Here’s a simple sourdough pita bread recipe using whole wheat and healthy ingredients. The key to pita pockets that pop is to use a very active sourdough starter. We teach you how to make the best sourdough pita to feed your hungry family. If you’re new to naturally leavened breads and are just making friends with your sourdough starter, these easy pitas are a great place to begin.
Learning to Use Sourdough Starter
Learning to use your sourdough starter can be tricky so allow yourself a learning curve as you work with it. The benefits of using sourdough are many, as are the reasons to eating sourdough bread products.
So, persevere as you learn to take care of and use your sourdough starter! To help with that, here are a few simple sourdough recipes:
Sourdough Pancakes with Buckwheat Crunch
Sugar Free Sourdough Breakfast Cookies
Leftover Oatmeal Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies
Once you’ve tried a few simple recipes, it’s time to move on to sourdough pitas – you’ve got this!
To keep track of your sourdough recipes, as well as ferment times and baking details, please join our newsletter family and receive our super simple Sourdough Worksheets!
The Versatile Sourdough Pita
The reason I like to make pitas, and find them to be a simple way to use sourdough starter, is because they’re pleasing and tasty even if they flop.
A pita is made by putting a flat, pancake-looking bit of dough into a very hot oven (500 degrees) for a few minutes. In those few minutes, the pita is supposed to inflate, creating a pocket.
Into this pocket can be shoved all manner of yummy sandwich-type material. Sourdough pitas are like sandwich bread in a hurry.
Traditionally, sourdough pitas are supposed to poof up making a pocket of bread. Sometimes they don’t poof and resemble naan bread which is flat but delicious. Either way, you’re going to enjoy eating them!
A Breakfast Pita Example
To have breakfast for dinner make whole wheat, sourdough pitas. Stuff them with:
- scrambled eggs
- home-cured bacon
- tomato
- avocado
- cultured cream
- homemade feta cheese
To satisfy a sweet tooth try:
- almond butter and jelly pitas
- cream cheese and raw honey
- homemade hazelnut chocolate spread
- nuts, dried berries, coconut flakes, and cacao nibs
If You Forget to Set Up the Sourdough
If you’re like me and forget to set up your sourdough starter in time to have them for breakfast, never fear. Set up your sourdough starter and mix the pita dough in the morning so you can simply eat them for dinner. Breakfast for dinner is one of our favorites.
My sourdough pita recipe is pretty basic but I was inspired by Melissa Richardson’s book Beyond Basics with Natural Yeast. This is my absolute favorite sourdough cookbook.
Besides the book, in order to make good pitas (with sourdough starter or not), you’re going to need a quality baking stone or pan. You need a pan that can withstand the high temperature necessary to get the pitas to poof up.
Double check your pan’s quality because stones can break and metal pans can warp if they’re not designed to take that high heat.
Recipe for Sourdough Pitas
You can stuff these sourdough pitas with anything that sounds good to you – don’t be hemmed in by my suggestions. With my children, the more variety on the table, the more they enjoy the meal.
I put out a lot of options and they get to choose what they want. They love making their own choices!
Recipe for Sourdough Pitas
Ingredients
- 1 cup Sourdough starter - doubled in size with lots of bubbles
- 2 cups Water
- 2 tsp. Sea Salt
- 1/3 cup Olive or Avocado Oil
- 5-6 cups Whole Wheat Flour
Instructions
- At least six hours before baking, combine 1 cup of starter, 2 cups of water, 2 tsp. sea salt, 1/3 cup of oil, 5-6 cups of flour. Add the flour slowly, a few cups at a time. Watch for the dough to stiffen and to stop leaving a sticky dough-trail on the bowl. Be really careful not to add too much flour or your pitas will crack when baked. Be patient and watch the flour absorb the liquids until it firms up and clears the sides of the bowl.
- Knead the dough for 8 minutes in a stand mixer or 12 minutes by hand.
- Form a smooth, uniform ball of dough and place in pre-greased container. Make sure your bowl is big enough for the dough to double in size. Cover and let sit for at least six hours, but up to ten or twelve (overnight) is fine.
- Divide the dough into 15-20 pieces and form them into smooth balls.
- Preheat your oven WITH THE PAN inside to 500F/260c.
- Begin rolling out each small ball as you might a pizza dough. Keep the width uniform to prevent burning in overly thin areas. Don't overwork the dough to ensure the best success with poofy pitas.
- Once the oven and pan are preheated, quickly place the pitas on the pan. Keep your pan in the middle of your oven to prevent burning yourself as you reach in and out. I use the longest, sturdiest spatula I have to place and remove pitas. Move quickly and keep the oven open only as long as necessary to prevent dropping the temperature too much.
- Bake for about five minutes but watch the pitas so they don't turn too brown on top or they'll break. Each oven is different so adjust your bake time accordingly. After a few minutes, you should see the pitas poof.
Notes
Learning More About Sourdough, or Natural Leaven
Learn more about how to make grains and flours healthier with naturally leavened sourdough. This article includes a super simple sourdough bread recipe to get you started learning how to make sourdough products a part of your everyday kitchen.
Continue the sourdough discussion with a review of our favorite sourdough cookbook and a recipe for our favorite sourdough spelt loaf. This recipe can be used to make delicious dinner bread or dinner rolls.
If you need a bread recipe that’s even easier than the two above, try our very favorite Sourdough Beginner Bread Recipe
For more information on sourdough starter and other healthy food ferments, be sure to check out the Homestead Kitchen section of our book, The Do It Yourself Homestead. With eight different chapters and over 400 pages of homesteading how-to’s and inspiration, there’s sure to be something to wet your appetite! If you’d like a sample of the kitchen chapter, just shoot me an email at Tessa@homesteadlady.com and I’ll get you set up. Click below for more information.
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Okay, I’m all hepped up to try the Sourdough pancakes, but how on earth do I start a “starter”.
Ingredients? Proportions? Feeding time?
Hands down my favorite site for fermenting information of any kind is culturesforhealth.com – you can learn how to ferment anything. They have several free ebooks when you sign up for their newsletter, free videos on their site, wonderful products. You can buy the starter you want from them – they have several different kinds. There are other companies out there that sell starters, too, I’ve just never used them. I can also recommend The Bread Geek’s (Melissa Richardson) site. She’s written two books on sourdough that are, bar none, the best out there. Let me know if you need anything else!
You talk of whole foods and then you invite the use of white flour which is not a whole food! It has parts of the wheat removed. It in itself is denatured at that point.
Also, what have you learned in regards to sprouting grains and assuring that our seeded fruits and veggies and grains actually contain viable, sproutable seeds!
These are the living, life-giving foods. Whole, living foods. Not meat that comes from the death and killing of animals. Daniel and his brethren did not eat meat or meat products. They knew and understood that it pleased God that we should not do that unless it is in extreme cases of winter or famine when no edible vegetation is available.
Please communicate with me in regards
If you don’t want to eat meat, don’t eat meat. If you don’t want to use white flour, don’t use white flour. It’s your health and your homestead, so you get to do it your way. As does everyone else.
Have a lovely day!