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How to Make the Best Pita Bread at Home
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If pita is the queen of Middle Eastern yeasted flatbreads, chef Erez Komarovsky surely must be the Prince of Pita. Learn all the secrets of how to make this delicious and easy homemade pita bread recipe. This six-ingredient Middle Eastern bread is so easy to make, you’ll never want to buy store-bought pita bread ever again.
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What Is Pita Bread?
Pita bread is a soft, fluffy, delicious Middle Eastern flatbread. Made from wheat flour, yeast, sugar, salt, water, and olive oil, pita is a staple food across the Middle Eastern and Mediterranean regions. Pita is popular in countries like Israel, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, and Greece, among many other others.
The key element in pita, as Erez tells us, is the airy central pocket that puffs up when you bake it. Baking homemade pita bread at a high temperature creates steam, causing the dough to puff up into a pita pocket. These airy pockets are perfect for inserting ingredients into – like for making a pita sandwich, or as a dip for your delicious hummus.
Pita Bread Origins
Pita is a bread with prehistoric roots. Experts believe that pita-like flatbreads originated in the Stone Age, thousands of years ago, when the Natufian people made flatbread from cereal grains. Several millennia later, bread was very important to the ancient Babylonians of Mesopotamia, where the earliest written records and recipes related to bread-making have been found.
Flatbreads prominent in North Africa and Asia were once utilized as eating utensils so that people didn’t have to use their hands. These breads, cooked in a clay or metal oven called a tinûru (also known as a tannur or tandoor), were commonly baked in households long ago, and were similar to present-day taboon and tandoor breads.
Food historians don’t know when steam-puffed pita bread was invented. But today, pita and yeast leavened flatbreads are some of the world’s most widely-consumed breads because they are tasty as well as cheap and easy to make.
Is Pita Bread Healthy?
Pita breads are healthy because they are low in calories and rich in fiber, vitamin B6, and many important minerals like magnesium, phosphorus, selenium, manganese, and iron.
Homemade pita breads are also low in cholesterol and saturated fat, making them healthy for your heart. Homemade pita bread can be eaten either warm or cold and keeps very well in an airtight bag.
What Do You Eat with Pita Bread?
Pita bread is the perfect accompaniment to so many of your favorite meals. Pita pockets fresh out of the oven can be split open and used as wraps to hold all sorts of fillings. Pitas are traditionally stuffed with falafel, salads, and grilled meats and are excellent to eat with kebabs or with chicken shawarma sandwiches. Baked pita makes a great dip for hummus, tahini, masabacha, baba ganoush, harissa, and tzatziki sauce.
Many Israeli breakfasts and lunches aren’t complete without pita bread. While certain pita breads are great for sandwiches, Greek pita bread lacks a pocket and is more commonly used to make dishes like souvlaki.
Leftover pita can be baked into pita chips, transformed into salad croutons, or repurposed into pizza dough. In his lesson, Erez uses his pita dough recipe as a base for sficha, a Middle Eastern pizza topped with lamb and fire-roasted tomatoes, as well as for manakeesh, a Lebanese flatbread Erez smothers in a fragrant homemade za’atar spice blend.
Chef Erez Komarovsky’s Pro Tips to Making Pita Bread
- Need to Knead: Knead the dough with a wave-like motion for a full 8 minutes. If you feel yourself getting tired, let the dough rest for a minute while the gluten develops, and then continue. Also, make sure you let the dough rise for enough time.
- High Gluten Flour Power: Bread flour, or focaccia flour, is higher in protein than regular all-purpose flour and is best for pita making. The extra gluten will ensure wonderful elasticity and the puffiest pita possible. While you can use whole wheat flour or gluten-free flour, the best results are with high gluten bread flour.
- Flames on Fire: If a wood-fired taboon isn’t part of your kitchen arsenal, don’t despair. A hot oven preheated to its maximum temperature works fine, too. Just remember: If your pitas won’t puff, it probably means the temperature is too low. But don’t fret too much: our pita recipe will still yield a delicious taste.
Erez Komarovsky's Homemade Pita Bread Dough
Serves:
12
|
Hands-on:
1 hr
|
Total:
4 hrs
Ingredients
1 kilogram all-purpose flour (substitute with Focaccia flour or pizza flour), plus more flour as needed
30 grams fresh yeast (or 1 tablespoon active dry yeast)
30 grams white sugar (substitute with raw cane or brown sugar)
700 ml chilled water
30 grams extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon salt
Gear
Sheet pan
Rolling pin
Wooden pizza paddle
Taboon oven (or regular oven)
Plastic wrap
Dough scraper
Cutting board
1 large metallic bowl
Recipe
- Preheat your wood-fired taboon oven to high heat. Alternatively, if you do not have a wood-fired oven at home, you can heat the oven to the highest heat.
- Transfer flour to a large mixing bowl and combine fresh yeast, rubbing it with your hands to remove any clumps. This also helps sift the flour. Note: While home cooks can use a wooden spoon or stand mixer with a dough hook attachment, Erez prefers mixing by hand.
- Add sugar, mix until well combined.
- Make a well inside the flour and add 650 ml of water to the middle.
- Use one hand to knead for about 6 minutes.
- Add more water as needed until the dough comes together.
- Transfer the dough to a flour-dusted wooden board.
- Knead for a further 8 minutes until it is smooth and does not stick.
- Add salt on top of the dough, knead for about 3-4 minutes, and return it to your bowl.
- Drizzle olive oil over your dough and lightly knead until the oil is well incorporated.
- Coat your bowl with olive oil and use your hands to spread more of it over the dough.
- Cover with plastic wrap and let it rise for about 45 minutes.
- After 45 minutes, fold the dough, grabbing it by the edges and folding it into the middle. Repeat this fold 4-5 times.
- Cover again, so that the dough rises for another 30 minutes, with the smooth side up.
- After 30 minutes, transfer to a lightly floured work surface and divide the dough into 14 equal dough balls.
- Dust the dough with a little flour and cover with plastic for 30 minutes.
- Dust the surface with plain flour and flatten each dough ball with a rolling pin or a glass bottle into slightly thinner and round shapes.
- Cover the rolled out pita with plastic so it doesn’t dry and let it rise in a warm place for another 30 minutes.
- After 30 minutes, transfer two of your rolled out pitas directly to a flour-dusted wooden pizza paddle and into the cleaned taboon oven to bake.
- The pita should puff up immediately. Rotate the pita gently so it does not burn.
- Bake the pita for about 3 minutes on each side. Then, continue baking the remaining pitas in batches.
- Rotate as needed and keep an eye as they bake quickly.
- If you do not have a wood-fired oven and are using a regular oven at home, transfer 2 of your rolled pita doughs to a flour-dusted baking sheet and bake on the middle rack.
- Pitas can also be cooked stove top on a hot skillet or a large cast iron skillet.
- The baked pitas can be wrapped tightly and frozen for longer shelf life.
- Pita can be served with hummus, or used as a pocket and stuffed with falafel, shawarma, sabich, or your favorite ingredients.
- Serve warm pita with a big smile because it’s delicious.
Erez Komarovsky
Renowned chef, baker, and cookbook author celebrated as the “Godfather” of modern Israeli cuisine, Erez Komarovsky takes viewers on a journey to discover the roots of his Middle Eastern cuisine. Starting from the bustling markets of Tel Aviv, Israel to his blissful home in the North Galilee, Erez teaches viewers how to bake his “flowering” Challah and Pita breads, plus his signature dishes including Lamb Kebabs, Hummus Mezze with Falafel, Harissa Chicken, Fish Crudo and more.
