A homemade garlic naan bread that's cloudy, soft, pillowy and tastes as delicious as any you'd find in a restaurant. Yet it's so easy to make that you'll be doing this over and over. Vegan, nut-free, soy-free recipe.
A soft, fluffy, pillowy naan is everyone's favorite Indian flatbread. And a surefire testament to its popularity is the fact that in recent years, it's become a common offering at grocery stores like Aldi's and Trader Joe's, rubbing shoulders with other favorites like pitas and tortillas.
Jay loves it so much that every time we are at the store, he'll beg me to buy some so once we get home, we can pop it into the oven to warm it up, then tear it with our fingers and dunk it into a spicy hot curry for a delicious weekend lunch.
But easy as it is to buy a naan, or eat one at a restaurant, it's not that much harder to make one yourself, in your own kitchen. So on days when I am not madly rushed, I'll stop Jay right before he tosses a packet of naan into the grocery cart. Instead, when we get home, I'll roll up my sleeves and make some naan breads myself.
A homemade naan not only tastes better, because it doesn't have all those preservatives that store-bought bread does, it also has a better texture, and it's, of course, better for you. Once you've made it, you might find it hard to go back.
Making a naan bread is super simple too, and it really doesn't need any fancy equipment. All you need is your hands. And while you'll hear a great deal of talk about how naan made in a traditional clay tandoor oven needs temperatures as high as 800 degrees to cook -- a range a humble home oven cannot achieve -- don't lose heart. This naan recipe I am about to share with you today is made on a screaming-hot griddle on the stovetop, and it's faster than any oven with results just as good as anything you'd get from the restaurant or store. Or better.
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Tips for making the perfect homemade naan
- A naan, unlike most Indian flatbreads, is a leavened bread, with added yeast giving it that puffy, glorious texture. Make sure the yeast you use is active. Let the dry yeast "bloom" for five minutes in a warm (not hot) water-milk mixture with some sugar added to wake the yeast up and feed them. If your yeast doesn't become frothy after five or 10 minutes, you need new yeast. (Here's a tip for storing dry yeast for a long time and helping it stay alive: keep it in an airtight container in the freezer.)
- Use warm water to knead the dough, and make sure you don't add all of the water in the beginning. Rather, drizzle it in a little at a time until you get a dough that's still a little sticky but not wet. You don't need to continue kneading the dough once it's come together.
- Let your naan dough rise, like you would any bread dough. This step is important, because you want the yeast to go to work so your naan is puffy and soft, not flat and brittle. You may want to speed the process up, but don't. You just need an hour to 90 minutes in a warm environment (like the oven with just the pilot light on). And good things come to those who wait.
- After the naan dough has risen, divide it into eight balls and coat them lightly with flour. Let them stand, covered, for about 15 minutes so the dough relaxes and is easier to shape.
How to shape it
- The naan you'll find in restaurants and stores is usually teardrop shaped, but there really are no rules here. You can make your naan oval or round or you can just let it go free-form. Once your naan is baked up, and covered with the herby butter garlic mixture, it will look beautiful and incredibly appetizing no matter how you shaped it.
- I usually shape a naan the way I would pizza dough -- by hand. I just lift it by the edges and let the weight of the dough and gravity do the work. Let your fingers move around the edge of the dough, so you get an even shape. If there is a tear, patch it up by pressing the dough together. Once the naan is about five inches wide and seven inches long, rest it on a baking sheet and pull the long side a little more to give it that teardrop/oval shape. You can also just use a rolling pin and roll it into a teardrop shape.
What do you serve with a naan?
Naan is best eaten by tearing off pieces of the soft, hot bread and dunking it a hot, spicy curry. Because a Naan is a north Indian bread, it will go well with just about any North Indian curry. Here are some ideas for curries to serve with naan:
- Tofu Palak Paneer
- Aloo Matar
- Tofu Cubes in a Black Pepper Curry Sauce (Tofu "Paneer" Kalimirch)
- Instant Pot Vegan Butter "Chicken" with Tofu
- Instant Pot Vegan Dal Makhani
- Chana Masala
- Mirchi ka Salan, Chili Peppers in a Peanut Sauce
Five ingredients for the naan
- All purpose flour
- Yeast
- Sugar
- Nondairy milk
- Vegetable oil
You will need garlic, cilantro and vegan butter for the topping. And salt and water, of course.
