Homemade Flour Tortillas are made with 4 ingredients: Flour, oil, water and salt. This tortilla recipe is without lard and way better than the store-bought ones.
If you love homemade bread recipes, you should see our bazlama bread, soft dinner rolls and simit bread recipe too!
Mom has been making these flour tortillas for years without knowing the name "tortilla". She uses the word flatbread instead and she’s the best cook good at making dough based foods I have ever known. I really feel lucky as I’ve learnt a lot of recipes from her including these Homemade Flour Tortillas.
You might think that it’s crazy to make tortillas at home while you can use store-bought ones, but believe me you will love your version more! I’m sure you will want to give it a try when you read how it’s easy to make these, you just need 30 minutes or less to make your own flour tortillas. What’s more, you don’t need many ingredients and complicated kitchen tools for these easy peasy tortillas!
These are quite similar to Turkish lavash she uses to make her special wrap sandwiches, which are very common in the South of Turkey. What she uses different in these flour tortillas is olive oil to make them more elastic and have a softer texture.
I searched for other recipes for homemade flour tortillas to see if mom’s recipe is the same with them and saw that many of those recipes call for lard or shortening and baking powder. Mom’s recipe doesn’t have any of these, so I think we can call these healthy flour tortillas, can’t we?
About The Ingredients
You need just 4 basic ingredients to make healthy flour tortillas; flour, olive oil, water and salt. We use white flour, but you can definitely use whole wheat flour instead. This is a no-yeast bread, just like our no rise bread rolls, so you don’t have to wait for the dough to rise.
How To Make
You just combine the ingredients, make small balls from it and roll them out.
Besides it’s easier to handle this dough when compared to a dough with yeast. I mean the rolling process is a lot easier than a dough with yeast as this one is not as loose.
You can prepare the dough in a stand mixer too, but mom always prefers to make it with her hands, and so do I. You don’t need to knead it a lot, just until it holds well. It should be a soft and non-sticky dough, so you can add a little extra flour or water if you think it’s necessary.
Make small balls and let them rest 5-6 minutes before starting to roll. You can sprinkle a little flour on each to prevent them from drying.
Roll them out one by one on the floured counter and sprinkle little flour when rolling if it gets sticky. I recommend you to cook rolled out tortillas in a non-stick pan right after you finish rolling out each. Otherwise they might dry very quickly. I mean don’t pile up the rolled out tortillas, just cook one when you roll it out and then grab the second, roll it out and cook. Repeat this until you finish the balls or ask for help from someone in your family so that he can cook in the pan when you are rolling out. We do it that way.
Expert Tips
If you are alone and have to make it yourself and if you still want to roll them all and then cook, then you should cover the rolled out tortillas well with a kitchen towel to prevent them from drying.
Another tip about these homemade flour tortillas is about the time when you take them from the pan. Prepare a big kitchen towel and cover them with it right after they are done and still hot. Let them rest under the towel so that they remain soft and flexible. If you don’t cover them, they get a bit crunchy and it gets difficult to stuff and roll them up.
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Basic Homemade Flour Tortillas
Healthy flour tortillas with olive oil
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 15 minutes
- Total Time: 35 minutes
- Yield: 11 1x
- Category: Bread
- Method: Cooking
- Cuisine: Turkish
Ingredients
- 3 cups white flour
- ¼ cup olive oil
- ¾ cup cold water, at room temperature
- 1 tsp salt
- ¼ cup extra flour, to use when rolling out
Instructions
- Combine all ingredients well except the extra flour.
- Make small balls from the dough.
- Sprinkle a little flour on each.
- Roll them out one by one on the floured counter. Sprinkle a little flour when it gets sticky.
- Cook in a non-stick pan every time you finish one.
- Cook one tortilla at a time for about 30 seconds each side.
- Cover them with a large kitchen towl well right after you take it from the pan.
- Pile them in the same place and let them cool under the kitchen towl.
- Serve warm or cold.
