With the expansion of ethnic foods into supermarkets you can purchase pita bread just about anywhere, but I must say store bought pita bread is generally dry and flavorless. Cardboard comes to mind here.

Homemade pita bread on the other hand, is soft, pliable and phenomenally delicious.

Pita bread is also easy to make with ingredients you probably already have in your pantry like flour, yeast, olive oil and sugar.  The most difficult part, by far, is waiting for the dough to rise so that you can roll it out and bake it.

How to Make Pita Bread

Pita Bread Recipe

3 Cups All Purpose Flour
3 Tablespoon Extra Virgin Olive Oil
2 Teaspoons instant yeast
2 Teaspoons Kosher Salt
1 Teaspoon Honey

1. I prefer to let my food processor do the kneading for me, so the first step is placing all of the dry ingredients into it’s bowl and pulsing a few times to sift. 

2. Add the olive oil and pulse a few more times until it is dispersed. Do the same with the honey.

3. Turn the processor on low and slowly add the water through the top.  Now go slowly here, because if it has been humid, you may not need all of the water.  Check often (WITH THE PROCESSOR OFF!) to see if it has reached the proper consistency.  You want the dough to be just a little past tacky, it should stick to your fingers when you touch it.
4. Once the correct amount of water has been added, turn the processor on low and let it work the dough for 5 minutes.  My food processor is awesome and it has suction cups on the bottom that prevent it from moving while it’s working something tough like dough, if yours doesn’t, make sure to keep a hand on it to prevent it from moving.

5. Lightly grease a bowl with PAM or olive oil.  When the dough is done being worked, move it to the greased bowl for it’s first rise.  Cover with plastic wrap and let sit for 1 to 2 hours.

6. After this first rise, your dough should have doubled in size.  No rise?  You probably have erectile dysfunction or dead yeast, either way, there is no point in moving on.

If however, you’ve got a giant blob of dough in your bowl, you’re on your way to making pitas.  You’ll notice that the dough is now even stickier than before, but that’s a good sign.  We do need to get the dough out of the bowl now, so coat your hands and the top of the dough with a dusting of flour.

Remove the dough from the bowl and form it into a ball.  This recipe will make 8 pitas, so with that in mind dive your ball in half.  And divide each half in half. Finally divide each quarter in half, you should have 8 balls.  If not, you need to work on your fractions.

7. Roll each piece of dough into a ball and set it on a clean kitchen towel or piece of plastic wrap.  Cover with the same so that air can not get around your balls.  As comforting as that may sound, they will harden and become useless.  Let these rise for another hour.  Don’t worry, all this waiting will pay off soon.

8. While you are waiting for your dough to rise you can prepare a place to roll out your pitas.  Make sure it is floured well your you’ll never get your dough off. Also, have an area available to lay out your rolled pitas before they are baked.

9. After an hour your balls should be substantially larger.  One by one you’ll roll the balls into large disks.  You can go for circles if you are so inclined, but I also appreciate long narrow ones for a flatbread look.

Simply flatten the disk, then pushing out from the middle extend the dough.  Turn 1/4 turn and repeat until you’ve got yourself a circle.  Keep doing this until the dough is very thin, about the thickness of a flour tortilla.

Set each disk aside, but be careful not to let them touch or you’ll never get them apart.  These disks should rise for 15 minutes before you bake them.

10. While the traditional pita bread everyone thinks of has a pocket in it, this dough is pretty versatile, so you can actually cook it a myriad of ways, each with different results.  I will show you how to get your standard pita as well as a type of fry bread.

Traditional Pita:

This method couldn’t be easier, simply heat your oven to 350 and place two of your flattened disks onto a cookie sheet.  You can also use a pizza stone if you have one available.  Bake for 5 – 6 minutes and you will have the most tender and moist pita bread you have ever tasted in your life. 

Remove the pitas from the oven and place on a cookie rack to cool.

Frybread Pita:

This method of cooking produces a chewy pita with crispy edges, and while it doesn’t have a pocket, you won’t much care.

Get a cast iron skillet hot over medium heat.  Immediately before your place the dough into the pan, brush the pan with olive oil to coat.  Lay the dough into the pan and let cook for 2 – 3 minutes.  You can peek at the bottom with a pair of tongs to see if it has colored yet.  Once it has, you’ll see something that looks eerily similar to the surface of the moon with bumps and craters, but you should notice that the bread has taken on some color and is cooked through.  When ready, flip the bread to color the other side.

During this process the pita will try to puff up, in order to maintain a more chewy pita, I suggest popping those bubbles with your tongs. 

After 5 – 6 minutes total, your pita will be done.  Remove to a cookie rack for cooling.

Storage:

Store your pita bread in a zip top bag on the counter, this will allow them to last for about a week before they go stale.  But stale pitas aren’t the end of the world because they are the perfect thing to make pita chips with.

You can also store your pita bread in the freezer for about a month.  Seal it up tightly in a zip top bag, making sure to get all of the air out.  When needed, defrost for an hour and enjoy.

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