Warm, pillowy tortillas. Do I have your attention yet? This recipe uses sourdough starter discard and transforms it into delicious, homemade tortillas perfect for tacos, burritos, or just enjoying on their own! As long has you have some starter bubbling away, you’ll be slathering butter on a hot of the griddle tortilla in just 30 minutes.

Is anything better than a warm, homemade flour tortilla slathered in butter? A fresh-off-the griddle homemade tortilla is straight comfort food for me. Add in some sourdough starter and that comforting tortilla becomes even more, a sourdough tortilla.

Whether you began your sourdough journey decades ago, or started during the early months of the pandemic, these Sourdough Tortillas should be in your repertoire.

Pile of sourdough flour tortillas on a kitchen towel — *Warm and fluffy tortillas fresh off the cast iron*

They are soft, fluffy, easy to roll out and so fast to make! They use sourdough discard, or ripe sourdough, so no need to plan ahead.

Gathering ingredients for sourdough tortillas — *Ingredients and supplies for sourdough tortillas*

No Sourdough Starter?

Well, if you don’t have a starter, you will need to plan ahead. There are so many great guides on starting your own sourdough. Here are three guides: the kitchn, Serious Eats, Tartine Bakery. I got the Tartine Bread Book when it was first published and highly recommend for folks looking for excellence in breadmaking.

Because the sourdough in this recipe is primarily for flavor and consistency, you can use the discard a brand new starter as soon as it starts smelling “sweet.”

Sourdough starter, flour, oil, and salt in a bowl ready to be mixed — *Sourdough starter, flour, oil, and salt*

How I Developed this Sourdough Tortilla Recipe

I was surfing through the King Arthur website recipes one day (like you do) and found this recipe for Skillet Flatbread. No oven, less than an hour, and just a few ingredients. Yes and yes. I whipped up a batch.

They were good, but the frying and the thickness weren’t doing it for me. I wanted more complexity, and something less oily. I took the recipe, did some math, and decided to substitute some of my sourdough discard for the flour and water. I rolled them out like regular flour tortillas and cooked them up. Amazing. They were so easy to roll, puffed up, and tasted delicious. A revelation, but could I replicate it? The answer is yes.

Mixing dough — *Mixing up a batch of sourdough tortillas is easier if you use a giant bowl*

I’ve made these several times, tinkering with the amount of sourdough. I’ve double the recipe, I’m made thicker and thinner tortillas. My mom loved them so much, she started making them, sometimes twice a week. Yes, they are that good.

I used to buy the unbaked tortillas from Costco. They are good, but don’t remotely compare to these homemade sourdough tortillas. No even close.

Why Is This Recipe So Great You Ask?

1. Use Up Sourdough Discard

If you have a sourdough starter at home, you know it requires a lot of feeding and discarding of perfectly good starter. It feels like money and time down the drain every time you feed the starter without making bread. This recipe uses that discard. The older the discard, the more “cheesy” or “tangy” tasting your tortillas will be. If the discard is younger, you’ll hardly taste any tang.

If you don’t have discard yet, just add more flour and water to your starter an in a few hours, it will be ready. You can even use the starter that’s been sitting in the fridge for a week.

This recipe does not use the starter as a leavening agent. Flour tortillas get their “rise” from baking powder and not yeast. The sourdough is a flavor and texture ingredient only.

2. Minimal Resting Time

With typical sourdough bread, time is a main ingredient. Time to wait for bubbles, time to wait for a rise, time to let flour rest. While the actual hands-on time of the bread making experience isn’t that bad, you might be waiting three days before you actually bake and eat the bread. Not so with these tortillas.

The resting period is just 10 measly minutes.

Divided Sourdough Tortilla Pieces — *Divide and then smooth into rounded balls*

3. Tortillas Are Easy to Roll Out

The most time consuming part of making fresh flour tortillas is rolling out the individual tortillas. If you the dough is too stiff, it is a war against the rolling pin. It it is too soft, the tortillas are too flimsy to roll out. These sourdough tortillas are soft, but still easy to roll out. I don’t know why, I just know that it is true. They are stretchy, but without tasting stretchy.

