Soft 10-Inch Flour Tortillas
Traditional & Sourdough Versions
Makes 8 large tortillas (approximately 10 inches each)
Soft • Supple • Blistered • Flexible
Thin, tender flour tortillas with beautifully bubbled surfaces and just enough chew, made with either a traditional-style dough or a slowly fermented sourdough version.
This recipe is 100% plant-based.
I think by now, most people who know me know how much I love Mexican food.
With my Spanish and Puerto Rican roots, foods wrapped in tortillas have always felt familiar to me—warm, generous, flavorful, and meant to be eaten with your hands. And anything in the form of bread has already won half my heart, so tortillas never stood much of a chance.
I love them.
Corn tortillas. Flour tortillas. Tacos, burritos, quesadillas, wraps. A warm tortilla alongside a meal. Even a freshly cooked flour tortilla brushed with a little vegan butter and eaten all by itself.
But there is one requirement.
It has to be a good tortilla.
I have bought plenty of bad ones over the years, and I would honestly rather have no tortilla than one that is dry, flavorless, stiff, or cracks the moment you try to fold it.
That’s how I feel about most food. I don’t need everything I eat to be complicated or fancy, but I do want it to be delicious. If I’m going to take the time to cook a beautiful meal, I don’t want a mediocre version of something sitting beside it simply because it was convenient.
That’s one of the reasons I spend so much time developing recipes.
And tortillas are far too important to me to be mediocre.
Their history is ancient, although the story begins with corn rather than flour. Indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica were making corn tortillas thousands of years before wheat arrived in the Americas. Wheat came later with the Spanish, and flour tortillas eventually became especially important in northern Mexico, where wheat grew particularly well.
Like so many foods with long histories, there isn’t one flour tortilla recipe that represents every family or every region. Some are thin; others are thicker and puffier. Many traditional flour tortillas are made with lard, while other versions use different fats, and some include baking powder.
What they demonstrate beautifully is something I love about bread: very simple ingredients can become extraordinary food when you understand what to do with them.
My version follows that spirit.
Flour. Water. Salt. A little oil.
That’s essentially it.
Because many traditional flour tortillas are made with lard, I couldn’t always assume that a restaurant flour tortilla was vegan. And anyone who loves Mexican food can understand what torture it is to have a gorgeous plate of food sitting in front of you and discover that the tortilla is the one thing you can’t eat.
That gave me one more reason to learn to make my own.
Cooking at home also gives me something I value enormously: I know what’s going into my food. I can choose the flour and the oil I want to use, and I don’t need preservatives, gums, conditioners, fillers, or a collection of ingredients whose only purpose is allowing a tortilla to spend weeks sitting inside a plastic package.
Pick up some packages of supermarket tortillas and turn them over sometime. Then come home and look at what it takes to make one yourself.
The contrast can be rather astonishing.
And then there is my other complaint about store-bought tortillas:
Why are they so small?
They’re perfectly respectable for a large taco, but try building a generous burrito with one and suddenly you’re negotiating with your dinner.
I wanted a tortilla that could actually hold a meal.
So when I developed mine, I made them about ten inches across—large, thin, soft, supple, and strong enough to wrap around a beautiful plant-based burrito without tearing, cracking, or giving up halfway through lunch.
I still remember making my first really good ten-inch flour tortilla.
I was ridiculously happy.
There was something so satisfying about watching that little ball of dough become this enormous, thin round beneath my rolling pin and then seeing bubbles rise almost immediately when it hit the hot griddle. I flipped it, watched those beautiful brown spots appear, tucked it beneath a towel, and started another.
And then another.
I couldn’t stop making them.
Partly because they were delicious, but also because I had finally made the tortilla I had been looking for—simple ingredients, wonderful texture, and big enough to do the job I wanted it to do.
And now I’ve given this recipe another path: sourdough.
The traditional-style version is there whenever I want homemade tortillas without planning hours ahead. But when I have time, I love letting the sourdough version ferment. It brings another dimension to such a simple bread and fits naturally into the way I now think about dough, fermentation, and nourishment.
That is why I consider this a foundational Sol Canyon Kitchen recipe.
Once you know how to make a good flour tortilla, look at everything you can do with it.
Wrap it around beans, rice, vegetables, guacamole, and salsa for a big plant-based burrito. Fold it around a filling for a quesadilla. Make flour tacos and bake them until the edges become crisp. Tear one apart beside a bowl of beans. Or take one warm from the griddle, brush it with vegan butter, and eat it standing in the kitchen before anyone knows there was supposed to be another tortilla in the stack.
I highly recommend that last one.
There is something particularly satisfying about learning to make foods we ordinarily think we have to buy.
A tortilla is such a humble thing. Flour, water, salt, a little fat, your hands, and a hot griddle.
But when you make a really good one yourself, it doesn’t feel humble at all.
It feels like you’ve learned something worth knowing.
And perhaps that’s what a foundation recipe really is—not simply a recipe you make often, but one that becomes part of the way you cook. Eventually you stop thinking, I need to buy tortillas.
You simply know how to make them.
Another Bread That Holds You Together.
INGREDIENTS
Traditional-Style Tortillas
384 g all-purpose flour
7 g fine sea salt
60 g mild olive oil or neutral oil
225 g warm water, plus 10–15 g more as needed
Sourdough Tortillas
334 g all-purpose flour
100 g active sourdough starter (100% hydration)
7 g fine sea salt
60 g mild olive oil or neutral oil
175 g warm water, plus 10–15 g more as needed
METHOD
TRADITIONAL-STYLE TORTILLAS
Step 1 — Mix the Dough
In the bowl of a stand mixer (see Notes for mixing by hand), combine:
384 g all-purpose flour
7 g fine sea salt
Add:
60 g mild olive oil or neutral oil
225 g warm water
Mix on low speed until the flour is fully hydrated and a soft, slightly shaggy dough forms.
If the dough feels firm or dry, add:
Up to 10–15 g additional warm water, a few grams at a time
The dough should feel soft and supple, but not wet or sticky.
Cover and allow the dough to rest for 15–20 minutes. This short rest gives the flour time to fully hydrate and makes the dough easier to develop.
Step 2 — Develop the Dough
Mix on low to medium-low speed for approximately 3–5 minutes, until the dough becomes smooth, supple, and elastic.
Avoid adding additional flour simply because the dough feels soft. A well-hydrated dough is important for tortillas that roll thinly and remain tender after cooking.
The finished dough should feel wonderfully pliable—soft enough to yield easily beneath your fingers but strong enough to hold together cleanly.
Step 3 — Rest the Dough
Cover the dough and allow it to rest at room temperature for approximately 30 minutes.
This rest is important. It allows the gluten to relax, making the dough much easier to divide and eventually roll into large, thin tortillas without continually shrinking back.
SOURDOUGH TORTILLAS
Step 1 — Mix the Dough
In the bowl of a stand mixer (see Notes for mixing by hand), combine:
334 g all-purpose flour
7 g fine sea salt
Add:
100 g active sourdough starter (100% hydration)
60 g mild olive oil or neutral oil
175 g warm water
Mix on low speed until everything comes together into a soft, slightly shaggy dough.
If the dough feels firm or dry, add:
Up to 10–15 g additional warm water, a few grams at a time
The dough should feel soft and supple rather than stiff, but it should not be wet or sticky.
Cover and allow the dough to rest for 20–30 minutes.
Step 2 — Develop the Dough
Mix on low to medium-low speed for approximately 3–5 minutes, until the dough becomes smooth, elastic, and cohesive.
The dough should feel soft and pliable and should stretch without tearing easily.
Transfer to a lightly oiled bowl and cover.
Step 3 — Ferment the Dough
Allow the dough to ferment at room temperature until it becomes slightly aerated, relaxed, and noticeably softer, approximately 2–4 hours depending on the strength of your starter and the temperature of your kitchen.
Unlike a loaf of sourdough bread, do not wait for this dough to double. We aren’t trying to build a highly aerated bread structure. Fermentation here is developing flavor and tenderness while allowing the dough to relax.
For a longer fermentation, refrigerate the covered dough after approximately 1–2 hours at room temperature and allow it to cold-ferment overnight or up to 24 hours.
If refrigerated, allow the dough to sit at room temperature for approximately 30–60 minutes before dividing so it is relaxed and easy to handle.
SHAPE THE TORTILLAS
Step 1 — Divide & Round
Turn the dough onto a clean work surface and divide it into 8 equal portions, approximately 105–110 g each.
Shape each portion into a smooth ball by gently drawing the edges underneath and rolling lightly beneath a cupped hand.
Cover the dough balls with a clean kitchen towel and allow them to rest for 20–30 minutes.
