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Homemade Flour Tortillas

We make our own flour tortillas to save money. They are great for taco’s, fajitas and sandwich wraps (or just to eat by themselves which we do a lot!) I use my stand mixer for this, but you can do it all by hand as well. Directions are written as if using a stand mixer.
Course Main Dish
Cuisine American
Keyword easy lunch recipes
Prep Time 1 hour 10 minutes
Cook Time 20 minutes
Total Time 1 hour 30 minutes
Servings 12 Tortillas
Calories 152kcal

Ingredients

  • 2 ¾ cups all-purpose flour + a bit more for rolling
  • 1 teaspoons salt
  • 5 Tablespoons vegetable shortening I’ve heard you can use lard too, but we use the shortening
  • ¾ cups warm water pulled right from the tap
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder

Instructions

  • Sift together flour, baking powder and salt into your stand mixer bowl.
  • Place 5 Tbs. of the shortening into the flour mixture and using your whisk attachment, or paddle attachment works too - allow it to gently mix until it looks a little like coarse bread crumbs. You don’t want to see any of the shortening visible.
  • Keep your mixer going on low and gently pour in the water.
  • Stop as soon as the dough is moist. I often hand knead for just a moment or two after that.
  • Now, break the dough up into 12 separate balls.
  • Place them not-touching on a plate and cover them with saran wrap. Allow them to sit and rest for about an hour.
  • Sprinkle a light amount of flour on your work surface and using a rolling pin, roll each of the dough balls into a circle.
  • If you want your tortillas to be perfectly round, use a small salad or dessert plate – place it on top of the flattened dough and cut away the access. You can save the access to create one last flour tortilla at the end.
  • As you finish rolling out each flour tortilla, place it on a plate and cover it with plastic wrap. Each time you finish one, lift the plastic wrap and put that one on top of the previous one covering again with the plastic wrap.
  • Cook tortillas on a griddle (I had mine set to 400 degrees) or in a hot ungreased pan (on med/high – high) for about 45 seconds on each side. Keep careful watch – As soon as one side begins to get some dark brown spots, flip it – this can take 20 seconds all the way up to a minute. The photos below, show you the difference between one that isn’t quite ready to be flipped (much lighter brown spots) and the one following that one is perfect (dark brown spots).
  • Keep warm on a towel covered plate (not paper towel – KITCHEN towel) – cover them with another towel on top (or just use one really huge towel and fold up the sides. The key is to keep them covered so they stay soft and warm and don’t dry out.

Nutrition

Calories: 152kcal | Carbohydrates: 22g | Protein: 3g | Fat: 6g | Saturated Fat: 1g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 2g | Monounsaturated Fat: 2g | Trans Fat: 1g | Sodium: 266mg | Potassium: 31mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 0.1g | Vitamin A: 1IU | Calcium: 44mg | Iron: 1mg