Foodness Gracious

A Stay-At-Home Dad with a Passion For Food.

Homemade Garlic Naan Bread

by 63 Comments

Homemade Garlic Naan Bread loaded with garlic and green onions. This is one of the tastiest pieces of bread around and you can make it in your own kitchen!

Chicken Tika Masala with rice and garlic naan bread
If there was ever a food enjoyed by people in every part of the world, it would have to be bread, including naan bread!

I was hard-pressed to find a country that wasn’t known for some kind of baked dough, be it sweet or savory. Flour, yeast, water, and salt are where some of the best meals start, and you don’t need any fancy equipment when you make your own bread at home.

If you like to use a bread machine, then keep at it but I find that they don’t give you the same texture and crumb as naturally risen yeast does. What I would say is most important in the whole process is high heat, and the higher the better.

Your standard oven will work for most bread, even this Garlic Naan Bread recipe, but you’ll have to crank up the heat.

Serving some basmati rice and Tika Masala with garlic naan bread

Baking the naan bread.

I baked this naan recipe at 550 degrees, the highest temperature my oven can reach. History tells us that traditionally, bread was baked in outside ovens (usually made of some kind of brick or clay) and now people are trying to get that heat source back. You’ll need some good baking trays like these ones I use.

If you use a traditional pizza oven that can reach 800 degrees, you’ll be able to get that awesome bubbly char on the crust. To finish the naan bread, glaze with some melted butter.

Which type of yeast should I use for my naan recipe?

I always use Red Star Yeast mixture when I’m making bread. It’s never let me down yet, and I love how there are different kinds I can use depending on what I’m making.

I left this dough to rise in the refrigerator overnight so the Regular Active yeast was perfect, but if I had needed the naan bread that same day, the Quick Rising yeast is what I’d have used.

They also have a Superior Platinum yeast which gives amazing results in regards to texture and crumb. For tons of baking recipes and tips on how to bake with yeast, check out the Red Star Yeast website!

Chewy naan bread loaded with garlic and green onions.

Check out these other homemade bread recipes I love!

Fresh Baked Italian Ciabatta Rolls

Rosemary Focaccia Bread

Mediterranean Olive Bread

This post was sponsored by Red Star Yeast. All thoughts and opinions are always my own.

This post has been updated with slight recipe tweaks for improvement and better photographs.

Homemade Garlic Naan Bread

Course: Side Dish
Cuisine: Indian
Prep Time: 2 hours 45 minutes
Cook Time: 15 minutes
Total Time: 2 hours 55 minutes
Servings: 4 loaves
Calories: 275kcal
Author: foodnessgracious
Fresh baked garlic naan bread, perfect to accompany some spicy Tikka Masala.
Print Recipe

Ingredients

  • 2 1/2 cups lukewarm water
  • 2 tsp Red Star Active Dry Yeast
  • 5 1/2 cups all purpose flour plus more for dusting the work surface with
  • 1 tbsp Kosher salt
  • 1/2 cup minced garlic From a jar is easier
  • 3/4 cup green onion sliced finely
  • 1 tbsp Olive oil for brushing the dough

Instructions

  • Fill a medium sized bowl with the water and sprinkle the yeast on top of it.
  • Whisk the yeast until it's dissolved.
  • Add 3 cups of the flour, salt, garlic and green onion and stir with a heavy spatula or wooden spoon until smooth.
  • Add the remaining flour. Stir again until well combined and the dough comes together into a ball.
  • Dust a clean work surface with some flour and dump out the dough.
  • Start to knead the dough dusting with more flour if things get sticky.
  • Once the dough is a round ball, about 2-3 minutes of kneading, place the dough back into the bowl it came from making sure to lightly oil the bowl with a little olive oil to prevent the dough sticking.
  • Cover the dough and let rise in a warm area for 1 1/2 hours or until almost doubled in size.
  • Transfer the dough back out onto your floured work surface and punch down into a rough circle shape.
  • Cut the dough into 4 pieces.
  • Prepare a large baking tray with parchment paper or a baking mat and dust lightly with flour
  • Using your fingers stretch and work each piece of dough into a long oval shape about 8 inches long and 6 inches wide.
  • Lay each piece onto your prepared baking pan and brush each piece of naan lightly with some olive oil.
  • Preheat the oven to 550 degrees or as hot as you can get it.
  • Bake in the oven for about 15-20 minutes or longer if you like it more crusty. Check the bottom of the bread for a dark color.
  • Once the naan has finished baking, transfer it to a plate and cover with a clean towel to stay warm.
  • The bread is best served warm and can be reheated covered in foil in a 350 degree oven for 5-7 minutes.