Don’t rush this rest. Relaxed dough is the secret to rolling large tortillas without fighting dough that continually springs back.
Step 2 — Preheat the Cooking Surface
While the dough rests, preheat a dry cast-iron skillet or your round electric griddle over medium-high heat.
Do not add oil.
The surface needs to be thoroughly hot before the first tortilla goes down. A properly heated surface allows bubbles to form quickly and creates those characteristic scattered brown spots without drying out the tortilla.
Step 3 — Roll Thinly
Working with one dough ball at a time, flatten it into a small disk with your fingertips.
On a very lightly floured surface, roll from the center outward, rotating the dough frequently, until you have a thin round approximately 10 inches across.
Use only enough flour to prevent sticking. Too much loose flour can scorch on the hot cooking surface.
Don’t worry about creating a mathematically perfect circle. A beautifully thin, tender tortilla is far more important than a perfectly round one.
Keep the remaining dough balls covered while you work so their surfaces don’t dry out.
COOK THE TORTILLAS
Step 1 — Cook the First Side
Place one tortilla onto the thoroughly heated, dry skillet or griddle.
Within approximately 20–30 seconds, small bubbles should begin appearing across the surface. Allow some of those bubbles to grow and lift portions of the tortilla away from the pan.
Cook until the underside has scattered golden-brown spots, usually approximately 30–45 seconds total.
Step 2 — Flip & Finish
Flip the tortilla and cook the second side for approximately 20–30 seconds, until additional brown spots appear and the tortilla is cooked through.
If it balloons dramatically in places, that’s wonderful. Let it puff.
The exact cooking time will depend on the heat of your pan and how thinly you’ve rolled the tortilla. Watch the tortilla rather than the clock.
Avoid cooking until the entire surface is uniformly browned. Long cooking is one of the easiest ways to turn a wonderfully soft tortilla into a dry one.
Step 3 — Stack & Keep Soft
Transfer each tortilla immediately to a clean kitchen towel and fold the towel over it.
Continue stacking the warm tortillas beneath the towel as you cook. The gentle steam trapped between them softens the tortillas and keeps them pliable.
Once all the tortillas are cooked, leave the stack wrapped for another 5–10 minutes before serving.
Serve warm, while they are soft, flexible, and beautifully tender.
NOTES
Traditional-Style or Sourdough?
Both versions are designed to produce the same kind of tortilla: thin, soft, flexible, lightly chewy, and beautifully spotted from the hot cooking surface.
The traditional-style version is the simplest and quickest. The sourdough version adds the flavor and benefits of fermentation while keeping the tortilla mild enough to work with almost any filling.
For the sourdough version, I prefer an active 100%-hydration starter. Fresh discard can also be used, but its acidity and strength will vary, so the flavor and texture may be slightly different.
Why There Is No Baking Powder
Many excellent flour tortillas are made with baking powder, particularly in some regional and Tex-Mex traditions, but it isn’t essential.
For this recipe, I leave it out intentionally. The goal is a thin, supple tortilla with a little chew rather than a thicker or fluffier tortilla. The bubbles and pockets develop naturally when the well-rested dough meets the hot cooking surface.
The Fat
Traditional flour tortillas are often made with lard, which contributes tenderness, flexibility, and flavor. For this plant-based version, mild olive oil or a neutral oil performs that tenderizing role beautifully.
The amount of oil is intentional. There is enough to keep the tortillas tender and pliable without making them heavy or greasy.
If using olive oil, choose one whose flavor you enjoy. A very assertive or bitter olive oil can become noticeable in something as simple as a flour tortilla.
The Dough Should Be Soft
Don’t be tempted to make the dough overly firm simply because a firmer dough is less sticky and easier to handle.
The dough should be soft, smooth, supple, and pliable without being wet or sticky. Flour absorbs water differently depending on brand, humidity, and storage, so begin with the amount given and add the additional water only if the dough needs it.
A softer dough rolls more easily and helps produce a tortilla that remains tender after cooking.
Mixing by Hand
A stand mixer is convenient, but absolutely not necessary for this dough.
