Easy Flour Tortilla Recipe (with Butter)

Here is an easy flour tortilla recipe with butter. This recipe creates a buttery tortilla that is perfect for homemade fajitas, quesadillas, etc. You can also use your homemade tortillas as delicious sandwich wraps.

Flour Tortilla Recipe with Butter – Delicious!

Recipe Sections

1. Ingredients
2. Instructions
3. Helpful Tips

Recipe Rating 4.94 from 16 votes Featured Comment Micaela “Thank you for your flour tortilla recipe. I’m 75 young and for 70 of those years I have never used anything but lard. Today I used your recipe and was so happy I did. Followed it to the T. Wonderful taste and so very soft. Will never by lard again. So easy and delicious. If I could I would give you 10 stars!”

Flour tortillas are quick & super easy to make (because tortillas do not require a long time to rise or extensive kneading). Homemade tortillas are also much more tasty & far less expensive than the mass produced packaged store brands (that have been sitting on the store shelf for weeks).

Moreover, these tortillas are made with simple ingredients. You know exactly what is going into your tortilla! In contrast, mass produced packaged tortillas often include various chemicals & preservatives.

Ingredients – Easy Flour Tortilla Recipe with Butter

• 2 3/4 Cups – All Purpose Flour – 330 grams
• 1/2 Teaspoon – Salt – 3 grams
• 1 Teaspoon – Baking Powder – 4 grams – Baking powder is optional. However, I like to add baking powder because it creates a slightly softer & airier tortilla.
• 4 Tablespoons – Unsalted Butter (melted in microwave) – 57 grams
• 1 Cup – Water (warm) – 230 milliliters

Servings – Roughly 8 tortillas. FYI – Just double all of the recipe ingredients if you want to make 16 tortillas.

Equipment Needed – Measuring cup & spoons, large mixing spoon, electric stand mixer (optional), large cutting board, rolling pin and frying pan.

Create Tortilla Dough & Place on Cutting Board Covered with Some Flour

Create Dough Balls & Use Rolling Pin to Shape/Flatten into Tortillas

Instructions – Easy Flour Tortilla Recipe with Butter

Below you will find instructions on how to make flour tortillas by hand or with an electric stand mixer.

Instructions – Tortillas by Hand

• Add the ingredients into a large mixing bowl.
• Stir all of the ingredients with a large spoon until they are completely mixed. Partially knead the dough in the bowl in order to make sure that all flour is thoroughly incorporated into the dough.
• Pour the semi-finished dough onto a large cutting board (that has been covered with a small amount of flour in order to prevent the dough from sticking to the cutting board).
• Knead the dough by hand for 3-5 minutes.
• Divide the dough into 8 equal-sized pieces. Roll each piece into a ball with your hands. Each ball should be roughly the size of an oversized golf ball. Add a little flour to your hands to prevent any sticking. FYI – I like to press the dough balls into a semi-flat circle before using a rolling pin. This makes it easier for the tortilla to retain a circular shape when being rolled out.
• Use a rolling pin to rollout the dough balls into a flat & very thin oval. Sprinkle a little flour onto each ball (before rolling) in order to prevent them from sticking to the rolling pin & cutting board when being rolled into flat tortillas. FYI – I like to roll out & fry one tortilla at a time (so I don’t roll out the second tortilla ball until the first has been fried). If you want perfectly round tortillas, you should try using a machine known as a “tortilla press”.
• Fry each tortilla in an ungreased frying pan at low/medium heat. FYI – Be careful not to burn the tortilla… so it is better to flip the tortillas more frequently than expected when frying the tortillas (until you get used to frying tortillas on your stove).
• Use a spatula to remove finished tortilla from frying pan. Place on a plate if serving immediately or place on a wire cooling rack to cool.
• Please read the tips section below for extra information on how to maximize the success of this recipe.

