This homemade vegan naan is pillow soft and a must serve bread alongside steaming curries and spicy subzis. I love it topped generously with vegan butter and minced garlic for that restaurant-style garlic naan.
I think everyone loves naan. What's not to love?! It's a soft, buttery bread. A perfect vehicle to eat Indian dishes with your hands.
Naan is a traditional Indian flatbread made from a dairy-enriched dough. It typically is made with yogurt or milk, as well as butter or ghee. These ingredients get worked into the dough to make a softer, tender bread.
Luckily it's easy to make great vegan naan at home! It is traditionally a yeasted bread, but don't let that scare you! It's a lot less fussy than your European style leavened breads.
If anything, it's a bit of a sticky and messy dough, which helps keep the naan super soft when cooked!
Good naan is super flavorful. It's soft and bubbly, with air pockets and crisped spots on the top and bottom. It's butteriness is a great temper to spicy Indian dishes, especially when combined with tangy coconut yogurts!
How to make vegan naan:
Naan is a yeasted bread, which means its bubbly texture comes from yeast and not baking soda or baking powder.
Like other breads, you first mix together the dry ingredients: all purpose flour, a spoonful of sugar, salt, and yeast. I like to use instant yeast because you do not need to dissolve it in liquid first and wait for the yeast to prove. Instead you can mix it straight into the dry ingredients.
We then add the wet ingredients, working them into the dough until it's soft and sticky, but not soupy!
The wet ingredients are:
- coconut yogurt
- warm water
- melted vegan butter
The yogurt enriches the dough along with the vegan butter, making for a softer naan that's less prone to drying out.
just mixed dough dough after kneading
I like to use unsweetened plain coconut yogurt in the naan. This yogurt tends to be thicker than other plant milk yogurts, and has a nice tanginess that goes really nicely in Indian cuisine. The higher fat content of coconut also makes the bread even more tender!
You can use other types of vegan yogurt, but it may make for a wetter dough. This is ok, just add flour until the dough is workable!
Proving the dough:
Once the dough has been kneaded together and any additions of flour made to get a workable dough, it rests for at least 45 minutes to rise. It doesn't need to fully double in size, but expect it to grow about 1.5x in volume. If it's very cold and drafty in your kitchen it may take longer to rise.
Option: Instead of using the dough right away, stick it in the fridge after kneading it together and use it that evening or anytime over the next 2-3 days! This has the benefit of making the dough easier to work with when it comes to shaping.
After the initial rise (either at room temperature or in the refrigerator), divide up the dough and shape into balls on a well floured counter. Let rise a second time for about 45 minutes while the oven preheats.
This recipe makes 4 very large naan or 6-8 smaller sized ones. I love the huge naan you sometimes get at restaurants which is why I divide the dough into 4 portions, but smaller naan are more individually portioned. If you are cooking the bread stovetop I recommend you divide into 6 pieces as the larger naan probably won't fit in your skillet!
How to shape naan:
A traditional tandoori naan has a teardrop shape. This is from the method of cooking which slaps the dough on the side of the tandoor (more about that in a moment!). To mimic this shape I first roll out the dough into a rough oval, then stretch or roll one side of the oval to for it into a triangular "teardrop" shape.
You can also just shape it into an oval and cook it that way. 🙂
Before sticking the dough into the oven to cook, brush it with some melted vegan butter and minced garlic or nigella seeds if using!
How to cook naan at home:
Traditionally, naan is cooked in a tandoor oven. You'll sometimes see it called tandoori naan. This is also where the naming of tandoori roti and tandoori chicken come from. These are cylindrical ovens that open at the top and can be heated to 900 ºF and above!
The naan is slapped against the side of the hot oven, where it sticks until it has cooked through. When cooked it unseals from the side of the oven and can be removed. Before serving it's brushed with butter or ghee, and topped with some combination of cilantro, garlic, and nigella seeds.
We can't achieve these same oven conditions at home, but don't worry, we can still make great naan!
Because the naan is not cooked at the same high temperatures, it will take longer to cook and more moisture will evaporate from the dough. This means you want to start with a wetter dough then a restaurant with a tandoor might need.
This is why the dough is a bit sticky to work with, it's so at the end of the day you can have nice soft bread!