Let's make bread!
Garlic Naan Recipe
Ingredients
- 2.5 tsp active dry yeast
- 1 tsp sugar
- 0.5 cups nondairy milk (lukewarm)
- 1 to 1.5 cups water (lukewarm)
- 3.5 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tbsp vegetable oil
For the garlic butter topping:
- 4 tbsp vegan butter (olive oil works too)
- 6 cloves garlic (crushed or put through a garlic press)
- 2 tbsp cilantro (finely chopped. You can sub with another herb like mint)
Instructions
- Place the yeast in a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer. Add the sugar, nondairy milk, and 1/2 cup water. Let the yeast stand at least five minutes until it starts to look frothy and "blooms"
- Add the flour and salt to the bowl and begin to knead, slowly drizzling in additional water until your dough comes together in a ball that's just slightly sticky (traces of the dough will stick to your fingers when you touch it). Keep in mind that you may not need all of the water, so don't dump it all in at one go.
- Drizzle the oil on top of the dough, turn it over once or twice to make sure the oil coats the dough, cover the bowl tightly with cling wrap or a lid or a kitchen towel, and set it aside to rise in a warm place for an hour to 90 minutes.
- After the dough has risen, turn it out on your work surface. Knead it lightly, form into a disc and cut into eight even pieces, the way you would a pizza. Roll each piece into a ball (it won't be firm), dust each ball lightly with flour, and set them aside, covered, for 15 minutes.
- Meanwhile, make your garlic butter mixture by heating the butter in a small saucepan along with the garlic. Let the butter and garlic cook together for 3-4 minutes over medium-low heat until the garlic flavor infuses the butter and the garlic starts to turn a light golden. You don't want the garlic to burn. At this point, turn off the heat and stir in the herbs. Set aside.
- To shape the naan, either roll each ball into a teardrop shape or a round with a rolling pin. You can dust your work surface lightly with flour if needed. Or use your fingers to shape each ball into a small disc, then lift the disc by its edge and let the dough stretch and fall with the aid of gravity. Continue shaping by moving your fingers along the edges. If you're not used to doing this, it's possible your dough could tear, so be careful. If you do get a tear, patch it up by pressing the dough together and continue shaping with a rolling pin.
- Heat a cast-iron or any griddle over high heat until it's screaming hot. Place the naan on the griddle. You will immediately see it start to bubble up and turn opaque. Once the underside gets golden-brown spots, turn over and continue cooking the other side. This process should take you no more than two minutes or less on either side.
- As soon as you take the naan off the griddle, brush it with the garlic-herb-butter mixture on one side. Keep your naans wrapped in a kitchen towel until ready to serve.
- You can reheat any leftover naans on the griddle before serving.
Nutrition
Delicious! I used whole wheat and white flour.
Looks great! Can I make the dough the day before cooking it on the griddle?
Thanks x
Delicious! I made it with guacamole and rotisserie chicken and it was PERFECT.
Delicious. I used part whole wheat and part all purpose. I also froze the other half of the dough. Thank you for this super easy recipe!
Hi,
Love your recipes. Would it be easy to turn this into a peshwari naan? Could I create a pocket and fill with ground almond and desiccated coconut?
Thanks.
to make it into peshwari naan, i roll the naan into a crcle, add a spoon of filling in the centre. then gather up like a parcel,press together to seal.flatten in your hand.turn over and carefully roll out
Would this recipe work with whole wheat bread flour? Are there adjustments that would need to be made?
You would not get naans as soft and fluffy--they'd be more dense. But you can certainly make them with whole wheat if you want a healthier alternative.
new to your site and very inspired by it.
I would like to make the Himalayan bhatura that the local women in Himachal Pradesh make.
Any way that I can inspire you to learn how to make them. Maybe using this recipe I could experiment. They are very very good and usually nicely soured.
