Soft & delicious homemade pita bread. These puffy little pillows are ready from start to finish in a little over 1 hour & taste so much better than store-bought varieties!
I have been making my own bread for as long as I can remember but my usual pita bread recipe involves lots of kneading, resting and proving and although the end result is amazing I realize that most people don't have the time or the patience for this. I decided that I wanted to simplify the process and come up with a Quick & Easy Homemade Pita Bread recipe that could be made from start to finish in a little over one hour.
The resulting pita breads are so easy to make and pretty quick as far as bread-making goes. Don't let the fact you need to use yeast put you off. It's not as scary as it sounds and the results are so worth the effort.
These quick and easy homemade pita breads taste so much better than store-bought varieties and make a perfect accompaniment to falafel, hummus, Greek salad with vegan feta cheese and dips. They also split easily so can be stuffed.
When you make these Quick & Easy Homemade Pita Breads, be sure to watch them for the five minutes that they are in the oven. They puff up dramatically within a few minutes and it is great to see this happen. If you have children helping you to make this recipe then they will love to watch them through the oven door.
When they are done and you remove them from the oven you will have little puffy pillow like pita breads. They deflate as they cool and end up resembling pita breads as you see in the store, only they taste so much better! Cover them with a clean dish towel while they cool to keep them nice and soft.
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Quick & Easy Pita Bread
Author:
Ingredients
I highly recommend using a scale to measure the flour. Cups are not accurate enough when making bread.
- 325g / 2 ½ cups wholewheat flour , strong wholemeal in the UK
- 165g / 1⅓ cup all purpose flour , strong white flour in the UK
- 2.5 teaspoons instant yeast , or quick yeast
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon olive oil (optional - see recipe notes)
- Between 350 mls (1½ cups) and 405mls (3¼) cups lukewarm water , not hot and not cold
INSTRUCTIONS
- Add all the dry ingredients to a large bowl. Add the olive oil and enough of the water to make a firm dough. I used 405 mls of water. You might not need all of it or you might need a few drops more. It depends on the flour you are using, humidity etc.
- Stir well with a spatula until the flour is absorbed and you have a shaggy dough. If the mixture looks a little dry add a few more drops of water very gradually.
- Scrape your mixture onto a clean and dry surface. If you think you will find kneading like this difficult then grease your surface and your hands with some olive oil. This will make it easier to handle. Try not to use more flour to knead on or add more flour during the process. If you do you risk your pita bread becoming dense and tough.
- Knead for 7 - 10 minutes. Your dough will start out a little bit sticky but the more you knead the smoother and less sticky it will become. Keep going until it feels smooth and when it is in a ball shape and you squeeze it together on each side, it bounces slowly back to shape when you let go. You can use a mixer on a low speed for 7 minutes instead of doing it by hand if you like.
- Let the dough rest for 30 minutes then, then divide into 8 even pieces. Roll each piece out into a circle or oval shape about 3mm thick.
- Place on a couple of lightly floured baking sheets and cover gently with clean, damp dish towels. Leave to rest again for 30 minutes.
- Preheat oven to 500 °F (260 °C) whilst you are waiting.
- After 30 minutes uncover your pitas and gently flip each one over. You will need to peel them off the tray but this should be pretty easy to do because of the flour underneath.
- Place into the hot oven and watch through the door (it's entertaining ;o)
- Bake for 5 - 6 minutes. They should puff up nicely but don't allow them to colour.
- When you remove from the oven they may feel a little hard but place them on a wire rack and cover with a dish towel. They will soften up as they cool.
NOTES
NUTRITION
Nutritional information is provided for convenience & as a courtesy. The data is a computer generated estimate so should be used as a guide only.
This recipe was originally published on Aug 25th 2015 but has since been updated with new photographs.
Y says
Amazing! Thank you so much for posting this recipe!
Richard says
Made these today and must say what a great recipe, they worked a treat, so good in fact there’s none left to freeze!
Thank you very much for a brilliant recipe and what looks like a great site, can’t wait to explore further.
Melanie McDonald says
I'm really pleased you enjoyed them Richard. I often have the same problem with them disappearing too fast to make it to the freezer!
Anna says
Can you make the dough, and then leave it/chill it overnight before you cook it, or would this not work?
