The secret to easy Indian breads you can make in minutes
Romy Gill explains different types of Indian breads and flours – and shares recipes and tips for making your own at home.
Head to the world foods aisle of any supermarket, and you’ll find plenty of pre-packaged Indian bread: mostly various types of naan, but with some chapatis thrown in too if you’re at a larger store.
I learned how to make bread from my mum. She would have been horrified if I had brought home pre-packaged, plastic-wrapped naans with a best-before date several weeks away. There is a lot to be said for convenience, but the flavour and texture of a piping hot homemade bread is far superior to anything you can buy.
Bread in Indian cultures
In northern India, bread is the staple food of many diets. In a Punjabi family like mine, it’s not unusual for homemade parathas and rotis to appear on the table at – near enough – every meal. Punjab is a region where the climate is perfect for growing wheat, so it’s unsurprising that bread is such a staple.
On family visits to the Punjab, our grandmas used to tell us about the traditions of the shared community kitchen (langar) and sanjha chulha, which means common clay oven. Years ago, in small villages, women would take wheat flour from their home and make rotis together in this shared tandoor oven. While making rotis they would enjoy a gossip, have fun, discuss everything. After making the rotis they took their share back home.
There’s plenty of regional variation, too. Even in Kashmir – a region where I spent time for my recent book – where rice is more of a staple than bread, breads are still eaten. The Bakarwal shepherds of the region enjoy maize flour flatbreads (makai tchot). Kashmiri kander/girda, a version of naan, are often made before dawn in a tandoor, and enjoyed with a cup of noon chai (salty pink tea).
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Easy Indian bread recipes
Roti/Chapati
Roti and chapati are interchangeable terms. This very thin unleavened flatbread is often made with wholewheat flour and cooked on a flat griddle. It’s great with everyday meals like dal.
Naan
A soft, pillowy, leavened bread which can be served plain, buttered, or filled with anything from keema (minced meat) to aloo (potato). Naan is served with both “dry” dishes, like meat cooked in the tandoor, and those with a gravy.
Paratha
Popular in Northern India, these are sometimes served as meals or snacks in their own right. Making parathas uses a similar technique to making puff pastry: layering with ghee and folding the dough again and again to make a flaky, chewy, layered bread. Parathas are often filled with ingredients like potato, cauliflower or paneer.
The secret to making successful breads
There’s often an assumption that because it’s bread, it’ll be complicated, time-consuming and fiddly. The opposite is true. Unlike with Western bread-making, Indian breads have only a few steps and require very little effort to get delicious results. You can buy the ingredients in any supermarket, and prepare and cook them with tools that you probably already have in your kitchen.
There are just a few important things to remember when making Indian breads.
The consistency of the dough is important. Add the water slowly to the dry ingredients, as this will help you to get a feel for the dough – if it is too dry, slowly add more water. Always make your dough in a large bowl to give you space to work. You want a finished dough that is well combined and slightly sticky.
Rest the dough before cooking. It does add more time, but it’s an important step. Check each recipe for details – it might be as little as 15 minutes or could be an hour or two, it really depends on the type of bread. Just don't be tempted to cut the resting time down. In India yeast is rarely used when making bread, and so resting the dough helps in two ways: to improve the consistency of the finished product, and to make the dough easier to roll.
Shape is less important than the thickness of your breads. This is important so that they cook properly. In India, for example, parathas can be round, square, triangular or half-moon shaped – I tend to keep mine round, as in this way I find it easier to keep them the same thickness throughout.
Use the right heat source – and at the right temperature. Rotis, parathas and other flatbreads should be rolled out then cooked in a pan on the hob on a medium to high heat. Naans are normally made in a tandoor oven. When using a home oven, preheat a baking tray (upside-down) in a very hot oven before cooking. This will ensure that your naan cooks quickly and evenly and crisps up on the outside.
Experiment with toppings. A simple brush of ghee or melted butter after cooking will ramp up the flavour of your finished breads – but don’t be afraid to play around with different toppings. Garlic (or wild garlic) butter, herbs, black onion seeds, whatever you like. Just wrap the breads in a tea towel to keep them warm and soft before serving.
Which flour to use?
Here in the UK, we’ve embraced all sorts of different types of flour in the kitchen. For some people, this is because of a gluten intolerance or allergy. For others it’s all about getting more creative in the kitchen. The same is true in India, where you’ll now find top chefs serving up barley or buckwheat chapatis, almond flour muffins, and rye bread, among other creations.
In general, though, you’ll find that Indian home cooks will stick with specific types of flour for specific types of bread.
Atta
Finely stone (chakki) ground wheat flour, usually wholemeal or a blend of refined and wholemeal flour, sometimes made from durum wheat. Used for paratha, roti and chapati.
Maida
A highly-refined, all-purpose white flour, similar to UK plain flour. Used for naan, samosas and sweet pastries.
Gram flour
Also known as besan, or chickpea flour, its most common use is for pakora and onion bhajis. In Gujarat, it’s used in dhokla: a savoury steamed gram flour cake.
Urid dal flour
Made from black lentils, urid dal flour is most commonly used to make poppadoms. In the south of India, it’s mixed with rice flour to make idli and dosa, as well as vadai – deep-fried savoury doughnuts.
It is also important not to forget millet flour. India has decreed that 2022-23 is the , celebrating the fact that India is one of the largest global growers of this grain. There are three main types of millet flour in India: ragi/nachni (finger millet), bajra (pearl millet) and jowar (white millet/sorghum), which can be used in dosa, roti and thepla (similar to paratha).
Feel Inspired?
Why not put your new-found knowledge to good use and try these Indian breads:
Originally published April 2022
