Flour Tortillas substitute

Best substitute

Homemade flour tortillas

2 cups all-purpose flour plus 3 tbsp fat, 1 tsp salt and about ¾ cup hot water makes 8 tortillas

Best for burritos

Close match

Genuinely quick, cheap and better than the packet, which tends to taste of the dough conditioners that keep it soft on a shelf. Rub the fat into the flour, add hot water until it comes together, knead a minute, rest 20 minutes covered, then roll thin and cook 30 seconds a side on a dry hot pan until it puffs and blisters. Soft, stretchy and properly rollable.

Other flour tortillas substitutes

Ranked, with the exact amount to use

2Pita bread, the thin pocketless or split kind
Taste and texture differ
Use the same amount by count
The best supermarket stand-in for a wrap, because it is soft wheat flatbread and it folds without breaking once warmed.
What changes
Thicker than a tortilla, so the bread-to-filling ratio shifts and the result eats more like a sandwich than a burrito, and split open it makes an excellent pocket for anything that would otherwise fall out. Flavour is mild and slightly yeasty rather than neutral.
Best for
wraps and sandwiches, quesadilla-style melts, stuffed pockets, shawarma-style fillings
Warm it before folding or it will crack along the fold like any bread. Thin Greek-style pita rolls far better than the thick pocket kind.
3Lavash or other thin flatbread
Close match
Use 1 sheet for every large tortilla, cut to size
Thin, soft, flexible and almost flavourless, which makes it the closest textural match on this list to a big burrito wrap.
What changes
It rolls tightly and holds a roll well, and its large rectangular sheets are actually easier to wrap than a round tortilla for anything long. It goes brittle if it dries out, so it is at its best fresh or lightly warmed.
Best for
large wraps and rolls, pinwheel sandwiches, burrito-style rolls
If your lavash has dried stiff, spritz it lightly with water and warm it for 20 seconds and it comes back pliable. It contains wheat, so no help for gluten-free needs.
4Chapati, roti or naan
Different taste
Use the same amount by count
Chapati and roti are the closest relatives to a flour tortilla anywhere: unleavened wheat flatbread cooked on a dry griddle, soft, thin and made to be folded around food.
What changes
They are a touch nuttier from the wholewheat flour and a little more tender. Naan is a bigger departure, being leavened, thicker and chewier, so it works as a wrap but eats like flatbread with filling in it.
Best for
wraps, scooping saucy fillings, quesadilla-style melts, quick lunches
Chapati dries out fast, so use it warm and fresh. Naan is thick enough that a burrito made with it will not close properly, so treat it as an open flatbread instead.
5Corn tortillas
Taste and texture differ
Use the same amount by count for tacos, 2 corn per 1 large flour for anything else
Naturally gluten-free and a great swap for tacos and quesadillas, where their toasted-corn flavour is arguably an upgrade.
What changes
They are the wrong tool for rolling: no gluten means no stretch, so a corn tortilla wrapped around a burrito filling will crack along the fold no matter how warm it is. They are also much smaller, so you need more of them.
Best for
tacos, quesadillas, enchiladas, gluten-free cooking
Heat them properly on a dry pan first and keep them stacked in a towel, and they will fold. Doubling them up is standard practice for anything juicy.
6Cassava or almond flour tortillas
Different taste
Use the same amount by count
The gluten-free option that actually rolls, which is what makes cassava tortillas worth seeking out.
What changes
They are pliable, mild and faintly sweet, and they handle a burrito-sized filling without splitting. Almond flour versions are softer and nuttier but tear more easily and do not like being rolled tightly. Both are considerably more expensive than wheat.
Best for
gluten-free wraps and burritos, grain-free cooking, soft tacos
Warm them gently for a few seconds only, since overheating makes them stiff and brittle rather than more pliable, which is the opposite of how a wheat tortilla behaves.
7Large lettuce, cabbage or collard leaves
Taste and texture differ
Use 2 large leaves for every tortilla
The honest low-carb and gluten-free answer, with the honest caveat that nothing rolls as forgivingly as a flour tortilla and a lettuce wrap is a different meal.
What changes
Butter lettuce gives soft cups, collards blanched for 30 seconds roll tightly and hold well, and cabbage sits between the two. Expect cold crunch and vegetable flavour instead of soft neutral bread, and expect anything saucy to escape.
Best for
low-carb wraps, grain-free eating, fresh crunchy fillings
For collards, cut out the thick stem, blanch 30 seconds, pat dry, and overlap two leaves to make a sheet. Drain the filling well or the wrap will not hold.
8A thin crepe or a flat egg omelette
Taste and texture differ
Use the same amount by count
Rolls beautifully, which is the whole problem a tortilla substitute has to solve, and you almost certainly have the ingredients.
What changes
A thin savoury crepe is flexible and mild and holds a filling well; a flat two-egg omelette rolled around a filling is the low-carb version. Both taste of egg, which sits comfortably with cheese, beans and breakfast fillings and oddly with barbecue or spiced meat.
Best for
breakfast wraps and burritos, cheese and bean fillings, low-carb rolls
Cook crepes and omelettes thin and let them cool for a minute before filling, since a hot egg wrap tears where a cooled one folds cleanly.

