This Paratha dough can be used to make hundreds of different flatbread recipes. Made with Indian wheat flour, also known as chakki ka atta, paratha is a crispy, soft, and flaky flatbread, and is the perfect vehicle to scoop your spicy curries or dals in
Now, there are so many ways you can make a paratha, but you have to start with the dough – always. And here’s a quick foolproof recipe on how I like to make my paratha dough all the time. It doesn’t take too much time to put together (especially if you’re just cooking for two), and once you let the dough rest, you’re going to have really soft and pliable dough that yields oh-so-soft parathas.
You can use this dough to make 100s of paratha recipes. Here are some ideas for you to consider –
- Aloo Paratha (spiced potato filling)
- Paneer Paratha (spiced paneer filling)
- Sattu Paratha (a mixture of chickpea flour and spices)
- Basic Paratha (no filling, just a folded flatbread)
- Cheese Chili Paratha (a mixture of grated cheese and green chilies)
- Vegetable Paratha (either add veggies to the flour to make a spiced dough, or cook it to form a thick mixture and then stuff it in the dough)
- Dal Paratha (using leftover dal, you can make a stuffed paratha or simply add it to the flour instead of water)
You will see some other paratha recipes that don’t contain wheat flour. Gluten-free recipes will often swap wheat for flours made with buckwheat, water chestnut, sorghum, millets, and so on. But if you’re planning to make a stuffed paratha recipe, then making dough with wheat (or substituting it with refined flour) can make the job easy. Its really hard to stuff and roll parathas
Here’s a quick video tutorial on how to make the dough –
How to make basic Paratha Dough
Ingredients
- 1 cup Whole-Wheat Flour (Indian Atta)
- 1/4 tsp Salt
- 1/4 tsp crushed Carom seeds (optional) 1
- 1/3 cup Warm Water
- 1 Tbsp Ghee or Oil
Instructions
- Mix together the flour, salt and crushed carom seeds.
- Add 1 teaspoon of oil or ghee and the water and mix together. Once the mixture comes together, knead by hand (or an electric mixer) until you have a really soft dough.
- Place the dough in a bowl, add the remaining oil or ghee and brush the entire dough. Cover the bowl and let the dough rest for at least 30 minutes to 2 hours.
- Then divide into portions, roll into neat balls and make basic paratha or stuffed parathas.
Video
Notes
- The Paratha dough should be softer than a poori or roti dough since it’ll be easy to stuff the dough with any kind of fillings and then roll it out.
- If the dough is sticky, you can always use oil or flour to avoid the paratha from sticking to the work surface.
Make sure to check out some other basic recipes you can make from scratch –
