How to Make Nopalito Homemade Flour Tortillas

Ever made homemade tortillas? If you haven’t, you should. Like, now.

Can you just got and buy store bought? Of course. Same thing with dried pasta. But if you really like Mexican food and preparing it at home, nothing beats homemade tortillas. I don’t have the tools for the traditional corn tortillas, but flour is a great second options. Very basic ingredients, just takes a little TLC, especially if you do not have a tortilla press, which I don’t.

Not much else to say about tortillas except how freaking amazing they are when you make them at home. Let’s get started.

Cookbook – Nopalito – A Mexican Kitchen

Ingredients –

All purpose flour – 4 cups
Lard or softened butter – 4 1/2 tbsp
Salt – 1 1/2 tsp
Baking powder – 1 1/2tsp
Warm Water – 1 1/4 cups + 2 tbsp

Tools –

Stand mixer (I use a Kitchen Aid, best in the business)
Rolling pin or tortilla press
Scale

Step 1 – Mix flour mixture

In a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, mix in the flour, lard, salt, and baking powder until combined. Slowly trickle in water with the motor running, beat until an elastic dough forms, turn off. Pull out the dough.

Step 2 – Measure out tortilla balls

Portion the dough into 2oz balls, and set them on a baking sheet. Cover with plastic wrap and put in a warm place for 1 hour, the dough will slightly increase. I got about 17 balls by the way.

Step 3 – Rolling and heating

After an hour and you are ready to work, heat a large pan over medium heat. This step takes longer than you think

Work with one ball at a time, I used a rolling pin. I started by pressing the ball down with my hands to create the initial flattened circle, then used a rolling pin. The best method that worked for me was to work in a circle with straight movements. So first push is 12oclock, next is 1:30, next is 3:00, and so forth. I found that got me the somewhat most circular tortillas in the. Don’t worry if they are not perfect, they won’t be. Unless you have a tortilla press laying around, then bravo.

Once pressed, place in the heated pan one at a time. Turning once, cook until no longer raw and slightly blistered. Usually less than 2 minutes a side.

Watch the first few tortillas to figure out the timing, then while they are cooking, you can start rolling out the other tortillas. I could usually roll about half the new tortilla, before the one in the pan needed to be flipped, then finished the new tortilla before removing the cooked one.

The tortillas should be about 8 inches in size, but you can also tear the balls in half to make your own smaller street taco style tortillas, which I definitely did.

Set aside, and cover with plastic. Bravo!

And for the ratings –

Difficulty of ingredients to find – 2/5 stars – you might have all this at home already
Perceived difficulty going into recipe – 3/5 stars – not really sure what to expect
Difficulty after recipe – 4/5 stars – just for the hand rolling – I want to buy a tortilla press asap, that would make it exponentially easier and will get near perfect circles
Time taken – 3/5 stars – less than 2 hours total
Taste – 5/5 stars – fresh tortillas as ridiculous, cannot recommend enough
Make again – 5/5 stars – without a doubt