This traditional Native American Masa Bread recipe, made from simple ingredients comes together with minimal effort and doesn't require much work for a perfect slice that is best served with a drizzle of honey.
Table of Contents
Ingredients and substitutions for Native American Masa Bread
- Flour: Plain or all purpose is best, unless you live in the UK where the protein level in bread flour is equivalent to plain in the US, so check your protein levels in your bread where you live.
- Masa Harina: Masa Harina is the dried corn flour for corn tortillas. This is most easily obtained in Mexican or Spanish stores, if not readily found in your supermarket.
- Yeast: Yeast doesnโt just help give our bread rise but also gives it that perfect bread crumb.
- Sugar and salt: The flavor boosters here add depth of flavor with sea or kosher salt and superfine or caster sugar working best to dissolve into the dough.
See recipe card for quantities.
How to make Native American Masa Bread:
Step 1: Flour and yeast: Stir together in a bowl and create a well.
Step 2: Wet ingredients: The water, sugar and salt are stirred together in a separate bowl and poured into the dry ingredients.
Step 3: Form the dough: Stir together and knead until smooth for 3 minutes. Cover and set aside to rise for 1 hour.
Step 4: Shape: Into your loaf and place onto the baking tray to rest for 50 minutes before baking until lightly golden.
Step 5: Serve: Slice once cooled, serving ideally with a little honey for breakfast or alongside a soup or stew for dinner!
FAQโs for the best Native American Masa Bread
The original recipe states that you can make two loaves from this dough, though I prefer a large loaf so baked it according to the instructions below. If you prefer two smaller loaves than you only need to rest the loaves for 30 minutes and bake for 30 minutes each until golden.
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Native American Masa Bread
Ingredients
- 385 grams / 2 ยพ cups bread flour
- 7 grams / 2 ยผ teaspoons yeast 1 small packet instant yeast
- 500 milliliters / 2 cups warm water
- 14 grams / 1 tablespoon sugar
- 2 teaspoons sea salt
- 228 grams / 2 cups masa flour
Instructions
- Combine the flour, masa haina and yeast in a bowl, stir together and make a well in the center.
- In a separate bowl combine the water, sugar and salt and add to the flour.
- Stir until the mixture is smooth and form the dough.
- Knead on a floured surface for 3 minutes than place in a lightly greased bowl in a warm space until doubled in size, approximately 1 hour.
- Turn the dough onto a working surface and shape into your loaf.
- Place onto a round baking tray and allow to rest for 1 hour.
- Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 190ยบC/375F.
- Bake in the oven for 50 minutes or lightly browned.
- Remove and allow to cool on a cooling rack.
- Slice and serve.
Video
Notes
- Flour: Plain or all purpose is best, unless you live in the UK where the protein level in bread flour is equivalent to plain in the US, so check your protein levels in your bread where you live.
- Masa Harina: Masa Harina is the dried corn flour for corn tortillas. This is most easily obtained in Mexican or Spanish stores, if not readily found in your supermarket.
- Make two smaller loaves: The original recipe states that you can make two loaves from this dough, though I prefer a large loaf so baked it according to the instructions below. If you prefer two smaller loaves than you only need to rest the loaves for 30 minutes and bake for 30 minutes each until golden.
Nutrition
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Made it and loved it?
If you have made this recipe, it would mean so much to leave a review below to help more people find this.
Savas
This is brilliant Sylvie! I've been baking bread for almost 20 years now but it never occurred to me to try to mix in some.corn flour. I'll try the blue corn variety to add some color as well
Absolutely awesome
Sylvie Taylor
Hi Savas, wonderful to hear you'll try this with blue masa. Please let me know how that turns out as it sounds like it'll be beautiful! Thank you so much for your review!
Karen payne
Thank you. Was wondering which native American tribe ate this?
Sylvie
Hi Karen,
Thanks for stopping by and reading.
It's a very good question and I've found it hard in my searches to pinpoint exact Tribe's to any recipes I've found. In saying that, it seems the Southwest closest to Mexico is where this bread would have been eaten. Tribe's from the Southwest are most likely to consume this bread because the main ingredient, corn came from South/Central America and Mexico into what is now the United States.