For the Traditional-Style Tortillas, combine in a large bowl:
384 g all-purpose flour
7 g fine sea salt
Add:
60 g mild olive oil or neutral oil
225 g warm water
For the Sourdough Tortillas, combine in a large bowl:
334 g all-purpose flour
7 g fine sea salt
Add:
100 g active sourdough starter (100% hydration)
60 g mild olive oil or neutral oil
175 g warm water
For either version, mix with a sturdy spoon or your hand until no dry flour remains. If the dough feels firm or dry, add:
Up to 10–15 g additional warm water, a few grams at a time
Allow the dough to rest as directed in the Method, then knead by hand for approximately 5–7 minutes, until smooth, soft, and supple. The short rest does much of the work for you, so the dough should become increasingly easy and pleasant to knead.
Avoid adding extra flour unless the dough is genuinely sticky. A soft dough is one of the secrets to a tender, flexible tortilla.
Resting Is Important
Resting may seem like the least exciting part of tortilla making, but it makes an enormous difference.
The first rest allows the flour to hydrate and the dough to relax. The second rest, after dividing and rounding, is especially important because relaxed dough rolls into a large, thin tortilla without continually shrinking back.
If a tortilla fights you while you’re rolling it, don’t fight back. Cover it, set it aside for another 5–10 minutes, and let the gluten relax before trying again.
Rolling 10-Inch Tortillas
Each dough ball should weigh approximately 110 g and roll comfortably to about 10 inches.
Roll from the center outward, rotating the dough frequently and using only a light dusting of flour. Aim for an evenly thin tortilla rather than a perfectly round one.
If you can see a subtle shadow of the work surface through portions of the dough, that’s fine. These are meant to be large and relatively thin.
Cast Iron or Electric Griddle
Both work beautifully.
A cast-iron skillet gives especially good blistering and scattered dark spots because it holds intense heat so well. A round electric griddle is wonderfully convenient and provides an even, broad surface for large tortillas.
Whichever you use, cook the tortillas on a dry surface without oil and allow it to preheat thoroughly.
Heat Is Everything
A tortilla should cook quickly.
If the cooking surface isn’t hot enough, the tortilla spends too long in the pan and loses moisture before it develops its characteristic bubbles and brown spots. That is one of the most common reasons homemade flour tortillas become dry or stiff.
If the tortilla burns before bubbles have a chance to develop, the surface is too hot.
You’re looking for the sweet spot: bubbles appearing within seconds, scattered brown spots developing quickly, and a tortilla that remains soft when it leaves the pan.
Keep Them Covered
As each tortilla finishes cooking, immediately place it beneath a clean kitchen towel and stack the remaining tortillas on top.
This isn’t simply about keeping them warm. The gentle steam created by the stack helps soften the freshly cooked tortillas and keeps them wonderfully pliable.
Let the completed stack remain wrapped for another 5–10 minutes before serving.
Sourdough Fermentation
The sourdough version doesn’t need to double like bread dough. We’re using fermentation primarily to develop flavor, tenderness, and character rather than to create a lofty crumb.
For a same-day tortilla, allow the dough to ferment at room temperature until it feels relaxed and slightly aerated.
For a longer fermentation, refrigerate it overnight or up to approximately 24 hours. The longer it ferments, the more noticeable the sourdough character may become.
Make Ahead
The dough can be made ahead and refrigerated, making fresh tortillas surprisingly easy to fit into a meal.
For the traditional-style dough, refrigerate it well covered after mixing and resting and use within about 24 hours.
The sourdough dough is particularly well suited to an overnight refrigerator rest.
Bring either dough out early enough to lose some of its chill before dividing and rolling. Cold, tight dough will fight the rolling pin; relaxed dough will practically invite you to roll it.
Storage & Freezing
Fresh tortillas are wonderful straight from the griddle, but they also keep well.
Once completely cool, store them airtight in the refrigerator for several days. Reheat briefly in a hot dry skillet or griddle until warm and flexible again.
For longer storage, freeze the tortillas with small pieces of parchment between them. Once frozen, individual tortillas can be removed as needed and reheated directly from frozen or after a brief thaw.
A Final Thought
A flour tortilla is one of those foods that proves simplicity doesn’t mean there is nothing to learn.
Flour, water, salt, and a little fat don’t leave much room to hide. The softness of the dough, the time you give it to rest, how thinly you roll it, and those few seconds on a hot griddle are what transform four simple ingredients into something worth making again and again.
And once you become comfortable with the dough, tortillas stop feeling like a recipe at all. They become something you simply know how to make.
This is the kind of food that nourishes quietly.
It asks us to slow down,
to listen,
and to remember what is enough.