Delicious Homemade Tortilla Recipe (Only 5 Simple Ingredients)

Say hello to the simplest, best tasting, fresh homemade tortillas you’ve ever tasted! Great for tacos, breakfast tacos, burritos, quesadillas, enchiladas, and so much more! Soft, buttery, melt in your mouth, authentic goodness. Need I say more?

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If you don’t know me, I’ll let you in on a piece of important information about me: once I know something, I can never un-know it. For example, once I learned about all of the crazy ingredients lurking in your pantry and packaged foods, it was as if those little microscopic toxins were mocking me and laughing at me with every bite I took from that point forward. I couldn’t wait–I had to get the junk out of my house immediately.

In the last several years, I have made many sacrifices for the sake of only having simple, whole food ingredients in our pantry. I have scrounged every last corner of our pantry and eliminated all of the GMOs, MSGs, artificial flavors, natural flavors, artificial sweeteners, preservatives, food dyes, etc. No crumb remained if it was going to be harmful to my family’s health.

However, there’s always that one teensy weensy little thing that you pretend isn’t there because the thought of not having it in your house seems unfathomable. There’s one thing that you know is terrible for you and causing you harm, but you just can’t seem to let go. You avoid reading the label or researching it further, because deep down in your gut you just know you won’t like what you find. (Kind of like a microwave, but we will save that rant for another day.)

Are you picking up what I’m putting down here? Let me spell it out for you. T-O-R-T-I-L-L-A-S. That’s right, tortillas were the soul survivor of the infamous Pantry Purge of 2018. We have held onto store bought tortillas for 4 years. Why? Well, because we eat as many tortillas in our home as Mexico combined on any given day. That may be a bit of an exaggeration, but you get my point. We eat them a lot and the thought of having to mix dough, roll it out, and cook them sounded way too daunting of a task to be tackling 2-3 times per week.

Of course, I always opted for the best brands of tortillas I could find (organic, minimal ingredients, etc.) but, there were still so many additives and extra ingredients that were completely unnecessary for a simple tortilla. On top of that, we couldn’t afford to buy the best brand of tortillas when we were eating them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner several times per week. These Siete cassava flour tortillas are a really good option, but who can justify that price tag if you’re going to be eating tortillas as often as we do? Certainly, not us. Side note: even the tortillas from the bakery section of the grocery stores, sadly, contain just as many added ingredients and preservatives.

The only logical thing to do at this point was to make a decision: give up tortillas all together (along with breakfast tacos, regular tacos, chicken tacos, shrimp tacos, burritos, quesadillas, cheese roll ups, etc.) OR buck up and start making them myself.

I’m sure by now you’ve caught on to which option I chose, or else I suppose I wouldn’t be writing a blog post titled, “The Best + Simplest Homemade Tortilla Recipe.” It was a learning curve at first, but I would never go back to packaged tortillas now. In fact, these homemade tortillas are so perfect, I’m scared to tweak them or do anything differently! I do have plans to eventually incorporate some sourdough starter in it to boost the health benefits.

Before I dive into the details of these fluffy delicious little flat flour cakes, I’m going to answer some questions I’ve had about homemade tortillas.

1. How long does it take? 30-45 minutes start to finish, with at least 20 minutes of that being hands off time. Increase the time if you have small children around for obvious reasons. The longest part of the whole process is actually cooking them, if you’re doing it one at a time. Yes, this takes longer than it takes to walk to the pantry and grab a bag of tortillas that were made by a machine who knows how long ago and packaged with preservatives to keep them fresher longer, but the end result is worth it a hundred times over.
2. What kind of flour do you use? I use an all purpose flour for these. My hands down favorite brand of flour to use is King Arthur Organic All Purpose Flour. I also have used Thrive Market’s brand of organic flour and it’s great, too! If you haven’t heard of Thrive Market, it’s my favorite way to have high quality foods and products shipped straight to my door once a month. We save quite a bit of money buying through Thrive Market. If you want to try it out, you can get 40% off your first order using my link.
3. How do you store them? The texture of the tortillas is always, always the best when they’re eaten fresh. However, we will make them in batches to use for a couple of days at a time. If they’re going to be used in the next day or two, put them in an airtight container or bag and store in the refrigerator. If you want to store them long term, store them in an airtight container or bag in the freezer. To keep them from sticking together, put some parchment paper or freezer paper between each tortilla. Thaw in fridge or on counter and reheat in a pan on low heat.
4. What do you use to cook them on? I prefer using a cast iron skillet or griddle. Any flat surface or griddle type apparatus will work fine. If you have a Blackstone griddle, you can cook so many tortillas at one time, which significantly speeds up the process! If you don’t have a Blackstone griddle, here’s your sign to get one ASAP.
5. What about a tortilla press? Honestly, I think it would be great to have one and I think my husband tells me he’s going to make one for me every time he sees me rolling out tortillas. But, I don’t have one right now and I definitely don’t see it as a necessity. I actually am usually on the team that prefers fewer kitchen gadgets, anyways. I’ve put this tortilla press in my cart several times, but just can’t hit “submit” on the order for some reason or another. Using just a rolling pin has worked out just fine so far, and I find it somewhat therapeutic.

Let me know in the comments your favorite things to do with tortillas! I also want to know if there’s anything in your pantry that you know is bad for you but just can’t let go of. If you’d rather reach out to me directly to chat, send me a message!