My homemade flour tortillas are incredibly soft and pliable, perfect for folding and wrapping your favorite fillings. You only need 4 simple ingredients for this incredibly delicious tortilla recipe.
These flour tortillas taste much better than what’s sold at the store (promise)! Freshly made, warm homemade tortillas are truly the best. I always jump at the chance of being the tortilla flipper so that I can sneak a tortilla for myself before sharing it with the rest of the family.
The great news is that flour tortillas are really easy for you to make at home, and I bet you already have what you need to make them! If you love corn over flour, take a look at our equally delicious homemade corn tortillas.
Key Ingredients
- Flour: I use all-purpose flour for these tortillas, but I have successfully used whole wheat flour in this recipe. Spelt flour works nicely, too.
- Salt: Without any salt, these tortillas won’t taste very good. I use a teaspoon in the recipe.
- Warm water: Using warm water instead of cold water helps the dough come together more easily and dissolves the salt in our dough.
- Fat: To make our homemade tortillas soft and pliable, you need some fat in the dough. Use oil, lard, butter, or shortening.
Find the full recipe with measurements below.
How to Make the Best Flour Tortillas
When I was learning how to make really great tortillas, my first few batches were okay but not great. I kept at it and now want to share all my tortilla secrets with you. These four tips helped us make soft, chewy, bubbly flour tortillas.
- Dissolve the salt in warm water before you add it to the dough.
- Roll the tortilla dough into very thin discs (use a rolling pin!)
- Get the heat right. I use a heavy skillet over medium to medium-high.
- Transfer your cooked tortillas to a towel or tortilla warmer, which keeps them warm and soft.
Ways to Use Homemade Flour Tortillas
Our family loves these homemade tortillas! We eat them for breakfast with scrambled eggs and a little red salsa. Turn them into lunch for wraps, tuck homemade taco meat inside them, and enjoy them for dinner.
Some of my favorite recipes that call for these incredible tortillas are fajitas, these green chicken enchiladas, our spicy vegetable burritos, and my favorite vegetable quesadillas.
Easy Soft Flour Tortillas
- PREP
- COOK
- TOTAL
Here’s how to make flour tortillas that are soft, pliable, and perfect for folding or wrapping. Our homemade tortilla recipe uses a few simple tricks to get the best texture every time.
Dissolving the salt in warm water before mixing helps season the dough evenly, especially if you’re using a coarse salt. Rolling the dough very thin with a rolling pin and adjusting the pan heat as you cook creates those signature bubbles that make tortillas soft and flexible (watch our video to see just how big those bubbles can get!).
Watch Us Make the Recipe
You Will Need
2 cups all-purpose flour, spooned and leveled (260g)
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
⅔ cup very warm water (160ml)
5 tablespoons light flavored oil, melted shortening, melted lard, or melted butter (75g)
Directions
1Dissolve salt: Add the salt to the warm water and stir together until the salt dissolves.
2Make dough: In a large bowl, use a fork to combine the flour with the oil (or other fat) until it looks crumbly. Pour in almost all of the salt water and stir until a shaggy dough forms. If the mixture seems dry, add a bit more water.
3Quickly knead: When the dough comes together, transfer to a floured work surface and knead until smooth, 2 to 3 minutes. Cover with a clean dishcloth and leave for at least 15 minutes and up to 2 hours. Resting the dough makes rolling it out easier.
4Roll out the dough: Divide the dough into 10 equally sized blobs and shape them into small disks. Use a rolling pin to roll each small disk into an 8-inch round (a rolling pin is better than a tortilla press for this recipe). The thinner, the better. If you get 9-inch tortillas, don’t worry! We also don’t worry too much about making them perfectly round. (See our video to watch us do it.)
5Stack the rolled tortillas with a piece of parchment paper between them. Alternatively, you can roll and cook the tortillas simultaneously. Roll one tortilla out, then roll out the next tortilla while the first one cooks.
6Preheat a skillet: Preheat a wide, heavy-bottomed skillet over medium-high heat for a few minutes.
7Cook tortillas: When the skillet is preheated, add the first tortilla. Within 20 to 30 seconds, you should start to see it puffing up with bubbles. When the bottom of the tortilla has some brown spots, flip it and cook until the second side is browned in places and the tortilla looks dry around the edges. Each tortilla will take 1 to 2 minutes to cook. If this is taking a long time, increase the heat. If the pan smokes or browns the tortillas too quickly, reduce the heat.
