Fresh And Homemade (And Vegan) Pita Recipe




After making fresh pita for yourself, you can’t go back to store bought. The kind you can find at the grocery store (if you even can) doesn’t have that pillowy, soft texture. Even expensive brands seem dry and crumbly in comparison, not at all pliable enough to hold your heartiest fillings without falling apart halfway through.


The best part was that we barely spent any money making these. We already had the flour, sugar, salt, oil and of course, water. All we needed was a packet of yeast and at less than fifty cents each, that’s not a tall order, especially because we ended up getting eight HUGE flatbreads (next time, we’ll make them smaller to get twelve) for way less than the price of six or eight of the store-bought.


These will probably hold in a zip-lock for up to a week in your fridge or up to a month or longer in the freezer. Oh yeah, these are vegan too, so these would be great with your falafel or a veggie burger as well.










Homemade Pita Bread
(8-12 servings)
(30 minutes of prep; 3 hours and 15 minutes total)

2 tsp (1packet) of active dry yeast

3 cups of all purpose flour 



1 tsp salt (pink Himalayan)



1/2 tsp sugar



2 tbsp olive oil


1 cup warm water






Preparation

-We should start by letting you know we doubled this recipe for a few different reasons:

*WAY too much left over gyro meat

*Finishing up the rest of the yeast

*Workability; We found having a little more dough was easier to mix and knead



-Add together; warm water, sugar, and dry yeast. Stir to combine. The mixture should start to bubble.

-Whisk in 1/2 cup of flour, allow to sit, uncovered, for 15 minutes

-After the 15 minutes is over, your mixture should have risen quite a bit and have bubbles at the surface





-Add olive oil, salt, and whisk in 2 1/4cups of flour.

After adding about half of the flour the dough becomes more difficult to work with a spatula, so unless you have access to a stand mixer with a dough hook it would be beneficial to transfer the dough to a flour-dusted work space.

After you incorporate the remainder of the flour, get ready for a workout!



-At this time have your large bowl ready, you'll want to have a good layer of olive oil coating the inside of the bowl.
(either with a basic oil spray or by using a brush or paper towel to spread the oil evenly)






-Place your dough ball in and flip over several times to evenly coat the outside in oil.

Let the dough sit covered with a towel or paper towel for 2 hours while the dough rises.

-After the 2 hours is over you will see your dough nearly triple in size.

Pat down to the width of an inch and divide.







We ended up with 8 pitas, but you could get as many as 12 out of a batch, we'd suggest some open experimentation with your sizing.
Maybe you just want 1 really big pita, idk man. Live your best life.








-After you divide your dough, roll into balls, sprinkle with flour, cover, and let rest for 30 minutes.

-It's during this 30 minutes they develop the super crucial interior pockets that give pita its ideal shape and texture.




-When the time is over, pat down the dough until you are able to pass a roller over it.
Depending on your intended purpose for the pita, pay close attention to how thin you roll the bread.
For more traditional pita bread, roll out to about 1/6th an inch width.
If you intend on a pita cracker you could roll the pita no further than 1/8th of an inch. Let rest 5 minutes before cooking.













Cooking
-Heat a pan over medium/high heat and place raw pita on.
-You will almost immediately start to see bubbles pop up over the whole surface. A good rule of thumb is to flip it over when the bubbles stop expanding.

 

-Let each side get a little color then pull from heat and enjoy!











Comments

This Week's Most Popular Post