What is Flour Tortillas?

Flour Tortillas is Flour tortillas, also sold as wheat tortillas, tortilla wraps or burrito wraps in the larger sizes, are soft, stretchy flatbreads of wheat flour, fat, salt and water cooked briefly on a dry griddle so they stay pliable enough to roll tightly without tearing.

Cooking tips

Warm the tortilla before you roll it, always. A cold flour tortilla straight from the fridge cracks along the fold; 20 seconds a side on a dry pan, or a stack wrapped in foil for ten minutes in a low oven, makes it stretchy enough to close around a full burrito.
The trick to a burrito that stays shut is heat on the seam. Fold it, then lay it seam side down on a dry hot pan for a minute or two: the starch on the outside sets and glues the fold closed, which is exactly what a taqueria does.
For quesadillas the tortilla is what browns and crisps, so cook them in butter rather than oil and keep the heat medium. Oil fries the surface pale and greasy, while butter browns it and gives you the blistered, spotted finish.
Freeze tortillas with a sheet of baking parchment between each one and you can pull out two at a time. Frozen in the packet they fuse into a solid disc and tear when you try to separate them.
If your tortillas have gone stiff in the packet, spritz each one with water and warm it briefly rather than throwing them out. They come back almost fully. Beyond that, cut them into wedges and bake them into chips.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between flour and corn tortillas?

Flour tortillas are wheat flour, fat and water and rely on gluten for their stretch, so they are soft, mild and roll without cracking, which makes them right for burritos and wraps. Corn tortillas are pressed from nixtamalised corn masa, have no gluten and therefore no stretch, and taste distinctly of toasted corn, which makes them right for tacos and enchiladas and gluten-free by nature.

Are flour tortillas gluten-free?

No. Flour tortillas are made from wheat flour, so they contain gluten. If you need gluten-free, the options are corn tortillas made from a hundred percent corn, cassava or almond flour tortillas, or leaf wraps. Check corn tortilla labels too, because many supermarket versions blend in wheat flour.

Can I just leave the tortilla out?

Yes, and a burrito bowl is the standard version of exactly that. Put the same filling over rice, over greens or over roasted potatoes and nothing else needs changing. The one thing you lose is the tortilla's role as the thing that holds it all together, so a slightly drier filling suddenly tastes drier without any bread to balance it.

Why do my flour tortillas crack when I roll them?

They are cold, dry, or overfilled. Warm each one for 20 seconds a side on a dry pan first, keep the stack under a towel so they hold that moisture, and be honest about how much filling a tortilla can hold, which is less than it looks. Homemade tortillas that crack usually needed a longer rest before rolling.

Can I use bread instead of a tortilla?

For a wrap, only in the loosest sense: sliced bread does not roll and will tear. What works better is flatbread of any kind, or bread flattened with a rolling pin, which will fold around a filling and toast well in a pan. If you have nothing but sliced bread, a toasted sandwich or a quesadilla-style grilled cheese is a better use of it than a failed wrap.

Related substitutes

More grains & starches substitutes

Flour Tortillas substitute

Other flour tortillas substitutes

2Pita bread, the thin pocketless or split kind

3Lavash or other thin flatbread

4Chapati, roti or naan

5Corn tortillas

6Cassava or almond flour tortillas

7Large lettuce, cabbage or collard leaves

8A thin crepe or a flat egg omelette