Pita bread is a great way of enjoying your favorite appetizers. Pita bread is nothing but a straightforward bread dough recipe where wheat flour, yeast, milk are combined together to form a soft dough.
Let the dough rise, covered for about 2-3 hours and it will almost double in size. Bake it in the oven or over a cook-top and you will have amazingly soft and delicious pita bread ready in 10 minutes.
Below I have shown two versions of pita bread – one baked in the oven and other cooked over the cook-top/tawa. Both the versions are super easy and healthy. Among the two – baked and cook-top version I prefer the cook-top version. Reason – in both the methods pita bread puffs up nicely but in baked/oven version the upper layer puffs up beautifully and result in crispy pockets that can break easily if not handled carefully.
In the cook-top/tawa version, pita bread puffs up nicely but looses its puffiness towards the end. Cook-top version is much denser and softer as compared to oven pitas which makes it easier to work with. Made with just 5 ingredients these pita pockets will be a hit among your family.
Give these make-ahead pita bread a try and you’ll never want to buy pita bread at the store again! Quick and easy to make and perfect as an appetizer to make healthy falafel pita pocket sandwiches! Enjoy it with potato balls and green chutney. Or stuff these pita breads with lettuce, onion, tomatoes, falafel and sauce of your choice.
How to make pita bread or pita pockets
INGREDIENTS
- 1 teaspoon Sugar
- 1 packet Active dry yeast
- 2 cup Whole Wheat Flour (Atta)
- 2 tablespoons Maida (All purpose flour)
- – – Salt to taste
- 1 cup Water lukewarm preferably
- 1 tablespoon Olive Oil
INSTRUCTIONS
- In a small bowl, combine yeast and sugar in ¼ cup of lukewarm water. Mix to combine. Let it sit for 5 minutes. Soon it will look creamy and frothy.This proofing procedure shows that yeast is alive and active. If by now your yeast has not become frothy, please discard and start over.
- Combine all the dry ingredients ( flours and salt) in a bowl and give a good mix.
- Add yeast to the dry ingredients and mix it well.
- Slowly add water and oil to the dough and mix until it forms a soft, pliable dough.
- Cover the dough with a damp cloth and set it aside for 2 hours. Or you can cut short the time by proofing teh dough in the Instant Pot.
- The dough will almost double in size.
- Transfer the dough to a dusted surface and knead the dough for 10 minutes.
- Divide dough into 6 equal balls.
- Transfer the rolled dough balls to a baking tray. Cover them with a damp cloth and allow them to rest for another 30 minutes for second proofing.
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
- After 30 minutes, roll each dough ball out into thick circles. Place the rolled-out dough on a greased baking sheet.
- Bake it in the oven for 7-10 minutes or until brown from the top.
- All puffed.
- Remove the baked pitas from the oven and allow them to cool completely.
- Pita bread pockets are ready.
PITA BREAD ON TAWA
- Making pita bread on a tawa is super easy. Just like a roti, roll them out and toast them on the tawa. Soon they will start to puff up. Using a spatula, press the puffed-up part so that the other part also gets puffed up.
- Tawa-made pita bread is ready for stuffing.
That’s a wonderful recipe Ruchi…i regularly refer to your site for my day to day recipe cooking..it has really been helpful…your step wise pics n funny write ups attract me to come everyday and to try out your recipes.keep up the great job. My pita bread was so soft and stayed like that for long. Please update it with a new pic.
Thanks Apeksha 🙂
What if the dough does not doubleup in size? Nd remains hard?
That means the yeast didn’t activate and because of that the dough didn’t dough in size.
Hi Ruchi, I only have instant dry yeast. How much should I use as I do not have to proof it ?
1 teaspoon instant yeast equals 1 1/4 teaspoons of active dry yeast.
So, you will require 3 teaspoons (1 tablespoon) of instant yeast for this recipe.
Hi Ruchi, I tried this and it did not come out well. The dough had a very strong yeast smell after puffing and once I cooked it, it tasted very bitter and came out very hard. I did not have maida flour so I skipped that part, however, I am not sure whether that was the reason for the hard bread and bitter taste.
What did you use instead of maida?
I only used two cups of atta flour as stated in the recipe and skipped the maida
That should not be an issue then.
For how long the dough was allowed to rise?
Too long of a rising time in hot and humid conditions can also cause the bread to smell yeasty.
The bitter taste could be a result of the flour. Wheat flour, in particular, can become rancid quite quickly that’s why all-purpose flour is added to the recipe.
How many grams is there in 1 packet dry yeast of your recipe . My 1pack is of 3gms dry yeast
Tried ur other breads recipe, all turned out super awesome .thanks for making our search easy
Thank you for your kind words, Amita!
1 packet of Active dry yeast equals 7 grams/ 11 ml/ 2.25 teaspoons.
which brand atta do you use
I have used Swad whole wheat flour but you can use any brand for this recipe.
Hi Ruchi, thank you! I made a vegan version using fresh organic vegan yeast. I put the dough in a warm room (around 35 Celsius) to rise for a few hours. I made them on the stove top using a tava else it would have taken too long to do in batches in the oven. They puffed up nicely. I cut in half and put in the freezer. I just pulled them out of the freezer and put them in the toaster as and when needed. They were an absolute hit with vegan dips! I making a further 18 today! In gratitude 🙏🏼
Thank you for your lovely feedback and kind words, Mrs. G!
Happy to know that you enjoyed this recipe. 😊
Dear Ruchi, unless I’m mistaken, oil is in the ingredients but not photographed or mentioned again. When do we add it? Thank you
MrsG, I have updated the recipe.
I followed your recipe to the T but for some reason my pitas didn’t puff up. There were just bubbles everywhere. I made them in the oven. Where could I have gone wrong? Please help.
Rabiya, if you have rolled the pita dough TOO thin, then they will not puff. Also, the oven must be hot enough for the puff to happen.