Homemade Corn Tortillas

Corn or flour? That is the question you’ll be asked at most Mexican restaurants when ordering tortillas. Corn tortillas typically have less calories than flour, but other than that I don’t see any reason to choose them over the puffy, soft, delicious flour ones. Now that I’ve made these, my admiration for the corn fellas have grown substantially.

Being from Texas and surrounded by a plethora of awesome Mexican restaurants, we’ve grown acostumed to eating tortillas almost as much as bread. They are a staple in our weekly meals. Of course I’ve always purchased store-bought tortillas to use at home, but with the encouragement of my husband I decided to give it a go making them at home. I honestly figured it would be really hard to make homemade tortillas. You don’t even see many Mexican restaurants that make  fresh corn tortillas, or if they do, they don’t do a very good job (there are a couple exceptions that I can remember)!

I made corn and flour tortillas (wheat) recently and they were both were pretty darn awesome. Here is why I’ve never really been a corn tortilla fan- when you buy them from the store, they’re thin, they break easy and taste kind of weird in my opinion. If you’ve ever had good fresh corn tortillas though, you will certainly know. They taste completely different than store-bought!

I also hate seeing how many preservatives go into our packaged goods. These were shockingly easy to make. Ingredients= masa harina, water, salt. That’s it!! Mix, form into balls, flatten and cook on griddle pan.

So this what I used- Bob’s Red Mill masa harina. If you’ve never heard of masa harina, it’s a popular flour used in Mexican cooking and is made from ground corn that has been cooked, soaked and treated with lime. I passed it in the grocery store one day, as I was thinking about making tamales at home and then saw the super simple tortilla recipe on the back of the package! I am sure there are plenty other brands out there. I usually find the Bob’s Red Mill items in the “health food” section of the grocery store.

Being totally honest with you, making fresh tortillas takes some time so it’s probably not something you’ll be whipping up at every meal. However it is still great to learn how to make them for when you do have the time. I ordered a tortilla press (that is on backorder) which should help speed up the process of flattening them. Any time you can decrease consumption of packaged goods, it’s a good thing.

The corn tortillas reheated well, but I suspect without the preservatives they would be best for the first few days (ours didn’t last past day 2). They were ridiculously good.

This is just a reminder to go for it- experiment in the kitchen. Almost anything you buy in the packaged can be made from scratch! Oh and if you missed the awesome veggie tacos that I made using these tortillas, click here or see previous post.

[print_this]

Easy Corn Torillas

INGREDIENTS:

2 cups masa harina
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1 1/2 to 2 cups hot water

DIRECTIONS:

1. Mix the salt into the masa harina corn flour. Slowly pour the water into the flour mixture until you get a good doughy consistency. The dough should be firm and springy when touched, not dry and sticky. Cover dough and let rest for an hour.
2. When ready to cook: preheat griddle. Form corn tortillas into 2 inch balls- press out between 2 pieces of wax paper or use a tortilla press or rolling pin to flatten into a circular shape. Place flattened tortilla on hot griddle and cook for about a minute or until the top starts to look cooked. Flip and cook for a few seconds. Makes 12 -6 inch tortillas.

COOK’S NOTES: Without a tortilla press, I had trouble getting mine into perfect circles. No problem though- they still tasted great. I did not need the full 2 cups of water to get the right consistency so pour water in little by little. This recipe can easily be cut in half.

[/print_this]

If you like this post, please leave me a comment, share with your friends or PIN away! I’d love to hear from you.