Warm flour or corn tortillas are essential for great tacos. Here’s a trick for how to warm tortillas: and give them beautiful char marks too!
How much do you love tacos? If you make tacos as much as Alex and I do (which is very often!), you’ve probably wondered the best way for how to warm tortillas. Well, we have a trick that we use all the time that not only warms the tortillas, but gives them beautiful char marks too. And the light char adds a subtle smoky flavor that amps up the taco even more. Trust us: we’ve taste tested a dry tortilla against a charred one, and the taco flavor is not even CLOSE. You’ve got to try this trick.
Related: 10 Vegetarian & Vegan Taco Recipes
How to warm tortillas on the stove
Please, please promise us that you do not make any of our taco recipes on this website without warming your tortillas! There’s nothing worse than a tough tortilla. Corn tortillas especially can be dry and crusty if they are not heated at least a bit. Our trick for how to warm tortillas also gives them char marks so they look more appealing: and it adds a light smoky flavor that puts the tacos over the top. How we do it? Char them on an open gas flame.
What you’ll need for this method: a gas stove. You’ll place the tortillas directly on top of the burner and turn on the gas to warm it over an open flame. Now, make sure to use tongs and observe safety precautions! And do not leave your tortilla unattended: even a few extra seconds can be the difference between charred and burned. This method works both for how to warm corn tortillas and flour tortillas.
How to Warm Tortillas
Warm flour or corn tortillas are essential for great tacos. Here’s a trick for how to warm tortillas: and give them beautiful char marks too!
Materials
- Gas stove
- Tortillas
Tools
- Tongs
Instructions
- Place a tortilla directly onto the grates above a burner on the stovetop. Grab a pair of tongs. Make sure to observe good fire safety practices since you’ll be using an open flame.
- Heat on medium heat for a few seconds, until light char marks form on the outside. Do not leave the stove for any reason during this point! Leaving the tortilla for even a few extra seconds can blacken the tortilla or set it on fire.
- Using tongs, flip the tortilla. Heat another few seconds on the other side until warm and lightly charred. Again, keep your eye on the tortilla here! Just a few seconds are necessary to warm it: make sure that it does not catch fire.
- Place the tortilla in a tortilla warmer. Repeat with the next tortilla until all tortillas are warmed.
How to warm tortillas in the oven
But what if you don’t have a gas stove for heating tortillas? You can warm them in an oven as well. While they won’t get the signature char marks and flavor, they come out perfectly warmed. Here’s how to warm tortillas in the oven:
- Preheat an oven to 350 degrees Farenheit.
- Wrap a few tortillas (no more than 5) in aluminum foil and place it in the oven for about 15 to 20 minutes. You can place the tortillas directly on the grate or on a baking sheet. (If necessary, you can do multiple aluminum foil packets at a time.)
How to keep tortillas warm?
So! Next question. How to keep tortillas warm? They start cooling the moment they’re off the flame, so they can end up brittle within minutes. Luckily, there’s an invention for this problem that’s inexpensive and does the trick.
It’s a tortilla warmer! Now if you know our philosophy at all, you’ll wonder: But Alex and Sonja, I thought you were against mono-taskers? It’s true that we don’t buy many gadgets that have only one purpose. But we have not found a better way to keep our tortillas warm! It’s basically an insulated pouch traps in the heat and keeps them perfectly heated. At the rate that we eat tacos around here, it’s a godsend.
Get one: Tortilla warmer $14
Looking for more vegan & vegetarian tacos?
Need taco recipes? Here are a few of our favorite vegan and vegetarian tacos recipes:
