Sourdough Tortillas
Sourdough Tortillas.
I always get questions about my Sourdough Tortillas. I first published the recipe together with my Avocado Tacos recipe. However, I decided to write a separate post about it so I could explain a few things a little better.
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Ok, let’s get to it. First of all, your sourdough starter doesn’t have to be active to make these sourdough tortillas.
That means, you can use your discard. Recipes that use sourdough discard are beautiful to me, because I feed my starter so frequently, I always have a tone of it to discard.
If your sourdough starter is active, no problem using that either. Go for it! But you don’t have to go out of your way, feed your starter, and then wait for it to be active to start making these Sourdough Tortillas.
These sourdough tortillas have a much more beautiful texture compared to the regular flour ones, in my opinion. They are so soft, and taste amazing! By far, my favorite tortillas to make and eat.
Depending on your location (altitude and humidity level), what kind of flour you are using, or what kind of starter you have, you might need to adjust the flour quantity. If the dough is too sticky, add some more flour to it. In the instructions, I specify to add only 4 cups of flour to the initial dough, and add the remaining 1 cup as you knead, and as necessary. You don’t want to add way too much flour, this is supposed to be a very soft dough, not too stiff.
I keep my starter at 100% hydration, which means I always feed it with equal amounts of water, flour, and starter. So, if I am feeding my starter, I usually discard everything but 100 grams of it, then I feed it with 100 grams of water, and 100 grams of flour.
You want to take that into consideration when making these tortillas. In case you keep your starter at a lower hydration level, you might want to add some less flour to the dough.
Also, feel free to half the recipe if you don’t wanna make about 30 tortillas. And if you don’t want to half the recipe, you have many options on what to do with leftover tortillas.
Can I freeze sourdough tortilla dough?
You may freeze just the raw dough if you want to. I actually did that this time to experiment. After making my dough, I let it rise, then I portioned it in half, cooked one half and froze the rest for about 1 week.
Then, when I went to use my frozen dough, I let it thaw in the fridge overnight and the next day proceeded to portion it, roll it out, and cook it normally. They came out tasting fresh and delicious! I’d recommend freezing it for up to 1-2 months.
Can I freeze cooked tortillas?
You may freeze already cooked tortillas. I like to place my tortillas between sheets of parchment paper, then wrap them with some foil, place inside a zip loc freezer bag, and they will keep well in the freezer for about 2 months.
How to make tortilla chips with leftover tortillas?
If you have an excess of tortillas, you may slice your tortillas in triangles, then drizzle some olive oil over them and possibly other spices (salt, paprika, garlic powder, za’atar) and bake in the oven until golden brown, about 5 minutes. And you will have yourself tortilla chips! Most likely the best tortilla chips you’ve ever had in your life.
So, lots of options here on what to do with all of these sourdough tortillas!
This last time I made these delicious Cauliflower Tacos with Avocado Crema.
They were so good, it was hard to stop eating them!! The breaded cauliflower was baked in the oven. I added the delicious fresh corn on the cob we got at the farmers market, and it made for a fantastic #tacotuesday!
I hope you like my recipe for sourdough tortillas. If you are an avid sourdough baker, I am sure you will!
Thanks for reading, and have a beautiful day!
If you want to check out some more sourdough recipes, please click here.
Also, check out this recipe for my Spinach Tortillas. And if you want to, you can check out my recipe for regular Flour Tortillas right here.
And here are some Taco recipes to accompany your Sourdough Tortillas.
Sourdough Tortillas
Ingredients
- 125 g sourdough starter (discard 100% hydration) (1/2 cup, 4.5 oz)
- 320 g warm water about 120F (1 1/3 cup, 11 oz)
- 56 g vegetable oil (1/4 cup, 2 oz)
- 2 teaspoons kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 637 g all-purpose flour (5 cups, 22.5 oz)
- Plus extra flour for dusting
Instructions
- Mix sourdough starter, water, oil, salt, baking powder, and 4 cups of flour in the bowl of a stand mixer and knead with the dough hook for 4-6 minutes, until dough comes together in a smooth, non-sticky ball. If it’s too sticky, start adding the remaining cup of flour until you obtain the necessary consistency. You may not use the whole cup of flour, so just go slowly until you reach a dough that isn't too sticky or too dry.