I like to bake my naan at the highest temperature my oven goes, which is 550 ºF. If your oven only reaches 500 ºF that's fine too! If you have a pizza stone or baking steel then go ahead and set that up. You can bake directly on the stone or on a parchment lined baking tray set on top of the stone. This will help transfer more heat to the bottom of the bread to get browning on both sides.
Cooking the naan on the stove:
Another popular way to prepare homemade vegan naan is stovetop. You can cook the flatbread on a skillet over medium-high heat, cooking it on both sides until they have developed brown spots. You don't add any oil to the pan as you cook the bread. Make sure to turn your vent fan on high and open some windows as cooking the bread this way will get smoky.
Serving the naan:
As the hot naan comes out of the oven brush it with more vegan butter, then garnish with fresh minced cilantro.
Serve it right away, or wrap it up in a lint free towel to wait until the rest have been baked. Wrapping it up in a towel while hot traps the steam, and the steam works to soften the naan!
Storing and reheating leftover vegan naan:
For longer storage, wrap the naan in a piece of paper towel and place into a large ziplock bag or reusable silicon bag. You can leave them sealed on the counter at room temperature for up to 2 days. For longer storage, refrigerate or freeze.
To reheat leftover naan, heat a large skillet over medium heat and place the naan on the skillet. Cover with a lid to keep the moisture in, and if the naan is a bit dry then wet your hand and sprinkle some water in with your fingers. The steam will resoften the naan to it's just baked texture!
If you make these homemade vegan naan, leave a comment below and rate the recipe on the recipe card. And please share your photos with me on Instagram, tag @thecuriouschickpea and #thecuriouschickpea. I love seeing your recreations!
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Vegan Naan
This vegan homemade restaurant style naan is incredibly easy to make. The flatbread comes out soft and bubbly and is perfect for scooping up delicious Indian curry! This recipe can make 4 large naan (feeding 1-2 people each) or 6 to 8 smaller individually sized naan.
Ingredients
- 3 cups (420g) all purpose flour, extra if needed
- 1 tablespoon (16g) sugar
- 1 ½ teaspoon (3g) instant yeast*
- 1 ½ teaspoon (6g) salt
- 1 cup (225g) plain unsweetened coconut yogurt (or other vegan yogurt)
- ½ cup (120g) 110 ºF warm water
- 3 tablespoon (42g) melted vegan butter or coconut oil*, extra to bake and serve
- minced garlic, optional
- minced cilantro, optional
Instructions
- In a large mixing bowl whisk together the flour, sugar, salt, and yeast. In a second small mixing bowl combine the yogurt, melted vegan butter (or coconut oil), and warm water until smooth. Add the wet to the dry and combine with a wooden spoon to form a wet dough.
- Knead with your hands for about 1-2 minutes. The dough will be very sticky, if it feels soupy, add a bit more flour until it's sticky but not runny. Otherwise, you can wet your hands to prevent the dough from sticking too much.
- Shape the kneaded dough into a ball and turn seam-side down. Cover the bowl and place it in a warm spot. Let the dough rise 45 minutes or until swollen 1 ½ - 2x in size. Alternatively, refrigerate the dough after kneading in a covered mixing bowl and continue 8-48 hours later.
- Dust a clean counter with flour and turn the proved dough out. Divide the dough into 4 to 8 equal pieces and shape into balls, dusting with flour as needed to prevent sticking. Set the dough balls on a floured plate, and sprinkle more flour on top. Cover with a lint free towel and let rise while the oven preheats.
- Preheat the oven to 550 ºF, or as hot as your oven goes with a rack positioned ⅓ of the way down from the top of the oven. If you have one, place a baking steel or baking stone on that rack to preheat. Let the oven preheat for at least 45 minutes to saturate the sides and baking steel or stone (if using) with heat.
- After the second rise, roll the dough with a rolling pin to shape into an oval. To make a teardrop shape grab one side of the oval and stretch it to make a triangular shape.
- Brush the top of the shaped breads with melted butter (or coconut oil) and sprinkle on minced garlic if making garlic naan.
- Bake the naan 2-3 at a time, either on a parchment lined baking tray or directly on a baking stone or steel. If baking on the stone or steel transfer using a pizza peel.
- Bake for 3-5 minutes until there are some golden spots on the bubbled surface. If desired, turn on the broiler for 1-2 minutes after 3-4 minutes of baking. Larger naan will take longer to cook, smaller ones will cook faster, keep an eye on the first batch and adjust cooking times accordingly.