8Keep warm: Transfer the cooked tortilla to a dishcloth and cover it, then continue with the remaining tortillas, adjusting the heat as needed.
Adam and Joanne's Tips
- Measuring your flour: Too much flour makes these dry and crumbly. To properly measure your flour, fluff the flour in its container, then gently scoop it into your measuring cup until slightly mounded. Level off the top with a knife for an accurate measurement. Or measure by weight using a kitchen scale.
- Whole wheat tortillas: You can substitute whole wheat flour for all-purpose flour. The dough may need a little extra water to reach the right consistency.
- Baking powder: Some tortilla recipes swear by adding baking powder to the dough for softer flour tortillas, but after trying them with and without baking powder, we leave it out. If you’d like to try it, whisk 1 ½ teaspoons into the flour before making the dough.
- Storing: Keep leftover tortillas in a resealable plastic bag at room temperature for up to 2 days, or freeze for longer storage. Homemade tortillas are softest when warm, so reheat them in a skillet until pliable before serving.
- Freezing: To freeze, stack tortillas with parchment paper between each one and place in a freezer-safe bag or container.
- Make ahead: Divide the dough into ten balls (for 8-inch tortillas), wrap them tightly, and refrigerate for up to 24 hours. Before cooking, remove the dough from the fridge 30 to 40 minutes ahead so it can come to room temperature.
- Nutrition facts are estimates and include vegetable oil.
Recipe was really easy. I used 4t butter and 1 t olive oil and it made 4 lovely tortillas but I can see how I could make them smaller. Thanks this was a great recipe
Easy and my family loved them! Froze some and they were as good as the fresh ones! Thank you!
Delicious! These were so easy and they turned out beautifully. I used vegetable oil and let the dough rest for about 20 minutes before rolling them out.
YAY! I finally did it! Thanks for the great, easy recipe. I’ve always wanted to make homemade tortillas and now I can make DELICIOUS homemade flour tortillas. Next I’ll try your corn tortilla recipe (when I get all the ingredients.)
This is wonderful, Raquel! So happy the recipe worked so well for you!
This recipe sucks. The dough is way too sticky and completely unusable.
Hi John, If you have a sticky dough, I have two suggestions. First, let it rest a bit to see if it’s easier to work with, and second, lightly flour it, your work surface, and your hands. You can watch our video to see what my dough looked like when making these tortillas. Hope that helps!
Made these today. They are delicious. Now to perfect the shape
Yay! So happy you found us!
Hey, John! I think the way you presented your critism was quite rude and I think it should be pointed out. While the author responded kindly, it’s clear to me that it would be best if you could maybe use some critical thinking skills and not blame the recipe entirely. The measurement overall was “most of” the full measurement of water it called for. Which is not specific. So, if your result was too soggy, it’s not hard to conclude that you simply added too much water. I dont think the recipe is to blame here. Just try it again with a little less water. Takes about as much effort as you telling this author their recipe sucks. Imo, anyway.
My husband forgot to bring home taco shells for taco night so I figured I’d give this a try. The recipe was easy, quick, and something I’ve never tried before. It worked perfectly and the tortillas are fantastic. I did mine using the melted butter and doubt I’ll ever buy tortillas from a store again.
This is amazing, Susan!
So good! Great recipe!
I made this recipe today with bacon grease. I have made other recipes for tortillas, but this is the first one that has turned out for me. I have a tortilla press, so I pressed my little balls between parchment paper on the press and then rolled them out to my desired thickness. Usually the dough shrinks a lot after I put it on the pan, but this one did not. I think it’s because there is more fat added in this recipe than what I have seen in the past. Either way, this is book marked for me and is going to be my go to tortilla recipe.
Just made these for the first time. The recipe was very easy and simple and they turned out delicious!! I will never buy tortillas again!
Incredible, Rebecca! Thank you for coming back.
I rarely cook but throughout I’d give this a shot. It’s the first time a recipe has worked out for me the first time I try it. The only thing I’ll do different next time is make them thinner so they’ll roll easier. Thanks!!
Not sure what I you mean by the thinner, so they’ll roll easier. If you think the dough itself you’ll only get a sticky dough that can’t be rolled. Just be patient and roll from center outward. And I roll till thinner. Hope this helps!
