that).
- Serve warm or allow to cool for later use! 😊
Notes
- The amount of water may vary slightly depending on the type of flour you use.
- Please read my blog post for additional information about how to store and reheat these Tortillas and how you can use them. I’ve also linked some of my favorite Mexican recipes!
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Taste delicious and come out well consistently, personally separated the dough into 12ths instead of 8ths as they were to thick for tacos.
I’m glad you liked it! 😊 Thank you so much for your feedback! ♡
Exactly the comment I was looking for. All these recipes tell you the desired thickness of the final product, but they make no mention of the diameter.
It should be illegal to write recipes that require a dough to be created, and then divided, without giving weight measurements either for the ingredients, or the final portions.
You wouldn’t call a pizza place and order “8 pizzas” without describing the SIZE of pizza you want, so why would you do that in a dough recipe?
The only reference I have to the size of tortillas produced by this recipe is that 12 portions are better for making “tacos” because 8 portions are too large.
So, here.
My final product weighed 440g
A 39g ball produced a tortilla with a diameter of 4.8″ at a thickness of roughly 1/12″
A 33g ball produced a tortilla with a diameter of 4″, and a thickness of roughly 1/12″, resembling that of your standard “street taco.”
So if you were going for that size of tortilla, as I was, then dividing the dough into 12-13 portions, or 33g each, is the way to go.
Hello,
Can I substitute the vegetable oil for avocado oil?
Thank you
Sure! 🙂
Can u use gluten free all purpose flour?
Yes, but you may need a little more water. For easier rolling, it may help when you roll it out between parchment paper or cling foil.
Hi Bianca
Thank you for a very versatile recipe for Tortillas. I’m teaching a cooking class for children where half the students want to do Quesadillas and half want to do Pizzas. I have tested the recipe and can say that it fits for purpose to use for both Quesadillas and Thin Pizzas Bases (I prefer thin pizzas).
Soft in the middle and crunchy on sides for the pizzas and soft Tortilla for Quesadillas.
If people stick to the recipe, add little extra warm water in the end if required to incorporate the mixture (so dough is not too dry) they shouldn’t have any issues! People trust the process, follow the recipe. It’s all about trial and error. Practice makes perfect? X
Thank you so much for this feedback. It’s cool that you tried this recipe with your students. And I am glad it turned out well for you. 🙂
Hello,
Would this work for Whole wheat flour? And topped with seeds for extra fiber?
Hi Zahraa! You can do it with whole wheat flour but please be aware of the fact that you will need more water. 🙂
i followed your recipe to the exact measurements, except a little extra water (maybe even just a teaspoon), combined the flour, baking powder, salt, oil, then added the water last, and used peanut oil instead of vegetable oil
rolled by hand, used very little oil in a skillet to fry them
it was delicious and my family loved them also, wanted to know when i’d make more
thanks for the simple but delicious recipe
i’d also like to add i kneaded it slightly more than 3 minutes maybe
and that to the other people who said it was too dry or to wet, dry measuring cups and liquid measuring cups are not the same exactly, i had used a dry cup for the flour, and a glass measuring cup for the water and oil
hope that helps
I am glad that these tortillas turned out so well for you. Thanks a lot for your Feedback, Anon! 🙂
Don’t know what I did wrong, but the dough was way too dry and quite firm. I ended up adding an extra 1/4 of liquid and it still didn’t turn out as supple as in the photos. I double checked my measurements, gave it time to rest, but it’s still not looking great. I regularly make homemade sourdough, croissants, pastries, pizza dough, dumpling dough, bagels, and other flatbread so I feel like this recipe should be doable… Maybe flour in Australia is more dry?
Hi Josie!
Can you please tell me what kind of flour you used? Right now I can’t figure out what went wrong. Since all quantities are with cups, there’s really not much that can go wrong. Did you really use warm water or was it perhaps too hot?