Like homemade flour tortillas, homemade corn tortillas are incomparably better to the packaged store-bought variety. They are also very easy to make. And I know, I know some of you are rolling your eyes and thinking, sure they are - but they require nothing more than mixing 4 ingredients into a dough, pressing them into tortillas and cooking them for a few seconds in a hot skillet.
So yes, opening a package of tortillas is easier. But in exchange for a few minutes more, you can have warm, soft, homemade tortillas that are just so much better.
Let me show you how to make them!
I recently did a live class showing how to make homemade corn tortillas and Gallo Pinto (Costa Rican beans and rice). Find it here: How to Make Homemade Corn Tortillas + Costa Rican Beans and Rice
You just need 4 ingredients to make homemade corn tortillas (and one of them is water):
Masa harina
Baking soda
Salt
Warm tap water
Step-by-step photos and instructions
Add the masa harina, baking soda, and salt to a bowl and stir with a wire whisk to combine. Add the water and mix until a soft dough forms. If the dough is too dry to form a ball, add more water, a little bit at a time, until you can press the dough into a ball. Wrap it in plastic wrap and let it rest for 5 minutes.
Unwrap the dough and knead it for a minute or two. It should be the consistency of play-dough. If it feels dry and crumbly, sprinkle more water over the dough and knead to incorporate. If it’s wet and sticky, mix in some more masa harina.
Divide the dough into 8 balls of equal size. Cover the balls with plastic wrap so you can work with one ball at a time and they won’t dry out.
Place one ball of dough in between two pieces of wax paper and press it into a disk. Use a rolling pin to roll the dough into a round, thin tortilla. Alternatively, use a tortilla press to press the dough in between two pieces of wax paper into a tortilla.
Stack the raw tortillas with pieces of wax paper in between them. When they are all rolled out, set a skillet over medium-high heat. When the skillet is hot enough for a drop of water to skip across the bottom of the pan and evaporate, add the first tortilla.
Cook for about 10 to 15 seconds then flip it over and let it cook until the edges are dry, another 20-30 seconds. Flip the tortilla over again and press it down into the pan with a flat spatula to encourage puffing. Cook for another 10 seconds, until brown spots appear over the bottom then flip it once more, press with the spatula, and cook until brown spots appear on the other side.
Remove the tortilla from the skillet and repeat with the remaining dough.
I like to place the tortillas in a tortilla warmer pouch as they come off the skillet which will keep them warm and soft for quite some time - an hour or longer.
Now that you’ve got that down, how about trying your hand at homemade flour tortillas?
Soft, warm homemade tortillas are one of the best things in the whole wide world. Combine that with how easy they are to make and flour tortillas from scratch becomes one of the few life decisions for which there can be no regrets.
Unless you eat them all yourself. Even then. Probably worth it.
This all-butter recipe is so easy and delicious, you may never buy tortillas again.