- Repeat with remaining dough. For restaurant style presentation, brush the hot dough with some more vegan butter, the butter will melt on contact. Sprinkle with cilantro to serve.
Notes
*You can substitute active dry yeast for instant yeast. To do so mix the yeast in with the wet ingredients in a separate bowl and let sit and dissolve for 10 minutes before adding to the dry ingredients.
*If using coconut oil, add ¼ teaspoon salt to the dough.
Recipe adapted from Vah Reh Vah.
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Nutrition Information:
Yield: 6 Serving Size: 1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 326Total Fat: 7gSaturated Fat: 4gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 2gCholesterol: 0mgSodium: 652mgCarbohydrates: 57gFiber: 2gSugar: 9gProtein: 9g
Nutrition is calculated automatically and should be used solely as an estimate.
This recipe was originally published on August 30, 2018 and updated in January 2022 with new photos and a video.
Holy deliciousness, Eva! This naan is so amazing (as are all your recipes!). I've made it twice now - it's so easy, pillowy soft in the middle with a beautiful crust on the outside. My family goes CRAZY for this naan, they gobble every single piece down and there are never any leftovers (much to my chagrin).
Your recipes and photos are just beautiful!
This naan looks amazing, Eva - I'll have to try my hand at making it! 🙂
Hello,
I would love to make your naan. However, I went from vegetarian to vegan and omitted all dairy. Do have a replacement for yogurt?
Correction: What yogurt did you use in your naan?
Hi Michele, I used coconut yogurt (I believe so delicious brand) but any non dairy yogurt will work! I prefer thick yogurts to thin for this bread but if all you have is thinner yogurt it will still work, you may just have to use a bit more flour!
This is a flawless recipe! Delicious to the core! Thank you so much!
This is an amazing naan recipe, thank you! Non-vegan husband who loves restaurant naan absolutely loved this, and so did I!
Thanks Suzanne! Glad it hit the spot ?
I'm about to try this with sweetened almond milk yogurt....only because it's all i have and I think a critical part of richner naan. I am noticing sugar is added in recipe anyway, albeit possibly less than what's in the yogurt I have....I hope this doesn't result in a sweet naan!
Hello Eva,
Can this Naan be made with any gluten free flour? Chickpea flour?
Best regards,
Paige
Hi Paige, I believe there are some gluten free naan recipes out there, but since this specific recipe depends on gluten development to work with the yeast for an airy texture you won't be able to get the same results with a gluten free flour. If there was one that would work it would be an all purpose GF blend that's recommended for yeasted dough (i.e. not a chickpea flour), and I imagine some changes would need to be made to the recipe to get it right. Definitely something to add to my to do list!
For some reason the dough didn’t rise, I followed the instructions properly. Any chance the yeast is supposed to be out in water and added to wet ingredients instead?
Hi Lucas, I'm sorry you had difficulty with your dough! Did you use active dry yeast by any chance? I have a note at the end of the recipe for instructions using active dry yeast. Otherwise with instant yeast it does not need to be dissolved in warm water first. It's possible if its colder or draftier in your home that the dough might need a lot longer to rise as well. Also there is always a chance that your yeast is no longer active, in which case you can try to proof it first to make sure its good. I hope you're able to give the recipe another go!
Dear Eva,
First time trying to make naan and I’m so lucky to chanced ipon your recipe. It worked beautifully! I don’t have an oven so I pan fry it and the result is crispy on the outside and fluffy in the inside! Its so Super delicious! I’ll definitely make it again and again! Even thinking of using it as a pizza base (but pan fried style) ? Thank you, Eva!
Cheers!
Lynda
Hey! My naan tasted great but I think I still must have done something wrong. I don't have a stone so I used the baking sheet with parchment paper method, the oven was at 500 degrees (the highest mine will go) and it melted the wax paper and stuck to the naan. Also the naan burned at its thinest most stretched out parts - so maybe I wouldn't stretch it so thin next time? I don't know. I had better luck making a non-vegan naan recipe, but I would really like to make this recipe right. To start, I think I'll try not using any parchment paper next time.
Hey, it sounds like you used wax paper and not parchment paper! Waxed paper should not be used in the oven and will melt, but parchment paper is safe to use at high heat! It does get a bit crispy at those 450+ deg F temps, but that's fine. You can skip the parchment paper but then might want to lightly oil the baking sheet you are baking it on so you don't have any sticking issues (just to be safe). I hope they turn out for you if you give them another go!
