5-Ingredient Homemade Fluffy Flour Tortillas

By Marley Goldin

on May 26, 2020

last updated January 23, 2025

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5 from 2 votes

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These homemade fluffy flour tortillas will up your taco game by providing a perfectly fresh, soft, and warm base.

Ready to go all out for Taco Tuesday? Nothing says “I poured my heart and soul into this meal” than making everything from scratch, down to these Homemade Fluffy Flour Tortillas.

Honestly, I feel like my taco game is pretty strong, but learning how to make these tortillas REALLY brought them to the next level. You just can’t buy fluffy and fresh at the store.

This recipe makes a beautiful flour tortilla that won’t fall apart, even when you over-stuff it (because are you even eating a taco if you aren’t making a mess?).

Try these fluffy tortillas with your quesadillas, tacos, fajitas, and more!

These are particularly amazing in these Salmon Tacos with Greek Yogurt Sauce and Fish Tacos with Mango Salsa.

homemade tortillas surrounded by fresh ingredients

As a time-pressed mom who really loves to feed my family from-scratch food, I love a simple and easy recipe like this that I can prep on a Sunday and use throughout the week.

Homemade Fluffy Flour Tortillas Ingredients

Just 5 pantry ingredients and hot water will get you these super fluffy flour tortillas.

You’ll notice this recipe calls for two types of flour. After testing these every which way, I found that using half all-purpose flour and half bread flour gives just the right amount of chew and lends a more durable tortilla that won’t crumble.

Here’s everything you’ll need:

All-purpose flour. Half all-purpose flour will give you a firm but fluffy tortilla.
Bread flour. It gives the tortilla a little more chewiness and bounce.
Water. It should be warm or hot. No need to boil or heat on the stove, just hot water from the tap will do. It simply helps you more easily emulsify the water and oil together.
Salt. For flavor.
Baking powder. For a subtle rise. I promised you fluffy!
Coconut oil. Coconut oil gives the tortillas the most neutral color and gives it a very subtly sweet flavor.

coconut oil, bread flour, hot water, salt, baking powder, all-purpose flour

Homemade Fluffy Flour Tortillas Tips and Tricks

Combine Your Dry Ingredients First

Giving both flours, the baking powder, and the salt a whisk before adding your oil and water together just makes mixing all your ingredients more seamless.

adding flour to a mixing bowl — Mix together the flour, salt, and baking powder.

Make An Emulsion

I know what you’re thinking, oil and water don’t mix. But using warm water and whisk will allow you to combine the coconut oil and water into an emulsion.

This is the best way to integrate your wet ingredients into your dry. Whisk the water and coconut oil together for about 1 minute, until the mixture looks merky and there are no solid coconut oil lumps.

using a whisk to emulsify water and coconut oil — In a separate bowl, emulsify the oil and water.

Use Your Hands

Once you add the dry and wet ingredients together, use your whisk to combine as much as you can. You’ll notice the dough gets pretty thick, and the whisk will most likely leave some extra flour behind in your mixing bowl.

Use clean hands to work the extra flour into your dough.

using hands to mix dough together — Add the wet and dry ingredients, whisking as much as you can, then using clean hands to bring the dough together.

Flour Your Surface

While there is no need to spend a lot of time kneading this dough, you do want a nice, clean, floured surface to work on. You will use two hands to knead just a couple of times to ensure the dough is mixed well and ready to shape.

Once you’ve transferred your dough to the surface and used your hands to work it into a shapeable piece of dough, you should be left with a thick, firm dough that is not at all sticky.

If you find that your dough is sticky at all, add a little bit more all-purpose flour, 1 tablespoon at a time, working the flour into the dough until it feels like play-dough.

Flouring a clean surface to shape tortillas on. — Add flour to a clean surface.

Kneading tortilla dough on a floured surface. — Turn the dough out onto the floured surface and knead.

Flatten Your Dough

Once your dough’s ingredients are fully integrated and your left with a firm dough, use a rolling pin to flatten it. Roll it out into an oval shape, until it is only about 1/2 an inch thick.

Using a rolling pin to flatten tortilla dough. — Roll out the dough to flatten it.

Prepping Your Homemade Tortilla Dough to Shape

When your dough is flat, you can then use a knife or pizza cutter to slice your dough into 12 roughly even pieces.

Take each piece and roll it in between both hands until your left with 12 balls of dough. Each ball will be shaped into a tortilla using a rolling pin.

