Make Flour Tortillas with this ultimate guide so they always come out soft & delicious! They melt in your mouth and I guarantee you’ll never want to get store bought again.
My Mama’s legacy lives on as my siblings and I make her tortillas. She was the master of homemade flour tortillas and was known for that by anyone who knew her. She had to be since she would make kilos of tortillas each day to feed her nine kids!
My sister Brenda is also known for her homemade flour tortillas and she helped me with the troubleshooting section. Oh and I also have two brothers that live Guanajuato Mexico that have their own tortillerias. I can say that making the best tortillas runs in the family!!
What makes flour tortillas hard is not adding enough lard or oil and water and not kneading the dough for the required amount of time, and NOT allowing the dough to rest in a warm place at least 30 minutes before making flour tortillas.
Make the dough for flour tortillas
- In a very large bowl, whisk the flour, salt & baking powder.
- Add the vegetable shortening/butter and incorporate well until it’s all blended and crumbly.
- Add the hot water little by little and begin to knead. Knead for 8 to 10 minutes until dough is smooth and elastic. The longer you knead the masa it will release the gluten allowing for a light fluffy tortilla.
- Dough should not be sticky to the touch. If it’s sticky then add 1/2 teaspoon of flour at a time until it’s no longer sticky. Don’t add too much since this could make your tortillas hard later on.
Other tortillas recipes you may like:
**This post was originally published on May 2020. It has been updated to be more helpful.
- Flour: All purpose flour is used for traditional tortillas. Just make sure it’s fresh and not stale.
- The Fat: This is the key ingredient that will make your tortillas soft and pliable. I use Crisco vegetable shortening (at room temperature) but the traditional way is with lard. These two fats will give you the authentic flour tortilla flavor. An alternative is margarine as it has the same texture of shortening. Just make sure it’s almost at room temperature.
- Now that I’m in Portugal, I use Planta in butter flavor (sabor a manteiga).
I have not tested making tortillas with coconut oil even though it’s a popular request. I would discourage you to use liquid fat as the tortillas won’t be as soft and will get hard quicker.
- Salt: Use table salt as it gives the best flavor. If using kosher, sea salt or any other coarse salt, dissolve it in the hot water you’ll use to make the dough. Otherwise, the flavor won’t incorporate in the dough as well.
- Water: The water has to be as hot as your hands can handle it (if kneading by hand). If using your stand mixer, then use boiling water. The hot water is what will make your tortillas soft by incorporating the fat with the flour perfectly.
- Baking Powder: This ingredient is optional. You don’t need a lot of it since you don’t want to make them super fluffy!
- Stand Mixer or
- if kneading by hand: A large plastic bowl.
- Rolling Pin
- Comal, nonstick griddle or a nonstick large skillet.
THE ONLY FLOUR TORTILLA RECIPE YOU WILL EVER NEED!!! | Tortillas de Harina
FAQ
How do you keep homemade tortillas from getting hard?
Why are my homemade tortillas stiff?
How do you make tortillas more pliable?
Why do Tortillas come out hard?
The dough is the ultimate foundation of tortillas, and if you don’t get it right, the tortillas will come out hard. In the majority of cases, people over-knead the dough to get a smooth appearance, but it leads to hard tortillas. Make sure that your dough doesn’t have a hard and tough texture. So, follow the right timeline and don’t knead it much.
Can eating tortilla help with weight loss?
Tortilla can be a good option for weight loss as long as it contains whole grains. As compared to white flour, it has way less fat and calories. It is also important which foods are in the inside; you must prefer lean meats, such as poultry or fish, and use many vegetables.
Why are my homemade flour tortillas hard?
The reason your homemade flour tortillas are hard could be because you overwork the dough. When you use an electric mixer to mix the dough, you tend to knead it for longer than necessary. This causes the gluten in the flour to toughen up and makes the dough hard. A better way to mix the dough is to use your hands.
Why are corn tortillas so hard to make?
They notably cite the nixtamalization process, which requires time and patience, as just one of the factors making corn tortillas tougher to master. “When making flour tortillas, if you have a solid recipe and follow it accordingly and have a rolling pin and a griddle you should be okay,” they say.