Everyone’s sourdough starter will be a little different. Some may have a more hydrated starter, like I do, others may keep there starter stiffer. If your dough is incredibly soft, it is no problem. Just heavily flour the counter top when you start rolling the tortilla dough balls. The extra flour will stiffen up the tortilla.

Tortilla on case iron pan — *First side is done, with some golden to dark brown toasty spots*

4. Perfectly Pillowy and Fluffy

When I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area from Southern California, I was offended by what passed for a tortilla.

The taco shops and burrito shacks used giant tortillas (Chipotle-style) with a rubbery and stretchy feel to them. They steamed (!) the flour tortillas to warm them. The tortillas were functional to stuff massive amounts of filling. But those tortillas lacked flavor.

Southern California tortillas in mom-and-pop taco shops do not steam tortillas. Ever. The tortillas are heated on a hot surface to form charred blisters and browned spots. They are not rubbery or elastic.

While I still abhor a steamed tortilla, I except that they exist and that people like them (they say with age comes understanding).

These sourdough tortillas are not big, rubbery, or steamed. You cannot stretch theses tortillas around a mount of filling. That’s not what they do. Yes, you can wrap up a hand-held burrito with filling, but do not expect to stretch the tortilla taut around filling. Put in less filling.

These tortillas are like the kind my Grandma Ruth made. Perfect with butter and especially hot off the pan.

Tortillas on towel — *As the tortillas come off the pan, place on kitchen towel with top of towel draped over top*

What You’ll Need to Make Sourdough Tortillas

Ingredients

160 grams Sourdough Starter or Discard
280 grams All Purpose Flour plus extra for rolling
145 Cold Water
1 teaspoon Salt
2 Tablespoons Baking Powder
3 Tablespoons Neutral Oil (I use avocado oil. You can use olive oil, but the tortillas will taste like olive oil)

Supplies

You’ll need the following supplies to make these sourdough tortillas:

Kitchen Scale
Bowl
Rolling Pin
Flat Skillet or Cast Iron Pan/Comal
Clean Kitchen Towel

Sourdough Tortillas

This quick flour tortilla recipe uses sourdough discard for a delicious depth of flavor. Soft, pillowy and easy to roll out.

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Cuisine Mexican

Ingredients

160 grams Sourdough Starter or Discard
280 grams All Purpose Flour plus extra for rolling
145 Cold Water
1 teaspoon Salt
2 Tablespoons Baking Powder
3 Tablespoons Neutral Oil I use avocado oil. You can use olive oil, but the tortillas will taste like olive oil

Instructions

Prepare the Dough
Combine all ingredients in a mixing bowl. Mix with a sturdy spoon (like a wood spoon) until all the dry bits are incorporated.
Knead the dough for a minute to create a cohesive dough mass. No bits of dry flour.
Cover the bowl with a towel or dinner plate and let rest 5 minutes.
Divide the dough into 12 pieces. Shape the pieces into balls by rolling under your cupped hand on the countertop. Put the dough balls back into the bowl and cover again for 5 minutes. You can let them rest longer up to 20 minutes.
While the balls are resting, heat your pan (or pans). The pan should be hot enough to fry an egg on, but not smoking.
Shaping and Cooking
Sprinkle your countertop with flour and use a rolling pin to roll one dough ball into a disk shape. The thickness should be no greater than a ¼ inch. I prefer mine a bit thinner, but it is up to you. The disk should not be sticky at all. If it is sticky, add more flour to the counter top and incorporate it into the disk as you roll it out.
Carefully place the dough disk flat on the hot pan without burning yourself. Air pockets will begin to life the dough up in random places. When the dough is covered with air pockets (do not pierce the air pockets, the steam can burn your fingers), use a spatula look at the underside. The tortilla is ready to flip over when the bottom is opaque white and dotted with brown toasty spots.
Flip the tortilla to cook the other side. Peek at the bottom to know when it is done. When the tortilla is cooked, remove it from the pan and place it on half a kitchen towel. Drape the other half over the warm tortilla. Or place in a tortilla warmer basket/dish.
Repeat with the remaining dough balls.