Homemade Corn Tortillas
Three ingredients and a little elbow grease are all you need to make this heavenly stack of warm, soft, beautifully handmade corn tortillas that are the perfect vessel for your favorite taco toppings.
Servings: 18 tortillas
Calories: 46kcal
Equipment
- Tortilla Press
Ingredients
- 2 cups masa harina
- 1⅔ cups water (hot)
- 1 tsp Himalayan salt
Optional: 1 tbsp melted fat (lard, bacon grease, or oil)
Instructions
- Combine the masa harina and salt together.
- Mix in half the water. Once absorbed, add in the remaining half (along with the melted fat if using) and knead until a soft dough forms. The dough should be the consistency of a sandy play dough (not dry and crumbly but not wet and sticky).
- Set the dough aside and cover with a damp kitchen towel to rest for 20 minutes.
- Divide the dough into 15-18 small balls and flatten each round using the tortilla press. Alternatively, you can use a rolling pin
- Warm a skillet on med-high heat until a drop of water sizzles when added, reduce the heat to med-low and add one of your flattened rounds and cook for 1 minute on each side until light brown spots appear. Note: do not grease or oil your skillet, there is no need for it. Once one side cooks it should easily release on it's own and slide around the pan.
- Continue working your way through your dough balls until you have a stack of cooked tortillas.
- Serve immediately for best results and store any leftovers wrapped in a clean kitchen towel or paper towel in an airtight container or Ziploc bag for up to four days. To reheat, wrap your tortillas in a damp paper towel and microwave in 10-15 second increments until warmed and flexible.
Notes
- Letting the dough rest greatly improves the texture of your tortillas as it allows the water to fully be absorbed. Though you can skip this step, I highly recommend doing it so that your tortillas are soft and flexible vs dry and crumbly.
- Be sure to place your dough balls between two sheets of parchment paper or plastic to roll them out or press them. It will the rounds much easier to work with.
- Once you have cooked a tortilla, set it on a plate and fold a clean kitchen towel over and under it and cover your tortillas with a bowl. This creates a warm dome that will keep your tortillas soft and warm while you cook the others. Continue adding tortillas to your wrapped stack and covering it back as you go.
- You can press all rounds out in advance or press them as you go (ie: while one cooks you press the other round. However you do it, be sure to keep them covered with a damp cloth to keep the dough from drying out.
- In the event that your tortilla sticks to the pan or burns, try lowering the heat. Another option if you're *not* using a Teflon coated pan is to run the bottom of the pan under your kitchen tap to cool it off quickly between every couple tortillas and bring it back up to heat since some pans tend to not retain heat evenly but instead keeps getting hotter which can cause your tortillas to stick and burn.
Nutrition
Calories: 46kcal | Carbohydrates: 10g | Protein: 1g | Fat: 1g | Saturated Fat: 1g | Sodium: 131mg | Potassium: 33mg | Fiber: 1g | Vitamin A: 27IU | Calcium: 18mg | Iron: 1mg