Notes

Recipe adapted from Baking with Julia, written by Dorie Greenspan

Nutrition

Calories: 275kcal

Comments

  5. Kristina says

    “flour, yeast, water and salt is where some of the best meals start.” I completely agree! most everyone loves bread, and this recipe looks so good! pinning to make soon, thank you!

    Reply

  18. Kristine says

    do you think it will work just as well with wheat flour? Some recipes I try to exchange white flour with whole wheat don’t work out well.

    Reply

    • foodnessgracious says

      Hi Kristine,If anything I think it might make the bread more dense and heavy, but Naan is not like sandwich bread so you might get away with it. Let me know how things go!

      Reply

  19. sian says

    Tried it. Kinda salty and turned out really crusty after just 6 minutes :/ I think I prefer it cooked on a pan. I’m new to this oven though so maybe it was too hot.

    Reply

  21. Karen M. says

    Made this and it is wonderful, used garlic scape pesto I froze instead of the garlic cloves. Made homemade hummus to dip it into, heavenly lunch! Thanks for sharing

    Reply

  23. Robert says

    5 1/2 cups of flour, and only 4 naans?
    Other recipes serve 8 to 10 naans with 3 – 4 cups of flour.
    I’m giving it a shot on Friday. After work because of the 10 cloves.
    Thanks for the recipe.

    Reply

  24. Meaghan Kuehn says

    Fellow baker here and naan lover here!! I’ve never made naan before, but want to try, and it looks pretty easy! Here’s my question: so you used A-D yeast, do you need to activate it? Or just mix in and let it activate while fermenting?

    Reply

    • Sherie says

      Greta, you have to be from the south, because I’m fixin to try this also…..Only in the south we all say fixin……lol

      Reply

  27. Corey says

    5 stars
    Made a pesto vegetarian pizza outta the bread last night, best/most simplistic dough I have ever made. This one is a keeper!!!

    Reply

  28. Andrea says

    Is this a vegan recipe by any chance? We have this new tradition we are starting with our friends. That each time we give the green bowl back to each other we have to fill it with something for the other person. However my buddies gf is vegan (which is kind of a pain) so I’m searching out some vegan recipes. Thanks in advance.

    Reply

  29. Victoria P says

    5 stars
    Made this naan and, wow!, yummy. Served with curried chickpeas. Sooooo good. However, my oven only gets up to 500 degrees. My bread was perfect but my garlic was overlooked and bitter. I’m thinking this could be because of the oven temp. Do you have any recommendation?

    Reply

    • foodnessgracious says

      Yay Victoria, glad you liked it!The garlic may have gotten a bit scorched, try mixing it through the dough next time.

      Reply

  31. Laura says

    It looks awesome! No doubt about it. But I was a little disappointed when I didn’t see yogurt on the ingredient list. Doesn’t nan mean yogurt bread?

    Reply

  32. Yang says

    This looks so delicious! I want to make them on the coming weekend. Have a silly question though. Do you lay them in a single layer on the baking tray or stack them up? Thank you!

    Reply

  35. Ila says

    Hi there, I want to make this for dinner tonight. Can this recipe be used to bake in a loaf pan and then sliced? If so what tempreture would I use and for how long would I need to bake it?
    Thanks

    Reply

  36. Ione Ishii says

    1 star
    But why doesn’t the yeast and warm water proof prior to adding all the ingredients? I currently have followed this recipe to the “T” and it is NOT raising. :( I have it in a warm oven, but I am not hopeful this will work. I am 67 years old and have made bread since I was 10 years old, have made naan many times – this recipe just doesn’t seem to be working. :(

    Reply

  38. Heather says

    This does not look like the flat beautiful
    naan bread picture I tapped on to get to
    your recipe. Your pictures shows some naan
    bread that is a lot
    thicker .

    Reply

    • foodnessgracious says

      Hi Heather, I re-shot the pictures and went with a slightly bigger loaf size than before and didn’t flatten them as much. You can flatten them as much as you prefer.

      Reply

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