How to Make Homemade Corn Tortillas

Learn how to make homemade corn tortillas. In this recipe you’ll learn everything you need to know on how to make your very own Masa Harina Corn Tortillas.

Let’s make some homemade corn tortillas. I’ve been eating tacos for more or less my entire adult life and most have been with store bought wheat tortillas. Nothing really wrong with those, sometimes you don’t have the time or energy to make everything from scratch. At times like that it is great to be able to buy tortillas.

But since I’m now taking the tacos more serious I had to make my own, that means masa corn tortillas.

Masa Harina is what you’re looking for, here in Sweden it’s not easy to find so I had to get mine online (thank you Internet). Masa Harina is dried corn which has been soaked and cooked in alkaline water to make the corn loosen up and be able to grind it into a flour. To help make it alkaline limestone or ash is used.

I’ve read through a number of recipes for how to make the tortillas and sometimes you see recipes that suggest that lime juice should be put in the dough. I’m guessing this is a misunderstanding from the treatment with limestone in the process of making the Masa Harina. Most recipes only call for water and Masa Harina, I think that lacks some salt so I added a pinch of salt to my dough. Personally this makes it much better. Now let’s make some dough.

Homemade Corn Tortillas

Makes about 10-14 tortillas

3 dl / 1.25 cups Masa Harina (blue or white)
2,5 dl / 1 cup water
1 tsp salt

In this recipe I use blue corn tortillas but this recipe works for both, there doesn’t seem to be much difference between the white and blue when it comes to the dough. The taste is different on the other hand. I prefer the blue ones this far but both taste great and is a big step up if you are used to wheat tortillas.

Simply combine the ingredients and knead it into a smooth dough. Wrap the dough in plastic film or put it into a plastic bag and leave to rest for at least two hours. This step to rest the dough is apparently very important. But I haven’t tried to cook the tortillas right away myself so I’m not sure how important it really is. But another good thing is that you can keep the dough for a few days in the fridge once it’s done. So you can prepare this ahead of time if you want to.

Once the dough has rested take a piece of dough and roll it into a ball about the size of a golf ball. Then you can either press it into a tortilla using a tortilla press or roll it with a rolling pin. To do this you need some thick plastic. Without it the dough easily sticks to the press or rolling pin.

Press the tortilla and then cook it in a frying pan on both sides. I used a normal non-stick pan I got from IKEA and it works fine. The heat should be at about medium hot. I have an induction stove and had it on 6-7 on a scale of 10.

The cooking takes about 2-4 minutes, I let it cook for about one minute and then flipped it. Then it will be partially filled with the hot air and blow up a little bit. Once cooked remove it and keep it warm. I used a kitchen towel where I put the tortillas in between. You don’t have to keep them warm if you want to cook them before serving. You can leave them to cool in the towel or put them in a plastic bag after they cooled down a bit and then reheat in time for serving.

I did invest a few buck in an Mexican tortilla press, it cost me around $35 via an online store in Sweden. Considering it was made in Mexico and I bought it here I’m guessing I payed more than what you could find one for anywhere. And it is made out of cast iron so it’s not like I’m gonna wear it out.

The fact that it looks really cool and I get to say that I own a tortilla press from Mexico doesn’t hurt either.