Homemade pita bread is surprisingly easy to make. It’s a simple yeast dough left to rise briefly. And it bakes up into deliciously puffy pita pockets. They are perfect for dunking into dips or spreads or for stuffing full of sandwich fillings.
Pita bread is our favorite flatbread. We occasionally use it as a pocket bread, but most often it is used baked into pita crisps or as a pizza crust. It also freezes well, which makes it a convenient source of whole grain bread in our diet. We can just pop it out of the freezer and in a few minutes it’s thawed and ready to use.
WHAT INGREDIENTS DO YOU NEED?
One of the best things about this recipe is that it uses just handful of basic pantry ingredients.
- Instant yeast
- Warm water
- Sugar
- Salt
- All-purpose flour
Any combination and white and whole wheat flours can be used in this recipe – all white, all whole wheat, or any combination in between. Baked pitas keep for several days, or you can freeze for longer storage.
1-1/2 cup flour, white whole wheat or whole wheat
1-1/2 cup flour, unbleached white
1-1/2 tsp salt
1-1/4 cup water
1 tbsp sugar
2 tsp yeast, active dry
2 tbsp oil, olive
1. Dissolve yeast and sugar in 1-1/4 cup warm water. Let sit for 5 minutes to activate yeast. (If using instant yeast, skip this step and mix all wet and dry ingredients together)
2. In a mixing bowl, combine flour, salt, yeast/water mixture and oil. Stir mixture to form a ball. Add up to 1/4 cup more water if needed.
3. Place dough on work surface and knead for 10 minutes, or use low speed of electric mixer to knead.
4. Place dough in bowl lightly coated with a little oil. Cover and let rise for 90 minutes, until doubled in bulk.
5. Punch dough down to release trapped gases. Divide dough into 8 balls. Cover and let rest for 20-30 minutes. This step allows the dough to relax so it is easier to shape.
6. While dough is resting, place pizza stone or baking tiles in oven and preheat to 550°F.
7. Spread light coat of flour on work surface. Place one ball of dough there and sprinkle top with flour. Use hands or rolling pin to flatten out to 1/8″ or 1/4″ thick.
If dough is hard to stretch, cover and let rest another 5-10 minutes. Prepare as much dough as will fit on pizza stone at one time.
8. Open oven and place as many pitas as you can fit on the stone. Let bake for 2-3 minutes, until puffed up and as brown as desired.
9. While one batch of pitas are baking, form next batch of dough. Repeat until all dough is baked.
10. Remove pitas from oven and let cool. Bubbles should deflate as pitas cool. Be careful – pitas are full of hot steam when taken from the oven!
