Pan-Fried Cornmeal Flatbreads
A gluten-free alternative to wheat baking. These cornmeal flatbreads, made with water and oil, follow a simple recipe you can pull off any time. Minimal ingredients, maximum payoff. These savory flatbreads are great with tea or alongside soups, and they make a nice appetizer for a party spread, too.
Cooking method
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Step 1:
Gather your ingredients. To make these cornmeal flatbreads you'll need: 200 ml (about 3/4 cup plus 1 tbsp) boiling water, 200 grams (about 1 1/2 cups) cornmeal, 2 tablespoons vegetable oil, and 1 teaspoon salt.
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Step 2:
Sift the cornmeal into a deep bowl. Add the salt and stir.
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Step 3:
Make a well in the cornmeal and pour in a little boiling water. It's important not to add all the water at once — depending on how the dough comes together, you may need less. Gradually work it into a very soft dough. It won't be smooth and will crumble in your hands, so you can't roll it out with a rolling pin.
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Step 4:
Shape the flatbreads by hand instead. Form small ovals or rounds about 5 mm (1/4 inch) thick.
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Step 5:
Heat the vegetable oil in a skillet. Add the shaped flatbreads and fry over medium heat for about 5 minutes, until golden. Flip and fry the other side for about 5 minutes more.
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Step 6:
Transfer the finished flatbreads to a plate and serve. Enjoy!
- My family loves cornbread. Whenever I'm at a big store that bakes it fresh, I almost always pick some up — but lately I prefer homemade over store-bought, so there's always cornmeal in the house. Sometimes a bag runs low and there's just a little left — not enough for a real loaf, but too good to toss. That's when I started frying up small cornmeal flatbreads from the leftovers. Sometimes I make them savory, sometimes sweet, and sometimes both in the same pan — then it turns into a guessing game at the table over who gets which. The recipe couldn't be simpler: just three ingredients — cornmeal, water, and salt or sugar — plus oil for frying. (You can even grind your own cornmeal in a coffee grinder from cheap corn grits instead of buying it.)
- Cornmeal is a great stand-in for wheat flour. It has no gluten — the protein that makes wheat dough stretchy, fluffy, and uniform — but gluten-free baking is considered the healthier choice.
Caloric content of the products possible in the composition of the dish
- Vegetable oil - 873 kcal/100g
- Salt - 0 kcal/100g
- Water - 0 kcal/100g
- Corn flour - 368 kcal/100g
- Whole grain corn flour, unseeded - 355 kcal/100g
- Whole grain corn flour sifted - 362 kcal/100g
- Corn flour from grain with removed germs of vitamin E - 364 kcal/100g
- Corn flour from grain with removed germs nevitaminiz - 364 kcal/100g