Cutting dough into 12 roughly equal-sized pieces. — Slice the dough into 12 roughly equal-sized pieces.

12 balls of flour tortilla dough lined up next to one another. — Roll each piece of dough into a ball.

Shaping Them

Use your rolling pin again to shape each dough into a round and flat tortilla.

You’ll notice that once you pick up your tortilla, it will start to shrink. Bearing this in mind, roll your tortilla out a little bit flatter and larger than your desired final size.

I find the easiest way to get a circular shape is to roll the ball out flat, then rotate it, continuing to roll and rotate, roll and rotate, until you are left with a flat circle.

shaping tortilla — Flatten each ball out with a rolling pin or tortilla press.

How to Cook Homemade Tortillas

Get your pan hot first over medium heat. Once your tortilla is shaped, it will take less than a minute to cook.

One at a time, place your tortillas straight on the pan (no need to oil or grease), and watch as your tortilla starts to form a bubble or two. This should only take about 30 seconds.

Flip you tortilla and cook on the second side for 10-20 seconds, until both sides have golden brown spots.

Adding homemade tortilla to hot frying pan. — Heat the tortilla for about 30 seconds on both sides.

Tortilla frying in a pan. — You will see some spots of the tortilla turn golden brown.

Storing and Reheating Your Tortillas

These flour tortillas will last up to three weeks in the refrigerator in an airtight container and retain their freshness and flavor. You’ll notice that they harden after a couple of days, but don’t worry! If you reheat them properly, they will bounce right back.

They will also stay fresh at room temperature for up to 12 hours or you can opt to freeze them for about 1 month.

To reheat, thaw from the freezer first. From the fridge, you can either toast them on a pan again, the same way you do when you cook them, or you can heat them in the microwave between two damp paper towels for 15 seconds.

Just wet two paper towels in the sink, and ring them out before placing the tortillas in between them.

Adjusting Their Size

These tortillas are comparable to what is labeled as a “taco size” tortilla at the store. They’re perfect for fresh tacos and individual-sized quesadillas and come out to be about 10 inches in diameter.

If you want to use these more for burritos or wraps, you may want to consider making them larger.

The best way to do so is by diving the dough into just 8 pieces instead of 12. This will give you more dough to work with for each tortilla. Roll them out flat, until they are about 14 inches in diameter.

Conversely, if you want them smaller, try dividing your dough into 14-16 pieces. Roll them out flat into mini tortillas, about 6 inches in diameter.

hand grabbing a tortilla from the pile to stuff it with fresh ingredients

More on Homemade Flour Tortillas

Making Flour Tortillas without Lard

Tortillas are traditionally made with lard, but can easily be replicated with shortening, butter, or oil.

In this recipe, we are using coconut oil instead of lard as a more environmentally-friends source of fat.

Cost of Homemade Vs Storebought Tortillas

Generally speaking, making flour tortillas from scratch will save you money. Using average USD prices for the ingredients in these Fluffy Flour Tortillas, each tortilla averages to about 7 cents per tortilla.

Compared to the average price per tortilla buying them pre-made in the store (12 cents), homemade tortillas are about 58% cheaper.

Why are my flour tortillas chewy?

If your tortillas seem too chewy, they are most likely overcooked.

Cooking the tortillas for too long will take too much moisture out of the dough.

Want to sharpen your kitchen skills?

How to Get Flour Tortillas Fluffy

The baking powder in the dough is the primary source of “fluffiness”. It’s the reason these tortillas bubble and puff up in the pan!

If you’re not seeing any puffing or bubbling, make sure your baking powder is not expired.

Bread Flour Vs All Purpose Flour in Homemade Tortillas

You can use 3 cups of all-purpose flour instead of doing half all-purpose and half bread flour and still achieve a flour tortilla that doesn’t fall apart.

However, if you want them fluffy as promised, you have to use some bread flour. It has more protein in it, allowing it to rise faster and achieve that fluffiness in the short minute they are toasting (with aid from the baking powder, of course!)

How to Flatten Flour Tortillas from Scratch

The simplest solution to getting a flatter tortilla is rolling them out flatter!

And the easiest way to do this is to invest in a tortilla press. I personally like mine a little thicker, but a tortilla press will allow you to get them paper thin and perfectly shaped.

stack of homemade fluffy flour tortillas

Why You Should Make These Fluffy Flour Tortillas

They’re fluffy. The perfect base for any taco or wrap.
They’re fresh. Nothing better than hot off the press.
They’re natural. Preservative free.