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Sourdough Naan Flatbread
This dough originally appeared in my Savory Sourdough Babka recipe, where I roll cheese and herbs into the dough, cut the tube lengthwise, and twist both sides into a babka loaf to bake in a pan. It’s quite delicious, but the original flatbread deserves its own recipe post too.
Naan is my favorite flatbread. From Central Asia and India, it’s traditionally baked in a hot oven, but this version is fried in a dry cast iron pan (1-2 minutes per side). It’s also usually leavened with yeast or occasionally baking powder, but I use sourdough starter. I often mix up the dough when I have excess starter and yogurt in stock, and then I keep the dough in the refrigerator for several days until I happen to be cooking something that pairs well with flatbread — lentils, stews, hummus, and taco fixings. The dough even works well for pizza. Once cooked, I usually freeze some of the naans so my family doesn’t eat them all right away. We warm them up in the toaster, often with some toppings like butter, garlic or cheese.
Mixing the cuisines of two cultures with naan soft tacos
You can also make the naans the same day that you mix the dough. You simply need 4-8 hours of fermentation time, depending on your dough and room temperature (more if your dough is cold and your starter not ripe).
When making this bread, I find I need 3-4 minutes per naan between the rolling and frying. That means one batch of eight takes about 30 minutes to complete. While there’s minimal effort in the mixing and early stages of the recipe, the final stage does require some focus and bouncing between babysitting the dough in the hot pan and rolling the next dough on your countertop.
Sourdough Naan Flatbread
This is a stovetop and sourdough-leavened variation on Indian naan flatbread. This dough is easy to mix up, has a non-traditional cooking strategy of using a hot cast-iron pan. The flatbread is delicious when served with traditional Indian lentils (e.g. masoor dal) or used to dip in hummus or even make personal toaster-oven pizzas. They freeze well and you may find yourself doubling the batch to have more in stock.
Ingredients
Instructions
Shopping List
All Purpose Flour
Sourdough Starter (Dry)
JK Adams Dowel Rolling Pin
$18.00Breadtopia’s Choice Kitchen Scale
$18.00Magnetic Measuring Spoons
$17.00Bench Knife by Lamson — Walnut Handle
Sourdough Naan Flatbread