I've just prepared this dough as per this recipe, adding the 1 cup yogurt, 1/2 cup warm water and 3 T melted butter. It is SO dry! I can't believe that you achieved the sticky, moist dough in your pictures and in your directions with only this amount of liquids. Is it possible you've made a mistake? I had to add at least another 1/2 cup of water just to get this dough anywhere near the pictures and your description. Please clarify - thanks!
Hi Bonnie, yes it's correct, I make this recipe regularly. Did you measure use white all purpose flour? Did you measure by volume or weight? If by volume did you whisk up the flour before measuring? My best guess is you have extra flour in there, which can happen if the flour settles in the container and can measure an extra 25% even! The only other variable is how liquidy the yogurt is, but unless it's a super thick greek style yogurt it should work out fine. I've used several different kinds successfully. Hope it comes out for you with your adjustment!
Yes, I measured and used white flour. I measured by volume, as there was no weight indicated in the recipe. I did whisk the dry ingredients together as per the recipe. The yogurt was not thick/greek yogurt - I easily poured it into my measuring cup. The only thing I can imagine is that I zoned out while adding the flour and added an extra cup - it's the only thing that makes sense, regardless of how nonsensical it sounds 🙂
I'll be baking the bread shortly, and I'm sure it will work out well with the extra water I added.
Thanks for getting back to me.
Hi Bonnie, could be, I've certainly done that and added extra! And I do include weights, it's written in grams next to the volume measurement in the ingredient list ?.
Well, since I was completely blind to the fact that you included measurements by weight, it seems clear that it's me who made some kind of big mistake! I guess I'm just jealous that everyone else seemed to have made it with such wonderful results 🙁
The bread turned out, but it's more of a "flatbread" than naan. I'll try again - thanks for the great recipes!!
No worries! I'm glad it came out and hopefully a second go will have it come out just like you hoped! If it helps, I did make these on my Instagram stories with an adjustment of not using yogurt awhile back (it's better with yogurt but someone asked me during the beginning of the pandemic if it could be made without). Here's the link: https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/17877886933572723/
This turned out great! I didn't have enough yogurt to do 1 full cup so I inverted the measurements for water and yogurt (1/2 cup instead) and it worked out perfectly. So pillowy! I let it rise/ferment in the fridge overnight. I also pan-fried them on a cast iron rather than heating up my oven.
Hi, thank you for the recipe. This Naan was so easy to make & so delicious, airy & flavourful. I made my dough yesterday, using coconut plain yogurt, as it was the only vegan yogurt in my supermarket (very small rural town). I put it into the fridge overnight & rolled it out & cooked it tonight on a pizza stone.
I doubled the recipe because I am taking them to work tomorrow (I am catering a work luncheon for 13 people). I made some large & some small (the small ones are perfect for scooping up the red lentil curry & the sweet potato, chickpea & spinach Dahl I’ve made as well) I can’t wait to get feed back from my work colleagues.
Cheers from Australia
Incredible! Hope everyone enjoys them! I wish I could join in on the feast!
Do you flip it while baking?
No, you do not need to flip it while baking! They can also be cooked on a hot griddle, and in this case you will need to flip them.
I omitted the oil and used lake to monkfruit sweetener in place of the sugar. It still turned out amazing. Thank
Obviously submitted before reading. That should be *lakanto
I have a question! We have a pizza stone and a barbecue, and sometimes make Italian pizza in the barbecue (it's made by high heat and the pizza cooks in a couple of minutes - it's how they do it there). Can I use the barbecue in the same way to cook the naan? Thank you!
Sure you can definitely use your grill! The naan can even be cooked stovetop. You may want to try dividing it into 6 pieces of dough so that you're working with slightly smaller (less "restaurant sized") naan, and you'll probably want to flip halfway through, and only add the garlic/butter to the second side.
Can this Naan recipe be made with gluten free flour?
This naan was excellent! Everyone loved it. It was so soft and tender. I really like that you use weight for baking, it makes me more confident your recipes are going to work. Thanks so much for sharing!
When I made this naan, I found out I was completely out of salt! I tried subbing 2 tsp of very salty mushroom powder and wound up with such a delicious umami flavor. I couldn't get enough! Figured I'd note that here in case anyone else wants to try adding mushroom powder to their naan as well.
Love that save with the mushroom powder! It sounds yummy!