• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Mexican Please

  • Home
  • Recipes
    • Most Popular
    • Most Recent
    • Salsas
    • Appetizers/Sides
    • Beans
    • Breakfast
    • Dessert
    • Drinks
    • Enchiladas
    • Main Dish
    • Mexican Cooking 101
    • Tacos
    • Soup
    • Tortillas
    • Vegetarian
  • Articles
  • Cooking Course
  • About Me
  • Contact

Types of Tortillas (Including Recipes!)

11 shares
  • Share
  • Tweet

Here’s a quick intro to the different types of tortillas you’ll find in your journey through Mexican cuisine.  We have recipes for most of these tortilla types on our site, so I’ll link to the recipe page where appropriate.

First up is the cornerstone of Mexican food — the corn tortilla.  You can find these at any store in the States,  but if you’re in Mexico they are made fresh daily.  And most likely they are significantly better than what you are used to.

Here’s what they looked in the Chedraui market in Cozumel.

Homemade Corn Tortillas so easy! mexicanplease.com

Cozumel, Mexico – Photo by Chloe Miller

There are a couple ways to make your own corn tortillas at home.

The old school way, which is for the hardcore aficionados out there, is to make your own batch of corn masa.  For this you’ll need dried field corn and some calcium hydroxide.

This masa dough is a great starting point for homemade corn tortillas, tamales, and pupusas. We're taking a shortcut by using a food processor to grind the corn and so far the results are fantastic! mexicanplease.com

After the corn rests in the calcium hydroxide overnight you’ll end up with nixtamal.  Grind up the nixtamal and suddenly you’ve got a fresh batch of masa dough.

This masa dough is a great starting point for homemade corn tortillas, tamales, and pupusas. We're taking a shortcut by using a food processor to grind the corn and so far the results are fantastic! mexicanplease.com

You can use a food processor to grind up the masa if you want, but you’ll have to make a couple adjustments if you use this instead of a more conventional grinder.  Here are some tips for making corn tortillas from masa using a food processor.

The other way to make corn tortillas at home is to take advantage of a delightful shortcut that you’ll find in the flour section of most grocery stores.  Mexican producers dry out the corn masa to create masa harina, or corn flour.

We're using fresh masa dough to make a delicious batch of homemade corn tortillas! We also added some masa harina to the dough to make it easier to work with. mexicanplease.com

This is simply dehydrated masa and when you add water back to the flour you have some “homemade” masa that you can use to make a surprisingly good batch of corn tortillas.

Here’s a a step by step guide on how to make corn tortillas using masa harina.  This is the easiest way to get homemade tortillas in your house and I always recommend starting with this method as you get a great reward for very little effort.

Homemade Corn Tortillas so easy! mexicanplease.com

Next up is flour tortillas.  These are a bit more common in the States than they are in Mexico, but make no mistake they are versatile and can be used in a number of ways in your kitchen.

Authentic flour tortillas are made using lard.   Yes, lard!  Here’s a recipe for homemade flour tortillas that uses a batch of home rendered lard.  They have great flavor and are surprisingly easy to make.

homemade flour tortillas three rolled up-2

But it’s true, many people will shy away from using lard, so we put up a recipe on the site that creates a delicious batch of flour tortillas using olive oil instead of lard. 

Flour tortillas are so easy to make at home! You probably already have these ingredients on hand as this version uses olive oil instead of lard. So good! mexicanplease.com

You’ll get a slightly less authentic tortilla but they are beyond satisfying and you’ll find all sorts of ways to use them even extending beyond the Mexican realm.

(Update:  we also just put up a recipe for making flour tortillas using bacon fat.)

I also want to mention that flavored tortillas are becoming more popular these days.  You might have seen chipotle flavored tortillas in your local markets as this is one of the most common flavorings.  We wrote an article on creating chipotle flavored tortillas using two different styles of flavoring; one with whole chipotles and one with chipotle powder.

chipotle golfball flour balls for homemade tortillas

It’s worth checking out the article to give you an idea of how easy it can be to flavor your tortillas.

The last type of tortilla I want to mention is a half-and-half tortilla.  These are sometimes called mitad y mitad tortillas in Mexico, and they are half corn, half flour tortillas.    These are typically more hearty than a traditional corn tortilla, but they retain some of that authentic corn flavor. 

Update:  we now have a recipe up for these — see Half and Half Tortillas (Corn + Flour). 

Here’s what they look like:

I keep seeing these Half and Half Tortillas in my neighborhood and decided to experiment with my own recipe -- I'm glad I did because they were delicious! mexicanplease.com

There’s one last thing I want to mention regarding homemade tortillas…

There’s a hidden advantage in experimenting with the recipes we’ve linked to in this article.  Yes, ending up with a batch of homemade tortillas is awesome, but it will also give you a tortillameter that you can use to gauge the quality of the store-bought tortillas in your neighborhood.

If the store-bought tortillas are miles away from your homemade version then you can bypass them and either make your own or find another company that makes a more satisfying tortilla.

We don’t always make our own tortillas at home but we’ve become very picky on the ones that we buy at the store.  Luckily, most areas in the States will have a couple different producers that are making decent quality tortillas that aren’t too dissimilar from our homemade versions.

In other words, there’s no reason you can’t have a kitchen full of authentic, rewarding tortillas every day of the year.  That’s good news!

Okay, I will put links to all the tortilla recipes below.  Let me know if you have any questions about any of the recipes.  Happy tortilla making!

Homemade Flour Tortillas

Flour Tortillas Made With Olive Oil

Flour Tortillas Made With Bacon Fat

Chipotle Flavored Flour Tortillas

Homemade Corn Tortillas

Homemade Masa Dough Using Yellow Field Corn

Corn Tortillas Made With Homemade Masa

What is Nixtamal?

To get up-to-date recipes follow me on Instagram, Facebook, or Pinterest.

Flour tortillas are so easy to make at home! You probably already have these ingredients on hand as this version uses olive oil instead of lard. So good! mexicanplease.com

 

Still hungry?!

Want to receive Mexican Please recipes via email when they are posted?  Sign up below to subscribe.  All recipes are spam free.

And don't worry, we hate spam too!  You can unsubscribe at any time.

Thank You For Subscribing!

Primary Sidebar

Hey, I'm Patrick! I spent 2 years living in Cozumel and got obsessed with Mexican food. I built this site to share all the recipes and techniques I've learned along the way. Read More…

Footer

Mexican Recipes

Cooking Course

Mexican Cooking 101

Ingredients

Salsas

Starting a Food Blog

Enchilada Recipes

About Me

Contact

Disclaimer

© 2022 Mexican Please
 - Privacy Policy