- You can also mix the ingredients with a wooden spoon and then knead by hand.
- Once you’re done kneading, place dough in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with a towel or plastic wrap and let it rest at room temperature for about 30 minutes.
- Divide the dough into about 32 equal pieces. I use a scale to measure out my dough and I usually go for 30 grams per piece.
- Using the palm of your hands, roll each piece of dough into a ball, by making a circular motion, pressing down slightly on the dough, against the counter. Use very little flour to do this because you need the traction of the counter to shape the balls.
- Cover dough pieces with a towel and let them rest for 5 minutes.
- Start rolling each dough piece into a circle that measures out about 7 inches in diameter.
- I like to roll out as many dough pieces as my counter space will allow me to lay out, before cooking them.
- I’ve actually already used my pasta machine to roll the dough pieces out too, and it works fantastic, btw!
- Start cooking the tortillas by heating up a cast iron frying pan or a non-stick frying pan over medium high heat. (I actually use 2 or 3 pans sometimes to speed up the process)
- When the pan is hot, add tortilla. Cook on one side for about 1 minute, flip it over and cook on the other side for about 30 seconds.
- You don’t want your tortilla to burn, so cook it until it’s just slightly browned. If you burn your tortillas, they might become hard after they cool down.
- Lay out cooked tortillas on a baking sheet and let them cool slightly before placing them in a tortilla warmer or closed container. That’s because if you immediately put the tortillas away while hot, they will become soggy.
Notes
Nutrition
Hi, made these with my 10yr starter…venison pesole. Booh-yeah!! Thanks for the tortilla recipe
Thank you Dave I am so happy you liked the recipe! And wow!!! 10 year old starter!!! That’s quite an accomplishment! Congratulations!!! That’s incredible!!😄
Can I use fresh ground whole wheat?
yes I believe that will be totally fine, be sure to use the weight measurement and not the cups measurement. I’ve heard that if you are using the cup measurement when substituting store bought flour for fresh milled, you should use a bit less of the fresh flour. However, if you are going by weight, it should be fine! That sounds very cool to use fresh ground flour! Let me know how it turns out. Thanks for stopping by!
Thank you for the recipe! A great use for sourdough discard that turns out delicious tortillas (or tacos in my case 😊).
Thank you so much Andre!! I love recipes for sourdough discard, since we always have so much to discard when feeding the sourdough!!
Have a great day!!
Any idea what the calories are for one sourdough tortilla?
About 95 calories per tortilla. Thank you for your question!
Please explain what the starter is as well as 100% discard. I’m very efficient in the kitchen but these are terms and/or a process I’m totally unfamiliar with.
A starter means Mother starter, or sourdough starter, which is wild yeast that you can make at home yourself by following certain instructions that involve mixing flour and water, and for about 1 week, you have to follow a schedule to let that mixture double up, then you discard portions of it, and add more flour and water to it. The result will be a mother starter, which you can then keep for a long time (some bakeries have had theirs for over 100 years), but you have to always tend to it, “feed” it more flour and water, and discard portions of it. There are so many different ways to go about it, and the process is very detailed and intricate, but as you get into sourdough baking you start to understand it more and more. I recommend the book Artisan Sourdough Made Simple by Emilie Raffa, she explains it really well, and has a very easy method of cultivating your own starter. And about the discard, that is the portion you usually throw out when you have to “feed” your starter some fresh water and flour, which means the discard will mostly be inactive wild yeast, which is still good for some bakes such as this sourdough tortillas, or sourdough pancakes etc… The mother starter will usually be activated a few hours after feeding it, if you feed it constantly. Some people keep theirs in the fridge, which will cause the starter to be in a dormant state. There’s a lot to it, and it has taken me years to fully understand this myself as I evolve in my sourdough baking journey. If this interests you, I will reiterate that I recommend the book Artisan Sourdough Made Simple, you can make really beautiful sourdough bakes from that book. And there are also tons of resources online that you can research that will tell you how to make your own starter. Thank you so much for your question! Have a lovely day!!
Turned out great! Mine dont look as pretty or round haha, but taste great! Thank you!
Thank you Cat! That’s what matters!! how they taste!! Mine used to look pretty rustic lol when I first started making them. It got better with time! 🙂
Far out! These were out of this world delicious. And super easy. I wish I could add a photo to the comment to show you the meal I made out of them.