Thank you
Raani
I love naan so much! My sourdough bread is on its 2nd rise right now, and I am already excited for what I might make with the discard starter next weekend. I wonder if I can use some in this recipe?
Thanks for your site!
Hi Elizabeth, yes! You can follow the directions in my sourdough aloo kulcha recipe here, just skip the potato stuffing and shape it like a naan. https://holycowvegan.net/aloo-kulcha-recipe/
Did you mange to make you naan from your starter?
Hi! So excited to try this, I've been missing naan since I had to stop eating dairy while breastfeeding. Question, though... can I use my sourdough starter to make this? I started last week from your recipe and I'm obsessed.
Thanks so much!
Hi Elizabeth, you definitely can. Follow my sourdough aloo kulcha recipe here but skip the potato stuffing and shape the dough like naan, then proceed with directions for cooking the naan. https://holycowvegan.net/aloo-kulcha-recipe/
At first I was worried because the dough seemed incredibly sticky, but these turned out amazing! I highly recommend making them, as an earlier comment noted - this recipe is very forgiving. I am so excited to make these again, thank you for an awesome recipe!
This recipe rocks! I've been a vegetarian for 43 years (since I was 12) and in these virus times we've been cooking even more than usual - had made a sweet potato, paneer, and spinach curry the other night with rice and thought it would be fun to try to make naan. I have vegan aspirations (working on it) and had the almond milk on hand to make this.
Turned out amazing - we used olive oil for the garlic brush after the griddle - used mint from our neighbor's hedge - fantastic and I'll never buy naan from the store again. Super easy, forgiving recipe. I worried that the dough was too wet after using just 1/2 C of the water but it turned out perfectly. My wife was ecstatic and I look forward to making this for years to come.
Excited to try more of your recipes - Cheers - J
Family loved it! There were two left over after dinner and my daughter advised me not to put it away. That she would snack on it through out the evening.
I have a random question, would I be able to bake these? I only have an old non-stick pan and no griddle. Would I be able to use that? Dealing with my pans at that high of a heat is a bit intimidating but I’ll give it a go whenever I get more flour. Also, for making the dough, could I just add some garlic to the dough? Like, when I’m first mixing everything together?
You could add the garlic to the dough but you won't get the same flavors and it may make the dough a little harder to roll out since there'll be bits of garlic sticking out. And yes, you can bake them--heat your oven as high as it will go, if possible place a baking sheet or a pizza stone inside (unglazed tiles work too) while the oven preheats. Once it has heated, carefully, taking care not to burn yourself, place the naan directly on the stone or baking sheet and bake about 2-3 minutes. When the dough bubbles up and underside is golden brown, flip over and cook the other side.
These were amazing! Soft, fluffy and yummy. Cooking them on the griddle makes it so quick! Loved them, thank you for the recipe.
These are great! Thanks!
These look like they're straight from a restaurant! I'm gonna try it!
Hi Vaishali, I don't think I have a griddle. Will a normal pan work to make the naan? Thank you!
Yes, anything wide enough for the naan to fit will work. A skillet is better because it has shorter sides and the naan won't steam, but if you have your stove turned to high heat you should be fine.
Thank you! I just made these today and they turned out delicious. It was also my first time having naan since going vegan!
Great to find a recipe without yoghurt in :). Have you tried freezing them at all? There are only two of us and as much as I love Naan bread I don't think we will get through them all in one go!
Hi Maureen, you can absolutely freeze these. Place in an airtight bag or container and before eating, put the frozen bread on a baking sheet and into a hot oven -- 350 degrees. Spray lightly with water and bake for about 5 minutes or until soft and puffy again.
Hey thanks for sharing the recipe!
I've never had naan ever since I turned vegan. Now I finally can!
Hi there. I appreciate your recipes and use them often. I think you may have neglected to direct the 1 tsp of salt to be mixed in with the flour, at least I could not see where it was mentoned. My eyes are not the best, though.
You were absolutely right -- I missed it. Added now, in step 2, with the flour. Thanks!