A Virtual Vegan says
I haven't tried it with this recipe, but for other regular breads that work fine so I would imagine it would be ok. I would go up to the kneading part, then rub a little oil all over the dough so it doesn't dry out, put it in a tightly covered bowl or sealed container and refrigerate, then let it warm up at room temperature for 45 mins or so the next day before continuing with the recipe. Hope that helps!
Emily says
So simple but such incredible results! This is my new go to recipe when I have nothing in for lunch!
Sandy says
Can you make this with only whole wheat flour?
A Virtual Vegan says
You could but you wouldn't get the optimum, light texture and they might not puff as much.
Kathryn Roosa says
Would it work to let your bread maker do the kneading, then back in the oven?
A Virtual Vegan says
I haven't' used a bread machine for years and years so can't really remember how they work, but I think it would be ok to use the dough cycle, then remove, cut into pieces, shape etc. Assuming the capacity works with the dough quantity that is.
Aimee Smith says
These were awesome! Fast, easy and delicious, exactly what I needed! I was out of whole wheat flour so used all ap flour and didn't need as much water as the recipe calls for. They turned out great!
A Virtual Vegan says
So glad you enjoyed them!
Michael Redbourn says
I like my pitot a little lighter,
How can I modify the recipe to have maybe 2/3 white and 1/3 wholewheat flour?
Thank you,
Michael
A Virtual Vegan says
That would be absolutely fine. You could even use all white flour if you wanted. If you want 2/3 white and 1/3 wholewheat just use 2 cups white and one cup wholewheat. As long as you use 3 cups total any mix of the two will work. Hope that helps!
Timmy says
Can you tell me what is the taste of this pita bread?
A Virtual Vegan says
It tastes kind of like regular whole wheat bread.
Kirsty hosking says
Thanks soooo much for including UK translations!
A Virtual Vegan says
You are welcome! I live in Canada but am from the UK (Devon), so feel like I should, even though I don't actually have many readers in the UK!
J. Nasu says
This is the worst pita recipe in the history of pita recipes. The dough sticks to the bottom of the pan. The copious amounts of flour I put on the baking sheets made it worse. I hate this recipe. Thank you for wasting my time and dough.
A Virtual Vegan says
Sorry you had a bad experience with the pita breads. This is one of the most tested recipes on my blog and I make them myself at least once a month so I know for certain it works well. I also never have a problem with the dough sticking to my baking sheets.I don't understand how adding more flour to the baking sheets made the problem worse. Perhaps we can troubleshoot what went wrong? Did you follow the recipe exactly? As in the same flours (a mixture of white all purpose and wholewheat), exact same quantities etc? Did you weigh your ingredients? Cup measurements are notoriously inaccurate and can cause unexpected results when baking. Also how much water did you use? It sounds like your dough may have been too wet if it was really sticky. The dough should not be sticky by the time you get to the rolling out stage and if it is then something has gone wrong somewhere. How is your kneading technique? If the dough isn't kneaded effectively it will remain a bit sticky. Lots of questions but perhaps we can work out what went wrong if you can answer them :O)
Sue says
Thankyou for your recipe. I make these pitas frequently and they puff up each time. My family loves them.
Autumn C. says
From what I've read, the pan you put the dough into the oven on has to be really hot to help the bread to puff properly.
A Virtual Vegan says
It isn't necessary to do that with this recipe. As long as the oven is really hot as per the instructions the pitas puff up beautifully :O)
Christopher Kimball says
Homemade pita bread is great! love the recipe and wholewheat flour option!
Kathryn Grace says
Okay, this may be one reason to see if I can find some organic yeast again. Or maybe I could find a way to adapt them using sourdough starter, yes? I have some extra starter on hand. Think I'll give that a try. Thanks for a wonderful recipe. Excited to find this today!
A Virtual Vegan says
Thank you Kathryn. I have actually never tried these pita breads with my sourdough starter. I don't know about yours but my starter is pretty slow and takes hours to prove a loaf of bread. If yours is the same then it probably wouldn't work with these pitas as they are a quick version. I'm not sure the starter would have enough ooommph to get the pitas puffy in the oven when they cook so quickly.
If you do try and it works let me know though!