Instantly Make Tortillas for Pennies

[Editor’s Note: Christina has a lot more pictures here]

Tortillas are a fun alternative to bread that have become a staple in my diet. They are inexpensive and they’re the perfect vehicle for toppings, carrying everything from eggs to hummus to meats to sautéed vegetables into my mouth.

Sure, I could buy small corn tortillas from the grocery store or a Mexican restaurant. Depending on where I shop, I might pay anywhere from a nickel to a quarter apiece, but I’ve been much happier with the tortillas I make at home.

Best of all — making homemade tortillas is incredibly simple. If you can combine a few ingredients in a mixing bowl, you’re already halfway there.

The recipe

The brand I buy helpfully includes a recipe printed right on the bag, which calls for masa harina mixed with water, rolled flat and fried. Simple!

However, a few minor tweaks can make the difference between good-enough tortillas and truly great ones. Here’s my variation:

Makes 10-20 tortillas depending on size and thickness

• 2 cups masa harina
• 1 ¼ cups of water
• ¼ cup of oil or cooking fat
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1 ½ tsp salt

About the changes

The addition of oil or leftover bacon grease will give the cooked product a nice toasted flavor and won’t stick to a non-stick pan.

Baking powder helps the mixture rise just enough to give the tortillas a bit of a pillowy texture.

That little bit of salt makes a big difference for taste.

Instructions

Mix 1 and 7/8 cups of masa harina with all of the baking powder and salt, then stir in the water and oil (or cooking fat).

You’ll use the final 1/8 cup of masa harina to coat your cutting board and rolling pin.

Once smooth, form the mixture into  balls slightly smaller than a golf ball — or whatever size you desire — and roll flat. If you insist upon perfectly round, Instagram-ready tortillas, just use an overturned bowl to cut away the excess edges. Obviously, a tortilla press would make this step even easier.

Cook in a non-stick pan until you start to see a bit of golden brown on either side, flipping every 30 seconds.

So is making your own tortillas actually *that* much cheaper than just buying them at the store?

At my grocery store, a bag of masa harina costs $2.99 and makes 173 tortillas. Add in the nearly negligible amounts of the other ingredients, and each tortilla costs around $0.02.

At the same grocer, the cheapest 32-count bag of tortillas is $1.49 or, $0.05 each.

Yes, three cents per is an actual difference, but the real reason I make tortillas at home is the higher-quality product.

For that little bit of effort, I’m rewarded with tasty tortillas that have a perfect texture and don’t fall apart with wet ingredients.

One shortcoming I’ve noticed with store-bought corn tortillas is that it’s easy to get them too stiff when I re-heat them and watch them break when I fold them into a taco, or worse, see them fall apart when paired with wetter foods.  By contrast, when I make them at home, they have a soft, toothsome texture, fold well, and have slightly toasted edges, and the flavor is indisputably superior.

I also get the flexibility to make my corn tortillas tiny for adorable appetizers, big burrito size, or square-shaped.

More importantly, unlike store-bought tortillas which can be packed with preservatives, I get to control exactly what I put into them.

Buen provecho!