This easy no yeast naan recipe is ready in less than an hour and bewitches with its fluffy center and blistered exterior. Thanks to the optional (or not optional) finishing brush of garlic butter, it holds its own against any traditional naan recipe you’d order in a restaurant. Even though I adore Indian food today, when I first tried it at the age of 12, I was not a fan. Put another way, now I am all about the Chicken Tikka Masala. Back then I was all about the chicken nuggets, with one exception. Indian naan bread was love at first bite. Naan is a simple Indian flatbread made with wheat flour, yogurt, and (traditionally) yeast. It’s cooked at a high temperature and brushed with butter. Special variations include garlic naan or even cheese naan. It is a pillow of carb perfection, made to tear with your fingers and dip into curries with delight—unless you are 12-year-old Erin, in which case you will skip the curry and happily devour the naan for your entire meal. Thankfully I have come to my senses and now find Indian food to be one of the most enchanting cuisines on the planet. Indian food is healthy, you can find the ingredients you need to make it an average grocery store, and it’s become one of my favorite ways to add variety to our dinners. With all of the healthy Indian recipes on my site, I thought it was about time we had a homemade naan to dip with them. Here we are!
How to Make Naan from Scratch
Listen up: even if you have never baked bread before, you can make perfect homemade naan. This is a shortcut, EASY naan recipe, inspired by the authentic naan I enjoyed abroad in India. I skipped the yeast and used baking powder to leaven it. Since naan is a flatbread, you can get away with it. My favorite way to prepare this naan is in batches. Cook one ball of naan dough on the skillet while you roll the next. You can keep batches warm in the oven until you finish them all, or do what we do: enjoy the first few hot off the skillet while you cook the rest. Fresh, warm naan is too pleasurable to miss.
The Ingredients
Flour. Naan is made with wheat flour. I incorporated some whole wheat flour for a healthy boost.Baking Powder. Helps the naan rise to fluffy perfection without yeast. Low-Fat Greek Yogurt. Greek yogurt helps make the bread soft, chewy, and subtly tangy.Butter. Butter helps make the outside of the naan ultra devourable and, of course, buttery (yes, please!). To make this naan even more reminiscent of what you’d order at a restaurant, brush the bread with a quick and scrumptious garlic butter mixture.Toppings. Chopped cilantro or parsley and sea salt are our favorite ways to top this naan bread.
The Directions
Storage Tips
To Store. Wrap leftovers in foil, and store them at room temperature or in the refrigerator for up to 3 daysTo Reheat. Rewarm naan wrapped in foil at 300 degrees F for about 10 minutes, until hot.To Freeze. Freeze leftovers in an airtight freezer-safe storage container or ziptop bag for up to 3 months. Reheat pieces in the oven as desired.
Recommended Tools to Make this Recipe
Cast Iron Skillet. My favorite skillet for making homemade naan. Tongs. Perfect for flipping your naan bread over. Basting Brush. You can toss this one right into the dishwasher.
You’ll feel like a confident kitchen whiz when you pull batches of steaming hot naan from your skillet. For a vegan garlic “butter,” use a non-dairy butter substitute, such as Earth Balance.
This affordable cast iron skillet does a stellar job.This top-of-the-line cast iron skillet (or this one) will cook with you for a lifetime.
If you do not have a cast iron skillet, a non-stick skillet is your next-best option. Whichever skillet you use, be sure to get it nice and hot, or your naan won’t blister and puff.
Tofu Tikka Masala
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Instant Pot Butter Chicken
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Slow Cooker Chicken Curry
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Naan Recipe Video
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