Roasted paprika cauliflower and chickpea tacos with haloumi, and red onion, radish, avocado and coriander lime salsa. Heaven
Oh wowww!!! That sounds amaaazing!! love all of those, the roasted paprika cauliflower sounds phenomenal! I love chickpeas, and everything else!!! What a great combo! I am so happy you enjoyed the tortillas!!! your tacos sound heavenly indeed!! Thank you so much for sharing 🙂
This was my first time making tortillas and I really struggled rolling them. The dough was very elastic. Any tips to make it easier? That being said, they were delicious and I never want a store bought tortilla again!
If the dough was too elastic it’s probably because you didn’t let it rest long enough. An easy fix is to let the dough rest, covered for 10-20 minutes and then try to roll it again. If you add too much flour when rolling the dough, it will also be too elastic. So avoid adding too much flour when rolling. Those are very easy fixes. Thank you for writing. I wish you have a fantastic day
Any chance a tortilla press would work for these?
For sure I used to use one 🙂
Curious why you don’t now. Is it cumbersome?
I use my pasta machine. I ended up giving my tortilla press away. It was a unitasker, took up lot of space, it was very heavy lol.
I love your tortilla recipe, but have a very urgent question! How do I keep them from becoming too crispy? We like them soft and foldable but mine come out too brittle! Am I rolling them out too thin or is it something else I need to correct? Thank you so much!
you probably just cooked it too much.
Camila, The main reason I make sourdough is to have a bread with a lower glycemic index. Am I wrong in thinking that leaving the dough to set and bulk ferment overnight is what make this happen. I was wondering if you could bulk ferment on these tortillas to get the same effect?
Hi Paul, I have not experimented with letting these bulk ferment. So I don’t know if the recipe would still work the same.
I skip the baking powder and let them rest overnight. Works really great! If you want to ferment longer, try the fridge so they don’t get too sticky!
Hi, not sure why my tortilla doesn’t look as fluffy as yours 🙁
also, may I know if inactive starter floats on water?
Thanks 🙂
Have you used a scale to weigh the ingredients?
Maybe you’ve added too much flour if you scooped it instead of weighing it.
Do you have pictures of the tortillas you can send to my email so I can see them? my email is camila @ piesandtacos . com (all together)
Ans if the starter is floating is active. But that shouldn’t make much of a difference in the recipe, I’ve made it with active starter before and it works fine as wel..
Hi dear! Sorry for the late reply. I remade them and I know what went wrong earlier. I didn’t cook them right. My second time tortilla was like yours, fluffy. It is soooo good! Thank you for sharing this awesome recipe! 😀
That’s great to hear! Thank you so much!! I made them yesterday too! We are having tacos today 🙂
you can get a heated tortilla press for like less than 100 bucks through amazon. it seems pricey, but let me tell you its worth its weight in gold. you can make perfectly round tortillas in seconds. from the press to the pay, and the heat makes the stiff glutten dough relaxed so it presses easily.
These went beyond expectations. Most of them got eaten plain out of the pan! Delicious!
Ohhh I am super happy to hear that!!! Awesome!!! Thank you so much!!!
Great recipe for using sourdough discard. My hubby says these are the best tortillas I’ve ever made! These are my go to when I want homemade tortillas. Thanjs!
Thank you so much, these are also my husband’s favorite tortillas!!
I love this recipe! 🤩 Made it three times now, the first time I didn’t do a very good job at rolling and they were not round but tasted great anyway. Second time they became hard, but it was because I cooked too long. They are really good, thank you so much! Greetings from Chile 💕
That’s wonderful to hear thank you so much!!!
Wow, these look amazing. I’ve never tried to make my own tortillas, let alone sourdough tortillas!
sourdough tortillas are my favorite to make! thank you Danielle!
We dont currently have a sour dough starter on the go 🙁 need to rectify that so I can make these asap!!! Great recipe 🙂
These look so delicious! Definitely a must-make! Thanks for sharing!
I love homemade shells- they make tacos so much better- and this recipe is one I never would have thought of, but have to try! Thank you!
true, homemade tortillas are really a step up! thank you!
These tortillas look amazing! Gotta try them!