Making Naan (Gluten-Free!)

Let me start by saying I have never before made naan. Unfortunately, because I am gluten intolerant, I should not eat traditional naan because of the wheat flour. And I miss it! So I have taken it upon myself to develop a gluten-free variety.

I did not use an actual recipe... Instead, I read a few tips about the process, and developed this recipe purely by texture. Here are the ingredients that I used:

Gluten-Free Naan

~1 cup warm water 

1 package dry active yeast

~1 Tbsp sugar

~1 Tbsp agave nectar

1/2 package Arrowhead Mills pizza dough flour

1/2 package Arrowhead Mills sorghum flour

2 eggs

refined olive oil (~4 Tbsp)

butter (~4 Tbsp)

dried crushed garlic

Step 1. Add yeast to warm water in a large bowl. (I microwaved distilled water for about 45 seconds, placed it in a bowl, then added yeast.) After the mixture starts to bubble, stir together with sugar for a couple minutes until it gets frothy.

Step 2. Add beaten eggs and just enough sorghum flour to make the dough into something kneadable. (Is that a word?) Knead for about 10 minutes on a floured surface, shape into large ball, cover with damp towel and set in warm place to rise for 1 hour. Try to err on the side of too little dough! You can always add more, after all.

Step 3. Once the dough is about double in size, knead again for a couple minutes and then shape it into about eight to twelve balls. (I went with eight, but they resulted in naan nearly the size of my head.)

Step 4. Cover with warm towel and set in warm place to rise for half an hour.

Step 5. Flatten the double-sized balls into thin round flatbreads. Mine came out about 8 inches in diameter.

Tip: It's a lot easier to flatten using your hands, flipping the dough back and forth between your palms as if you were working with pizza dough. :) I don't recommend using a floured surface. The naan I made this way wound up with a bit of flour on the exterior and I don't find that as palatable as a somewhat smooth surface. Ideally, the flour should be a little bit sticky, but not so much that it's unmanageable.

Step 6. Coat pan with olive oil and place flatbread at medium-high heat. If the heat is too low, the naan consistency will be a little bit more like a pancake. If it's too high, you'll wind up with a sadly burned, uncooked flatbread. Be very careful of oil splashback.

This is what the naan should look like as it cooks. See how it bubbles? Cook on one side for about 3-4 minutes, pick up with a spatula, and I find that throwing half a tablespoon of butter in the pan next, swishing it around to coat, tossing in the naan on its flipside and then heating for another 2 minutes works perfectly.

Tip: Refined olive oil has a higher burning point than virgin olive oil; in other words, it is refined for cooking at high temperatures. Any other refined oil will probably work, whether it's peanut, coconut, or canola. Coconut has a higher burning point; canola has the lowest. Do not use extra virgin or virgin olive oil! Unrefined oils are high quality oils for dipping! (Besides, heating them would destroy all those delicious antioxidants.) Also, keep in mind that butter has a low burning point, so you don't want to cook the buttered side for too long.

This was the prettiest naan I made. Depending on how much oil you use, you might want to let the naan cool whilst folded up in paper towels.

The naan I made today works out to about 250 Calories per piece... I had one with hummus for lunch, and though it was quite delicious, I think smaller naan would be ideal.

A friend of mine informed me that paratha is very similar, but is pre-blended with the oil. Hmmmm. I may have to try this in the future.

Got any tips or tricks? If so, please share! :)