The Best Basil Sourdough Tortillas

Use up some sourdough discard while using fresh or dried basil from the garden. This recipe can be made right away, or fermented longer to get the tangy sourdough flavor with just six ingredients. 

I wanted some tortillas to make tacos and egg burritos to use up some of our homegrown veggies, eggs from the coop to freeze for quick mornings before preschool, and I also had some sourdough discard to use after we got back from vacation. 

We took a five day long vacation, so I purposely fed my sourdough starter, put half in the fridge and left half on the counter, just to see how they would do. After we got back, both of the starters were just fine, so I had some sourdough starter to use up. 

Making tortillas was a great thing to make, and the process was easier than I thought! It didn’t warm up the kitchen too much when the temperatures were HOT outside. It allowed me to use a lot of garden veggies that also grew abundantly while we were gone. 

Basil Sourdough Tortillas

Easy to make basil sourdough tortillas with only six ingredients: sourdough starter, water, flour, salt, oil, and fresh or dried basil. You can easily halve this recipe for a few less tortillas, but I reach for this recipe when I need to use up a large amount of sourdough starter. 

Ingredients

2 cups sourdough starter

31 ⅕ cups filtered water

½ cup olive oil, extra virgin

1 Tbsp salt

6 cups all-purpose or whole wheat flour

4 Tbsp finely chopped fresh basil, or 2 Tbsp dried basil

Instructions

1. Add the sourdough starter water, oil, salt and flour in a mixer bowl with a dough hook

2. Knead for two to three minutes in a mixer, or five minutes by hand. It really sounded like my mixer was struggling, so I used the mixer first, plus a bit of kneading to get everything worked in together. 

3. If allowing to ferment: place dough into a greased bowl, cover with a tea towel/plastic wrap, and allow to sit at room temperature for 12-24 hours. Then follow step 4 to the end.. 

4. If making right away: divide the dough into 24 equal sections. 

5. To each dough ball, add about 1 tsp of finely chopped basil, and knead in until basil looks combined into the dough. I like to add basil to each dough ball to make sure a nice amount is in each, and spreads the flavor throughout each tortilla. 

6. ***Pro tip*** to get basil chopped really, really finely, stack the leaves of basil together, then roll them together, and then make the tiniest cuts possible across the ends of the circle of basil (chiffonade). 

7. On a lightly floured work surface, roll each ball of dough out into a circle, getting them as thin as you can without tearing it.

8. Cook them in a preheated cast iron skillet in the tiniest bit of coconut oil. I only needed coconut oil for the first tortilla, After that everything was pretty much non stick.

9. One minute on each side is plenty, just until you start to see browning, and when you can see bubbles (kind of like making pancakes). If you cook them too long on each side they become crunchy.

Can you freeze sourdough tortillas?

Yes! My mom always told me to spread things that are doughy on a cooling rack and place them in the freezer. After they are completely frozen, then stack them in a gallon ziplock baggie or airtight container. Seems to be true for these! To thaw them out you can throw them in the cast iron skillet, put them on the counter for a bit, or throw them in the microwave in 25 second intervals, flipping over each time, until they are warm and pliable. 

You can also stuff them as a delicious breakfast burrito with scrambled eggs, cheese, kale/spinach, onions, salsa and anything else you may like and THEN freeze them. I really think this is a win-win, and the best way to use these basil sourdough tortillas.

You’ve got this. I’m cheering you on! 

This is the start of something GOOD (and tasty too!)!

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