Instructions – Tortillas with an Electric Hand Mixer

• Unplug your electric stand mixer. FYI – Read the tips section below if you do not have an electric stand mixer and want to mix the tortilla dough by hand.
• Remove the mixing bowl from the electric mixer.
• Add a dough hook to your electric stand mixer.
• Pour the flour, baking powder and salt into the electric mixing bowl.
• Add the butter and water to the electric mixing bowl.
• Place the mixing bowl back in the electric stand mixer,
• Lower the dough hook into the mixing bowl.
• Plug in the electric mixer.
• Turn the machine on and mix the dough on low/med speed for 3-5 minutes. FYI – See the tips section below about scraping the inside of the mixing bowl during the mixing.
• After you have finished mixing & kneading the dough, unplug the electric mixer and remove the mixing bowl.
• Pour the tortilla dough onto a cutting board. Sprinkle some flour on the cutting board (before you pour out the dough) in order to prevent the tortilla dough from sticking to the cutting board.
• Divide the dough into 8 equal-sized pieces. Roll each piece into a ball with your hands. Each ball should be roughly the size of an oversized golf ball. Add a little flour to your hands to prevent any sticking. FYI – I like to press the dough balls into a semi-flat circle before using a rolling pin. This makes it easier for the tortilla to retain a circular shape when being rolled out.
• Use a rolling pin to rollout the dough balls into a flat & very thin oval. Sprinkle a little flour onto each ball (before rolling) in order to prevent them from sticking to the rolling pin & cutting board when being rolled into flat tortillas. FYI – I like to roll out & fry one tortilla at a time (so I don’t roll out the second tortilla ball until the first has been fried). If you want perfectly round tortillas, you should try using a machine known as a “tortilla press”.
• Fry each tortilla in an ungreased frying pan at low/medium heat. FYI – Be careful not to burn the tortilla… so it is better to flip the tortillas more frequently than expected when frying the tortillas (until you get used to frying tortillas on your stove).
• Use a spatula to remove finished tortilla from frying pan. Place on a plate if serving immediately or place on a wire cooling rack to cool.
• Please read the tips section below for extra information on how to maximize the success of this recipe.

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Helpful Tips – Easy Flour Tortilla Recipe with Butter

• The tips below are designed to help tortilla & flatbread “novices”.
• Click on this “print recipe” link if you want to print out this recipe. It includes all of the recipe’s ingredients and instructions. However, the recipe print function does not include my tips section. Please read the tips section on this page in order to avoid common recipe problems.
• This recipe is part of Bread Dad’s series on Easy Bread Recipes such as buttery white bread, French bread, bagels and soft whole wheat bread.

• Wheat flour tortillas are best for softer & more flexible tortilla dishes (e.g. fajitas). Corn flour tortillas are better for harder & crunchier tortilla dishes (e.g. tacos).
• As you probably know, a tortilla is a type of flatbread. The dough is rolled flat into thin circles and then fried on an UNGREASED pan. An ungreased pan is used in order to stop the tortillas from being “greasy” when held in a person’s hand.
• As I said above, be careful not to burn your tortillas. It is better to flip the tortillas more frequently than expected until you get used to frying your tortillas on your stove. Low temperature grilling takes longer but there is less chance that you burn the tortillas. Higher temperature grilling means faster tortillas (thanks Robert!). However, you also need to watch the tortillas more closely & flip them more often because they are more likely to burn (if you are not experienced with grilling at higher temperature levels).

• Tortillas are usually made with wheat flour or corn flour (masa harina). My buttery tortilla recipe uses wheat flour and not corn flour. Also this recipe uses regular all-purpose flour (and not more expensive bread flour). Both wheat flour and corn flour tortillas are delicious. However, wheat flour tortillas are more flexible & less likely to break and thus are more often used for things such as fajitas and burritos. Corn flour tortillas are more likely used for tacos and chips. FYI – Corn flour is NOT the same as corn meal.
• Traditionally, tortillas were a type of unleavened bread (and thus they did not use yeast or baking powder/soda). However, this lack of a leavening agent results in a slightly harder tortilla. Many modern tortilla recipes (as well as my flour tortillas recipe with butter) include baking powder because it helps to creates a modestly softer & airier tortilla.
• Optional – My recipe allows you to use or not use baking powder. This optional ingredient allows you to skip the addition of baking powder to create a more traditional tortilla or to include the baking powder in order to create a softer tortilla.

• Use FRESH ingredients (e.g. flour) for the best results. Ingredients that have been sitting in the pantry for months can become stale or pick up weird smells & flavors.
• Try to keep your ingredients (e.g. flour) in airtight food containers in order to extend their shelf life. Airtight containers protect ingredients from moisture (in the air), pests, dust, etc.
• Flour (if stored in an open bag and not in an airtight container) can absorb a lot of moisture from the air. This extra moisture throws off recipes and can make the dough too sticky or even “soupy”.
• This tortilla recipe will NOT work with gluten free flour. Gluten free flour differs significantly versus flours with gluten and requires you to use recipes specifically designed for the use of gluten free flour.

