We’re back, and it’s grilling season! We’ve been on a brief hiatus to clean up the grill, go get some charcoal, and bring you some recipes perfect for your summertime barbeque. Where should we start? Grilled Naan.
We are constantly inspired by Madhur Jaffrey, who has written many books on how to cook Indian cuisine in an American kitchen. Typically, you’ve got your choice of useful base dishes to fill out a plate and soak up other well-spiced components. Rice with a bit of cumin or protein-rich lentils taste great with everything else you’re cooking.
A bit harder to create at home are the many types of bread you encounter in Indian cuisine. Parathas, chapatis, and naan all make for delicious flatbread starches that can hold and soak up other components of a meal. Making naan at home may present a bit more of a challenge than good rice, but a pillowy, flavorful naan is actually pretty easy and definitely worth the time.
Naan dough is a yeasted dough, and it’s so soft because of the dairy components that are included. Our homemade yogurt is the perfect thing to add. It gets stretchy like a pizza dough, so working it into individual flatbreads by pulling or using a rolling pin is a breeze.
Traditionally naan is baked in a tandoor, a round clay oven. I wanted to cook these on the grill along with some chicken skewers so I could monitor everything at once. Outside of grilling season or as an alternative, you could just as easily cook these on a hot cast iron skillet.
If you’re not baking the naan immediately, you can freeze the rolled, uncooked dough for later. Just be sure to keep them apart with parchment paper or plastic wrap so that they don’t stick. Pull the stack of uncooked naan out of the freezer about 30 minutes before you’re ready to throw them on the grill.
I lightly brushed the naan with butter as I put them on the grill, both to add flavor and to avoid the bread sticking to the grill grate. Add some finely chopped garlic and parsley steps at the end, or leave it plain. Next time, I’ll probably add the garlic into the dough to get the flavor more distributed and have some of the roasted garlic flavor from the grill.
This naan goes great with other Indian and grilled recipes. Soak up the spinach from our Saag Paneer or fold it around other proteins like Spiced Chickpeas. While your coals are hot, why not throw together a Grilled Romaine Salad? We’ll be sharing some more recipes for a dip and a grilled protein in the next week that go great with this naan, so stay tuned!
Simple flatbread naan dough perfect for baking on the grill. Adapted from New York Times Cooking.
- 16 g dry yeast (3 ¾ tsp)
- 45 g sugar (approx. 3 Tbsp)
- 1 ½ cups water divided
- 865 g all-purpose flour (approx. 6 ¾ cups)
- 25 g kosher salt (3 tsp)
- 8 g baking powder (1.5 tsp)
- ¼ cup plus ½ Tbsp milk
- 65 g yogurt (about ¼ cup)
- 2 eggs
- 3 Tbsp vegetable oil
- Salted butter melted for brushing on during grilling
- Garlic and parsley finely chopped for garnish
-
Combine yeast, sugar, and 6 Tbsp warm water in a bowl and let stand for a few minutes.
-
Mix flour, salt, and baking powder in mixer with a dough hook.
-
Add yeast/sugar/water mixture to the flour, along with milk, yogurt, vegetable oil, eggs, and 1 cup plus 2 Tbsp water.
-
Knead the dough until stretchy but still somewhat sticky, about 5-10 minutes.
-
Put the dough in a well-oiled bowl to rise until doubled, about 1-1.5 hours.
-
Divide the dough into 12 equal balls about 125g each.
-
Place dough balls onto a floured baking sheet and cover with plastic wrap or a kitchen towel. Let rise for 45 minutes to an hour until about doubled again.
-
Gently stretch each dough ball with your hands into a 6 inch round. Alternatively, roll out on a floured surface with a rolling pin.
-
Place rolled dough on a floured plate, adding a piece of plastic wrap or parchment paper in between each that completely covers the dough (so that the individual naan are not touching.
-
If you are not going to immediately bake the dough, wrap the stack of naan in plastic wrap and freeze for up to a week. Thirty minutes before baking, remove the stack from the freezer.
-
Prepare a high-heat fire in your grill and make sure to oil your grill grate.
-
Melt some butter and have it nearby.
-
Depending on the size of your grill and the size of the fire you have prepared, prep one or two naan by brushing one side with butter.
-
Place the naan butter-side-down onto the grill grate.
-
Butter the side facing up.
-
Bake for about 1 minute, until bubbles start to form on the top side of the naan. If it gets smoky, cover the grill to make sure no flare-ups occur.
-
Flip the naan and bake for another minute or two, until it is somewhat less soft and the underside is lightly browned.
-
Remove baked naan from the grill and place on a platter or cutting board. Add garlic and parsley as well as more butter, if desired.
-
Repeat with all remaining naan, stacking the bread as it comes off the grill.