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My 5-ingredient Homemade Pita Bread is one of the easiest bread recipes for beginner bakers. The pillowy, no-knead bread is incredible for wrap sandwiches or to scoop up dips.
Whether you fill them to make a sandwich or cut them to use for dipping, homemade pita bread is soft, scrumptious, and totally addictive.
This version is easy to make and ideal for wrapping your next gyro or serving with a Mediterranean Buddha bowl. Your next baking project awaits!
Table of Contents
Recipe ingredients
At a Glance: Here is a quick snapshot of what ingredients are in this recipe.
Please see the recipe card below for specific quantities.
Ingredient notes
- Active dry yeast: Fleischmann’s, Red Star, Bob’s Red Mill, or Saf are all good brands of yeast. Just make sure it’s fresh and hasn’t expired. To begin this Homemade Pita recipe, you’ll bloom the yeast with warm water that’s between 110 and 115 degrees. Within 15 minutes, the yeast should look foamy. If it doesn’t, the yeast isn’t alive and should be discarded. Yeast activates at 40 degrees and dies at 140 degrees.
- Sugar: I promise this doesn’t make the pita sweet! The yeast just needs some sugar to fuel its work to make these Homemade Pitas puffy.
Step-by-step instructions
- In a small bowl, combine warm water, yeast, and sugar, and stir until dissolved. Let sit for 15 minutes, until mixture foams.
- In the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with a dough hook or by hand, add oil, salt, and flour and mix until smooth and elastic, about 2 to 3 minutes, adding more flour if the dough is too sticky (about 1 teaspoon at a time). Dough should be soft and moist.
- Place dough in a large greased bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Leave in a warm place until dough has doubled in size, about 1 hour.
- Place a pizza stone or large cast-iron skillet in the oven and preheat the oven to 500 degrees. Lightly dust a clean surface with flour. Using your hands, punch down dough and turn it out onto floured surface. Divide dough into 4 even sized pieces and roll into balls (about 3 ounces each). Cover with a towel or plastic wrap, and let rest for 10 minutes.
- Working one at a time, roll each round into a ¼-inch thick circle, about 8-inches wide, sprinkling dough with extra flour if it starts to stick to the surface.
- Working as quickly as possible, open your oven and carefully place as many pitas that will fit on your skillet or stone without touching. Bake until air pocket balloons form and the pita start to become golden brown, about 3 to 4 minutes. Repeat with remaining rounds.
- Place baked pita on sheet pan and cover with kitchen towel to keep warm.
Recipe tips and variations
- Yield: This recipe makes four (8-inch) pitas.
- Storage: Store pita bread in an airtight container at room temperature for 2 to 3 days. Do not store in the refrigerator (it will dry out).
- Freezer: Wrap pita bread in a double layer of plastic and freeze for up to 3 months. Thaw at room temperature.
- Get spicy: Infuse more flavor into every crumb by brushing the still-warm pita with olive oil or clarified butter. Immediately sprinkle with any dried herb, such as oregano or marjoram, or spice blend, like za’atar.
Recipe FAQs
Pita bread is made from flour, sugar, yeast, oil, and salt. Naan has those ingredients, too, but also butter, eggs, and yogurt.
Pita bread is tasty enough to snack on its own, warm from the oven. It’s also the ideal wrap for beef and chicken gyros, or as a dipper for hummus, tapenade, tzatziki, or roasted eggplant dip.
Chicken Gyros
Whatever you’re throwing on the grill this weekend, there’s room for Chicken Gyros. The tender, yogurt marinated chicken tastes incredible tucked into pita with fresh veggies and slathered with an easy, homemade tzatziki sauce. Making…
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Favorite dips for pita bread
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Homemade Pita Bread
Ingredients
- 1 cup warm water (between 110-115 degrees)
- 2 teaspoons active dry yeast (about 1 packet, see note 1)
- 1 teaspoon granulated sugar (see note 2)
- 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour plus more for dusting
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 1/2 teaspoon salt
Instructions
- In a small bowl, combine warm water, yeast, and sugar, and stir until dissolved. Let sit for 15 minutes, until mixture foams.
- In the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with a dough hook or by hand, add oil, salt, and flour and mix until smooth and elastic, about 2 to 3 minutes, adding more flour if the dough is too sticky (about 1 teaspoon at a time). Dough should be soft and moist.
- Place dough in a large greased bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Leave in a warm place until dough has doubled in size, about 1 hour.
- Place a pizza stone or large cast-iron skillet in the oven and preheat the oven to 500 degrees. Lightly dust a clean surface with flour. Using your hands, punch down dough and turn it out onto floured surface. Divide dough into 4 even sized pieces and roll into balls (about 3 ounces each). Cover with a towel or plastic wrap, and let rest for 10 minutes.
- Working one at a time, roll each round into a ¼-inch thick circle, about 8-inches wide, sprinkling dough with extra flour if it starts to stick to the surface.
- Working as quickly as possible, open your oven and carefully place as many pitas that will fit on your skillet or stone without touching. Bake until air pocket balloons form and the pita start to become golden brown, about 3 to 4 minutes. Repeat with remaining rounds.
- Place baked pita on sheet pan and cover with kitchen towel to keep warm.
Recipe Video
Notes
- Active dry yeast: Fleischmann’s, Red Star, Bob’s Red Mill, or Saf are all good brands of yeast. Just make sure it’s fresh and hasn’t expired. To begin this Homemade Pita recipe, you’ll bloom the yeast with warm water that’s between 110 and 115 degrees. Within 15 minutes, the yeast should look foamy. If it doesn’t, the yeast isn’t alive and should be discarded. Yeast activates at 40 degrees and dies at 140 degrees.
- Sugar: I promise this doesn’t make the pita sweet! The yeast just needs some sugar to fuel its work to make these Homemade Pitas puffy.
- Yield: This recipe makes four (8-inch) pitas.
Nutrition
Meggan Hill is a classically-trained chef and professional writer. Her meticulously-tested recipes and detailed tutorials bring confidence and success to home cooks everywhere. Meggan has been featured on NPR, HuffPost, FoxNews, LA Times, and more.
in the picture you show Pita in roasted Triangles can you give instructions how to make these into chips for the dip? Which dip recipe is shown?
Hi Mark, to make the chips you would cut the bread into triangles and coat them in olive oil and seasonings of your choice. Bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes until they are slightly brown. The dip shown here is our homemade hummus with za’atar butter. Heres the link: https://www.culinaryhill.com/hummus-with-garlic-and-lemon/