• You can mix & knead the dough by hand or with an electric stand mixer. I like to use an electric stand mixer when I make tortillas because it is easier, faster and usually eliminates any small unwanted flour “clumps” in the dough. However, hand kneading is also super easy.
• Optional – If you are using an electric stand mixer… At the halfway point of the mixing (about 2 minutes after you started the mixer), turn off & unplug the electric stand mixer and use a soft spatula to scrape any flour that might be sticking to the bowl. This will help to ensure that all of the ingredients are fully mixed & kneaded. After scraping the inside of the bowl with a soft spatula, plug in & turn on mixer and finish the mixing & kneading of the tortilla dough. Again the total mixing & kneading time is roughly 3-5 minutes.
• Traditionally, tortillas were made with lard (rendered pig fat). Hmm… since I don’t keep much lard at home (ha! in other words… none), I prefer to use more readily available butter in order to make my homemade tortillas. The use of butter creates delicious buttery tortillas that are great for many homemade meals.
• In place of butter, you can use vegetable oil (e.g. olive oil or corn oil). However, your flour tortilla will be missing the great taste of butter!
• Interesting Tortilla Fact – According to Wikipedia, “In the U.S., tortillas have grown from an “ethnic” to a mainstream food. They have surpassed bagels and muffins, and have now become the number two packaged bread product sold in the U.S (behind sliced bread).”

• If you want your buttery tortillas to be shaped as perfect circles, you will need to use a tortilla press (versus rolling the tortillas out with a rolling pin). This machine “squishes” the tortilla dough into flat round circles. FYI – I am too cheap for a tortilla press… so I stick with a rolling pin to make my less than perfect circular tortillas! Ha! They still taste great.
• This recipe calls for dividing the dough into 8 equal-sized pieces. You can easily do this by dividing the initial dough in half with a knife, etc. Then cut the halves in half (and then you will have 4 pieces of dough). And finally, cut the fourths in half…. and this will result in 8 roughly equal lumps of dough. Roll these 8 pieces by hand into oversized golf balls.
• Tips from my visitors – Jayne left a reheating tip “My family enjoyed eating them and we re-warmed the few that were left over the next day by microwaving them for 20 seconds until they were soft again. So delicious!”

• Here are examples of some fantastic meals that you can make with our buttery flour tortillas. Tortillas + steak strips + fried peppers + fried onions = delicious steak fajitas! Tortillas + shredded Monterey Jack cheese = amazing cheese quesadillas. Tortillas + sliced ham + sliced cheese + mayonnaise = great ham & cheese sandwich wrap.
• FYI – Some people like to use a tool called a “tortilla warmer” in order to keep their just fried tortillas warm until they are served. In addition, some tortilla warmers can also be microwaved in order to warm up cold tortillas.
• You can also turn these homemade tortillas into delicious quesadillas. Check out my Quesadilla Panini Recipe if you want to learn how to make some easy chicken & cheese quesadillas with your panini machine or panini griddle.
• Visitors – How do you like to use your homemade tortillas? To make quesadillas? Tacos? Burritos? Fajitas? As sandwich wraps? Please add you tortilla suggestions & tips to the comment section below.

• If you like “flatbread” type recipes, you might also like to try Bread Dad’s Frying Pan Bread (Skillet Flatbread) recipe.
• If you have a problem with a basic recipe, please make sure that you are following the recipe exactly. Use the exact amount of an ingredient called for in the recipe (e.g. don’t eyeball the measurements versus using a measurement cup or accidentally add a tablespoon when a teaspoon is called for), use the correct ingredients (e.g. don’t confuse baking soda with baking powder), etc. Please don’t “wing” things with recipes.
• My recipes are based on US ingredient measurements (e.g. US cups & tablespoons). However, as a courtesy to our European visitors, I have also included some very ROUGH European equivalents (e.g. grams & milliliters). Since I rarely use European measurements when baking, please let me know in the comment section below if any of the European ingredient measurements need to be changed (e.g. for XYZ ingredient, milliliters are more commonly used versus the grams information listed in the recipe).
• Always wear oven mitts/gloves when dealing with a hot oven, frying pan, etc.
• For more easy bread ideas, please visit Bread Dad’s Homemade Bread Recipes or Bread Machine Recipes sections. .

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Reference Sources

1. Wikipedia, Corn Tortilla
2. Wikipedia, Fajita
3. Wikipedia, Flour Tortilla
4. Wikipedia, Tortilla Press
5. Wikipedia, Unleavened Bread

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