Butter Naan | easy stovetop Indian flatbread

How to make easy stove top Butter Naan, or soft Indian flatbreads.

Naan is an Indian flatbread that is soft and fluffy and best served warm. This recipe yields super soft and fluffy naans, and is so unbelievably foolproof! When researching for this recipe, I noticed a lot of different ways of cooking and proofing it. The only constant were the ingredients used. I pretty much stuck to the ingredients, but freestyled the rest of the recipe with reference to my easy stove top Pita breads.

I referenced these posts to make the naan breads: this, this and this one which doesn’t even use yoghurt.

Blooming the Instant Yeast

The key difference between this and the pita bread is that the yeast is developed first before adding to the rest of the ingredients. This is also good to ensure you have active yeast.

Add instant yeast in a bowl, sugar and very warm water – warm water that will not burn you but you wouldn’t feel comfortable placing your fingers in it for long. The yeast will start to foam and get bubbly.

Type of butter used for Naan

I used ghee in this recipe, but feel free to use butter or olive oil if you don’t have ghee.

With ghee or butter, you want to melt it first before adding to the batter. I melted mine in the microwave on low for about a minute.

You would notice that as a final touch, I do not top the naans with more ghee. I much prefer using butter for this, since ghee can have a rather strong taste.

How to serve Naan

With pita breads they have to be served immediately, otherwise they turn dry and hard! Naans are best served on the day itself. Naan is a lot more forgiving, and I foresee myself whipping up a nice batch often. They keep better in the fridge than pita breads.

To use them out of the fridge, I use two easy methods:

1. Spray water on the naans, and reheat in a skillet or pan over medium-high heat for a couple of minutes.
2. Spray water on the naans, and pop in the microwave for 30 seconds on high.

Both methods involve splashing some water on the naans – this will help to create a steaming effect so you do not dry the naans out.

Naan, like most breads, are best served immediately or on the day of cooking itself. After cooking up a batch, if I’m not serving it immediately, I keep them warm in the oven at 75 deg Celcius. When I’m ready to serve them, they’re all nice and warm and toasty… and incredibly, incredibly soft.

More recipes like this:

• Easy blue pea swirl bread
• Pita bread
• Nasi minyak | ghee butter rice

Butter Naan | easy stovetop Indian flatbread

Recipe by Sha

0.0 from 0 votes

Course: Recipes

Servings

2

servings

Prep time

30

minutes

Cooking time

10

minutes

Ingredients

• 2 tsps Instant Yeast

• 1 tsp Sugar

• 1/2 cup Warm Water

• 2 cups Flour, with extra

• 1/2 cup Yoghurt

• 2 tbsps ghee, melted (or butter or oil)

• 1 tsp Salt

• To top Naans:

• Butter, melted

• Cilantro to garnish

Directions

• Blooming the instant yeast
• Combine the instant yeast, sugar and warm water first. Allow the yeast to bloom, this will take about 10 minutes. The yeast mixture is ready when it’s foamy.
• Making and Proofing the Dough
• In a bowl, add flour. Form a well in the middle of the flour, and add the yeast mixture, yoghurt, melted ghee and salt. Stir with a spatula to create a shaggy dough.
• Then use hands to knead until it becomes a proper dough. The dough should be slightly wet, and do not stick to the bowl or your hands. If it is too sticky, add flour bit by bit. There should not be too much flour too – the surface should be wet and shiny, instead of powdery.
• Cover bowl and allow dough to proof for an hour, or until it doubles in size.
• Cooking the Naans
• Once dough is ready, add flour to work space and roll dough out from bowl to the work space. Knead or roll to a shape and evenly cut into 6 pieces.
• Roll out each piece to a circle or an elongated circle.
• Heat a cast iron pan over medium to high heat. Brush with oil if needed.
• Once hot, place dough on surface. Let it cook for about 1-2 minutes – there should be some fun bubbling happening – before flipping over to the other side.
• Continue to cook for another 1-2 minutes and remove from pan. There should be some charring happening.
• Brush on melted butter to hot naans.
• Serve!

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