Homemade Restaurant-Style Indian Garlic Naan Recipe | ChefDeHome.com (2024)

FAQs

Do Indian restaurants use yeast in naan? ›

About Naan

In the modern days, yeast & other leavening agents have replaced the bread starter. So most restaurants either use yeast or another leavening agent like baking powder & baking soda. If you order naan in Indian restaurants you may not find the texture & flavor to be the same in every place.

The bread flour gives the naan “chew”; the yogurt imparts a slight tang; and the use of a cast iron pan gives the bread its distinctive char and smokiness.

Afghan naan is different in shape, texture, and taste from Indian varieties. While the main ingredient – wheat flour – is the same, Afghan bakers hand-shape the dough, rather than rolling it out, and their use of a tandoor results in large, pillowy rounds.

My favorite homemade naan recipe is made with basic bread ingredients (flour, water and yeast) plus a generous dollop of yogurt, egg and baking powder to make the bread extra soft and chewy. I also prefer to use touch of honey as a natural sweetener for the bread.

The yogurt also adds some fat. The fat keeps the dough nice and soft and prevents the naan from hardening too much during the cooking process. Another great thing about this recipe is to refrigerate the dough overnight after letting it rise.

Naan is a leavened bread (meaning it uses yeast), while roti is an unleavened bread (meaning it doesn't). The different ingredients give a far different texture: naan is soft and chewy, while roti is dense and thin.

Skip: Naan

And like those fluffy spuds, this soft flatbread has little nutritional value. Most naan recipes call for Greek yogurt to give it that airy texture. But that's more than offset by less healthy ingredients like white flour, sugar, and oil.

Naan is usually made from Maida ( whitest form of flour) which is not quite good for health. On the daily basis, if consumed, it can give rise to many stomach disorders like constipation and irritable bowel syndrome. It can kill your appetite giving rise to many undesirable health issues.

From health perspective, flat breads made of whole wheat flour (roti/paratha/chapati/phulka) are better than the ones made with all-purpose flour (naan & kulcha). If you're new to this kind of food, I insist you to try all varieties of Indian breads.

The bottom line

You can include naan as a part of a balanced diet when you eat it in moderation. Opt for whole wheat naan if you're looking to maximize your health benefits, and try to serve it alongside other nutritious foods.

Is garlic naan popular in India? ›

It is believed that the dish originated in India when the Indian labourers who migrated to Malaysia brought the recipe and the tradition of preparing this crispy pastry to the foreign country,” Taste Atlas said. Occupying the second spot is India's famous butter garlic naan – one of the most popular versions of naan.

Butter garlic naan is a traditional Indian flatbread and one of the most popular versions of naan. It's made with flour, yeast, salt, sugar, and yogurt. Once the dough has been baked in a hot tandoor oven, the golden naan is taken out and brushed with butter or ghee, then topped with minced garlic.

Without high enough heat it will take too long to cook the naan, resulting in an exterior that hardens too much before the inside is cooked through. The puffing and bubbles also directly contribute to the fluffy, chewy texture of great naan.

Unfortunately, most naan you'll get at Indian restaurants is not vegan, as the dough often contains yogurt (or milk) and it's brushed with melted butter. While there are a handful of store-bought vegan naan options, they are pretty lackluster and taste more like store-bought pita bread.

Though they're flatbreads, naans traditionally get their bubbly texture from yeast (and, very traditionally, from wild yeasts). Some more modern variations, such as that in Vivek Singh's Curry, use baking powder instead, with Jaffrey also adding extra bicarbonate of soda.

A colossal diversity of enzyme- and alcohol-producing yeasts under the phylum Ascomycota has been reported from Indian fermented foods and alcoholic beverages. The distributions of yeast species show 13.5% of Saccharomyces cerevisiae and 86.5% of some non-Saccharomyces spp.

Naan is essentially a leavened flatbread, which means it contains some form of raising agent to provide its airy texture. Hence for this naan, the raising agent we will be using is yeast. Other variations do exist which may utilise self raising flour or baking powder/baking soda.

Soda Bread

This sturdy breakfast bread comes together and relies on baking soda as a leavener. You can swap out the walnuts and dried currants with any chopped nuts, seeds and dried fruit you have in your pantry.