Whole Wheat Pita Pockets

Making something delicious doesn’t have to be hard, complicated, or cost a lot of money. All it takes is a little determination, and a great recipe. And boy is this a great recipe. Whole wheat pita pockets are practically a staple food in my house. We eat them on a weekly basis. And with such simple ingredients, they’re so inexpensive to make.

You can do all kinds of things with pita pockets. One thing I love to do is use the rolled and risen dough as pizza crust, for individual pizzas! It saves time and it’s even whole wheat.I usually like to put tuna salad in them, and I’ll throw in a little handful of sprouts if I remember to start them. (For helpful tips on making your own sprouts, I’ve located a quick and easy guide here.) Other times though I’ll cut it all the way open and slather on some creamy peanut buttery goodness, some raspberry jam (did you know that raspberry has a P in it?), and call it a PB & J Sammich. Heck, if I feel like it, I’ll use it like a tortilla and toss in some Mexican cheese, homemade “refried” beans, a little lettuce, you know, the works. I can guarantee that they are not as intimidating to make as others may make it sound. They’re actually quite easy. I even have a little tutorial here for you!

Pour the warm water into a medium-sized bowl. Sprinkle the yeast and sugar on top of it. Let rest 2 minutes.

After the yeast mixture is done activating, add the whole wheat flour and salt.

And gently mix it (to prevent making a mess all over the table after you just washed it).

And the resulting mix will be very, VERY wet. But don’t worry, we’ll fix it in a second.

So we’re gonna add a leeeetle more flour to turn it into a dough instead of a thick batter.

Now this is a pretty sticky dough still so we’re not quite done yet.  

Flour a work surface. This can be a counter, a tabletop, a cutting board, or whatever flat surface you got lying (or sitting, rather) around. Just flour it and plop your pita dough on it.

Now we’re gonna knead it for like two minutes until the dough comes together, adding about a 1/2 cup to get things squared around.

But as you can see, if you split your dough down the middle, you’ll find that the inside isn’t quite the right dough consistency. It’s still like a really sticky dough.

So just knead a little longer, exposing the middle and adding new flour as needed. And by now your dough should be done.

Now cut it into eighths. You can do it the square way, but to get really even pita pockets, cutting the dough like a pizza works best.

Toss all but one of the balls of dough into the bowl you used to make the dough (just to save on washing more and more dishes…)

And roll ‘em out. They don’t have to be perfect circles, but you can probably get them pretty darn close. You know what they say though, “practice makes perfect.”

I line a pan with a silpat (silicone baking mat) but you can just put some foil down or grease it. Put each rolled pita pocket on the lined/greased pan.

Now just cover the pan(s) with a kitchen towel and let ‘em rest for half an hour (hence why I start pita pockets at 11:00 am).

Here is one pan of risen whole wheat pita pockets. The one on the top left was…attacked…by my all-time taste tester. By all-time, I mean every thing I make is tested by him (whether I like it or not). Check him out chowing down on some dinner roll dough here. Now put them in the oven to bake.

Here is a pan of done pita pockets.

Like I said, I make and use these pita pockets all the time. They always taste good and are not at all hard to make. Plus, you can use them for virtually anything. I’ve tried making them into salted pita wedges.

Here’s the recipe!