Nutrition
- Serving Size:
- Calories: 178
- Sugar: 0.1 g
- Sodium: 212.8 mg
- Fat: 5.5 g
- Carbohydrates: 28.2 g
- Protein: 3.8 g
- Cholesterol: 0 mg
Keywords: flour tortillas, tortillas without lard, tortilla bread no lard
Lina says
I have some health issues and knowing how to do this kind of tortillas is amazing.
THANK YOU. May Jesus Bless you.
Janey says
Sorry the cold water just didn't work. The dough was sticky and tortillas turned out brittle. You need warm water. Will nit make again
Yusuf says
Sorry to hear that it didn't work for you. We always make tortilla this way.
Nonie says
I'm sorry to say but I think you did then wrong. I was surprised about the cold water too but mine actually turned out great and surprisingly softer than ever.
Marissa says
These were great! I realized after 1 or 2 that I had to roll them extra thin which helped them puff up so I knew they were cooked. So easy & yummy as soft tortillas for tacos.
★★★★★
Andrea says
These sadly were very disappointing. Measured everything precisely and dough was stringy. Once cooked the tortillas were brittle and hard to roll, breaking apart almost immediately.
★
Yusuf says
Hi Andrea, sorry to hear that you didn't get the desired result. Overcooking these cause them to break apart. Could this be the reason?
Wendy Truter says
Thank you so much for this lovely recipe. Cant wait to try it!
Linda says
When I read the first sentence I thought this must be a great recipe given your mom makes these all of the time... a true tried and tested recipe! So I made these tortilla wraps earlier this week and they were amazing! I'm so happy to have found this recipe because I'll never buy store-bought wraps again. Thank you!
Rosalie says
I lived in Mexico for many years and if you use boiling water it will turn out much more tender than with cold water. Just my experience.
Zerrin says
Hi Rosalie, thank you so much for the tip!
Rosa Paslar says
Love the recipe. Many other tortilla recipes add baking powder to theirs, but that doesn't work for me because they don't sell it in the little eastern European country I live in.
★★★★★
Zerrin says
Hi Rosa! Glad you liked the recipe! There is really no need for baking powder to make tortillas.
Liz says
Didn’t work for me at all. The dough was pretty hard to work with and falling apart. I added some extra water like mentioned in the narrative. It helped, but it still wasn’t doughy enough. I rolled out a ball of dough as much as possible (The dough was kind of elastic so it didn’t roll out as much as pictured.) Once cooked, they don’t fold. They just crack. Not sure if there was a specific way to combine ingredients?
★★
Carrie Van Hoose says
What temperature do you cook them?
★★★★
Zerrin says
I cook them over medium high heat but this might change depending on your stove.
Matthew says
Is there a recommended way to store these before I cook it? Like if I want to make it a day ahead? And how long do they last?
Zerrin says
Hi Matthew, I have never tried making them ahead of time and then cook because they can easily get dry as they wait.
Jessica says
I’ve made homemade tortillas three times now and this was by far the easiest and most successful batch! Thanks for sharing the recipe!! 🌮😍
Zerrin says
Hi Jessica! I'm glad you loved these tortillas as much as we do. Thank you for sharing your feedback!
Tasha says
Made these for my family and they fell in LOVE! I grape seed oil instead. Yummy. Awesome recipe. I really loved how simple and light they are. You control the calories based on ingredients. Roll out a large portion for a family burrito to share with at least six! Have fun with it. Thanks for the recipe. Blessings!
Lexie says
Can u use vegetable oil instead?
Zerrin says
Hi Lexie, yes you can.
Christina says
Hello
Do you know how many calories each tortilla is?
Priscila says
Hi! I've tryed this recipe tonight and it was horrible. Is was impossible to shape the dough into tortillas, I had to use all of my body weight trying to get them to be thin but the dough was so elastic they turned out thick. And I could only make 4 tortillas with this recipe. It was too much work for nothing.
Zerrin says
Hi Priscila! I'm sorry you had a disappointing result. The type of flour might have caused this. I use regular all-purpose white flour for this. Depending on the type, you might need to add extra water. You can understand the right amount of water by adding it gradually.