Easy Gluten Free Pita Bread | Ready in Under 30 Minutes w/ No Yeast
Make this gluten free pita bread to use for sandwiches, dipping, and more. This gf pita bread recipe takes less than 30 minutes to prepare with no yeast.
Servings: 8 pitas
Equipment
- Stand mixer (or food processor)
Ingredients
- 1 ¾ cups all purpose gluten free flour blend (I used Better Batter; click thru for info on appropriate blends), plus more for sprinkling
- 1 teaspoon xanthan gum omit if your blend already contains it
- ¼ cup Expandex modified tapioca starch (See Recipe Notes)
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 tablespoon neutral oil (like vegetable, canola or grapeseed)
- 1 egg at room temperature
- 1 egg white at room temperature
- ¾ cup milk at room temperature
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 400°F. If you have a pizza stone, place it in the oven while the oven preheats. If not, use an overturned rimmed baking sheet
- In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or the bowl of your food processor fitted with the steel blade), place the flour, xanthan gum, Expandex, baking powder and salt. Mix (or pulse) to combine.
- To the dry ingredients, add the oil and then the eggs and milk and beat (or process) the dough until it is very well-combined and parts begin to pull away from the sides of the bowl (about 2 minutes). The dough should be thick and tacky to the touch.
- Turn the dough out onto a very lightly floured surface, and sprinkle it very lightly with more flour. Using a bench scraper or sharp knife, divide the dough into 8 equal parts.
- Roll each into a ball by rotating it in a circular motion on a very lightly floured flat surface. Pat each ball into a disk and then, using a rolling pin and flouring the round very lightly to prevent sticking, roll it out into a round a bit less than 1/4-inch thick.
- Place the disks about 1-inch apart on a piece of unbleached parchment paper. Place the disks on the parchment in the oven (on top of the baking stone or overturned baking sheet) and allow to bake for 2 minutes.
- Working quickly, open the oven and invert the pitas. Allow them to bake for 1 minute and then re-invert and bake until puffed and very pale golden on top (another minute).
- Remove the pitas from the oven, and allow to cool for about 3 minutes, or until they can be handled. Slice each round in half through the center. With a very sharp knife, gently coax open the center of each pita half. Serve warm or at room temperature.
Video
Notes
For information on where to find Expandex, please see the Resources page.
In this particular instance, if you don’t have Expandex, you can replace it with more all purpose gluten free flour, and increase the liquid amount by ⅓ to 1 cup. This will work particularly well if your all purpose gluten free flour blend is my favorite for this recipe, Better Batter's classic blend.
The dough will be much more wet, and less formed. Handle this dough with wet hands, divide it into 8 portions, roll each into an approximate ball with wet hands.
Place the dough on a piece of parchment paper and spread it into a round about 1/4-inch thick by pressing wet fingers down in a circular motion on the dough. Continue with the recipe as written.
This recipe was originally published on the blog in 2011, and a version of it is in my second book, Gluten Free on a Shoestring Quick & Easy. It was updated in 2016 with more photos and a video, and in 2022, more text resources were added.
Nutrition
Calories: 141kcal | Carbohydrates: 26g | Protein: 2g | Fat: 2g | Saturated Fat: 1g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g | Monounsaturated Fat: 1g | Trans Fat: 0.01g | Cholesterol: 3mg | Sodium: 408mg | Potassium: 37mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 1g | Vitamin A: 37IU | Vitamin C: 0.001mg | Calcium: 73mg | Iron: 0.1mg