Hello from South Africa. Made these today for the first time. Came out sooooo good! They stayed soft and pliable when when cooled down. So yum, stuffed them full of sticky pulled pork, onions, peppers, rocket and tomatoes! 😋 Thank you for the recipe and how-to video! 💕
Hi Deena! Thanks so much for coming back and letting us know how the recipe turned out!
This was easy and delicious! As an American form Southern California, this helped bring some of our afvrote dishes to our home in Oz. I even forgot to disobey the salt the first time I made them and dumped it into the flour and they turned out perfect. THANK YOU!
Best tortillas ever! I used whole wheat flour. Having little bit of a hard time getting the tortillas thin enough but the taste so good. Thank you!
That’s wonderful, Nikki! So happy you enjoyed them!
This was so easy to follow! It was my first time making tortillas and I appreciate how straightforward this recipe is. My tortillas came out beautifully and have a great flavor. Thank you so much!
That’s wonderful, Katie! Thank you for coming back and letting us know!
I think the recipe was good and easy but mine were not soft at all. Obviously my fault.
They turned out hard and crumbly. They made for great saltines. Lol
Where did I go wrong?
Hmm, it might be that you needed a bit more water for your dough or that the heat of your pan was too high.
These are delicious!
I am not sure what I did wrong, but after they’ve been sitting for a bit after cooking, they did get a bit hard. What am I doing wrong?
Again, the taste is DELIGHTFUL! But once it cooled, it was harder. I will add that my house is a bit on the cooler side. Could this be the reason?
You might want at bit more water in your dough. Then, once cooked, keep them in a stack, covered with a dishtowel so they do not dry out.
Quick question – there was no menton of spraying the pan before you cook the tortillas. Is that not necessary since they cook so quickly?
That’s correct.
This worked nicely with coconut oil but they came out so greasy that you can see through them. Will definitely try with less oil next time.
I used my cast iron tortilla press for this and it worked perfectly! Somehow I accidentally divided the dough into 11 parts instead of 10, but I might try doing 12 next time because the smaller ones had a better size/shape.
So glad it worked out, Sarah!
I just used this receipie to make Hondurian baleadas, and they came out so delicious. Perfect texture, perfect amount of ingredients and delicious. Thank you for sharing this recepie. May God bless you and continue to use your skills for more delicious recipes.
This flour to water ratio is way off. Please fix this.
Hi there, I’m sorry the dough didn’t turn out quite right! If it feels off, it’s usually down to how the flour is measured. To get the most accurate ratio, I recommend using the spoon and sweep method: gently spoon the flour into your measuring cup until overflowing, then level it off with a flat edge. This prevents the flour from being packed down, which can really throw off the hydration. Hope that helps.
It was easy to follow but I feel silly.. The dough was super sticky, should I add slightly more flour? And whats the secret to flat them properly, I won’t lie, it was a mess because I’m new to cooking. Also, thank you for sharing this, it was easy to follow !
Iki, yes. I add a little more flour if the dough feels too sticky.
If you dough is super sticky add flour a little at a time while kneading until it is smooth and elastic. I learned that trick from my grandmother when she taught me to make bread and rolls from scratch. Bread making is an art that takes time and patience. I had several bad batches when I was first learning. It’s a learning process, like anything else. Don’t give up. Homemade is so much better than store bought.
The best recipe. My kids love it. I make it all the time. I use a rolling pin to roll out the torillas and it works great.
So happy it works well for you, Kasia!
Made tortillas for quick wrap! Simple and easy . I use to make homemade tortillas before it became a thing! Back to my old school ways.
This is the best flour tortilla recipe out there!! Simple and AMAZING! I have been trying to find the perfect tortilla recipe for months, and when I found this one I couldn’t be happier! It is just the right blend of flavor and texture, it is perfectly soft and so savory! After experimenting with different types of fat I landed on butter, witch really brings out that savory flavor! I have made this recipe probably over 20 times, and one thing I wish I knew was to make sure your pan is the right temperature before cooking, if you splash a little bit of water on the pan and it imediatly sizzles and evaporates then your pan is hot enough! But be careful its not too hot or you’ll end up with tortilla chips! Anyway thank you for an amazing recipe. I will never go back to store bought tortillas! 🙂
I made the dough in my kitchen aid and let them rest for 4 hours. This came out perfect and flexible. Best tortilla recipe I’ve ever tried.