Easy and Delicious Sourdough Tortillas
If you’re a fan of soft tacos and sourdough, you will love this recipe for sourdough tortillas. It’s the best of both worlds! Homemade tortillas are always a treat, but making them with sourdough gives them superior flavor, and digestibility.
We love to use these tortillas to make my mom’s cheeseburger enchiladas, and our slow cooker chicken tacos. My kids also like to use them to make mock buñuelos.
What Makes This Recipe So Great
This is honestly the best flour tortilla recipe you will find. These flour tortillas are very easy to make using either sourdough discard, or active starter.
I usually like to feed my starter a few hours before making the tortillas to speed up the fermentation process in the tortilla dough itself. But if you’re pressed for time, it’s totally fine to grab your starter straight from the fridge.
If you discard starter when you feed yours, this is a great sourdough discard recipe. And keep in mind, you don’t have to use your discard right away – you can collect it in a jar and keep it in the refrigerator for a few days.
While many sourdough recipes require hours of bulk fermentation, and a number of stretch and folds, This one does not. In fact, you don’t want to develop the gluten through stretching and folding the way you do with sourdough bread, because that will make them harder to press or roll out.
You can let the dough rest at room temperature for a few hours, or more than 24 hours in the fridge. So it’s easy to make the dough when you have time, and later have fresh tortillas with very little hassle.
Ingredients for sourdough tortillas
These tortillas are superior to store-bought tortillas, and one of the reasons is the simplicity of the ingredients. You only need just a few:
- Sourdough starter/discard
- Salt
- Lard
- Water
Ingredient Substitutions
There isn’t much to substitute here, but one ingredient you may not have handy is lard. In this case, you can easily substitute butter. I know that some people also use olive oil instead of lard. This one isn’t my favorite, but if you do use it, you may need to decrease the amount of water in the recipe a little bit
Another thing to consider is the type of flour you use. I personally like to use all purpose, white flour. You can also use whole wheat flour. For that, I would suggest a longer resting (or bulk fermenting) time to help break down the whole grains.
Equipment for making sourdough tortillas
Tortillas presses may be all the rage, but the truth is, they’re unnecessary, and in some cases, ineffective.
In my experience, a tortilla press is excellent for corn tortillas, which have no gluten, and smash easily without snapping back. That’s actually one of the nice things about making corn tortillas.
With a flour tortilla, it can actually be easier to get the adequately thin using a rolling pin.
So all that to say, the only equipment you need is:
- Counter top space
- A bowl
- A rolling pin
- A skillet
Instructions for making sourdough tortillas
Step one:
Combine flour and salt.
Step two:
Cut lard into flour mixture with a fork until it looks crumbly.
Step three:
Stir in water until you have a shaggy dough.
Step four:
Cover and let sit at room temperature for 2 1/2 hours, or cover with plastic wrap and store in the refrigerator for up to 24 hours.
Step five:
Separate dough into 8 equal pieces and roll into balls
Step six:
Lightly sprinkle all purpose flour on your counter top, or use a piece of parchment paper for easy clean up, and roll each dough ball to about the thickness of a nickel.
For me, tortillas are very rarely perfectly round, but hey, imperfections are what makes things beautiful.
Step seven:
Heat a cast iron skillet over medium-high heat, and cook each tortilla for about 30 seconds on each side, until it’s flecked with golden brown flecks. The tortillas may bubble up as they cook, but they’ll mostly deflate as they cool
Step eight:
Transfer cooked tortillas to a tea towel lined tortillas warmer, bowl, or plate to keep warm before serving.
P.S. you can make more or fewer dough balls depending on the size you want your tortillas to be. For example: Larger balls for wraps and burritos, smaller for street taco size.
These homemade tortillas are perfect for taco night and quesadillas.
How to store homemade sourdough tortillas
To store your tortillas for later, cool them completely after cooking them, then store in a ziplock or bread bag at room temperature for 1-2 days.
For longer storage, use a ziplock or other airtight container in the refrigerator for up to a week. I haven’t personally tried freezing homemade tortillas, so can’t speak to that.
Other sourdough recipes to try:
- How to feed sourdough starter
- How to dehydrate your starter
- Sourdough sandwich bread recipe
- Sourdough cinnamon rolls
Easy and Delicious Sourdough Tortillas
Delicious, soft flour tortillas made with sourdough – perfect for taco night!
Ingredients
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 Tablespoons lard
- 1/4–1/3 cup water
- 50 grams (about 3 Tablespoons) sourdough starter, fed, or discard
Instructions
- Combine flour and salt together
- Cut in lard with a fork or pastry blender until dough looks like rough crumbs
- Add 1/4 cup water and sourdough starter
- Stir until a shaggy dough forms. Depending on the thickness of your starter, you may need to add another tablespoon of water. Play it by ear. You want it to be too sticky to roll out, but thick enough to mostly hold its shape. It should look like this:
- Cover, and let ferment for 2 1/2-5 hours at room temperature (In other words, make it ahead of time, and finish when you’re ready), or overnight to 24 hours in the refrigerator
- Separate dough into eight equally sized balls
- On a lightly floured surface, roll each ball out to about the thickness of a nickel – or as close as you can get
- Heat a cast iron skillet over medium-high heat
- Cook each tortilla until it’s puffy and flecked with brown – about 30 seconds per side
- Transfer tortillas to a flour sack towel-lined dish and keep warm until ready to serve
- To store: cool tortillas completely, then seal in an airtight container at room temperature for 1-2 days, or in the refrigerator for a week. These are NOT like store bought tortillas that will keep in your pantry indefinitely!
- Enjoy!
Get Your Garden Cheat Sheets!
Want to know exactly when, where, and how to plant your vegetables? Sign up to get our FREE companion planting guide, and garden planting cheat sheet printable.
Elise, these look amazing! Can’t wait to try making them this weekend. Thanks for the easy-to-follow steps and tips!
Looks very beautiful, you can eat ice cream with other dishes
I love how your recipe combines simplicity with gourmet flavors. It’s a delightful fusion of taste and ease of preparation.
This looks like some kind of Indian cake. They eat them every day along with other foods