I spent the summer making hundreds of recipes, including 123 DIFFERENT gluten free roti recipes! I wanted to summarize what I learned.
Where to buy flour
First things first, you have to know where to find these flours I will mention. Yupik is a Canadian company that sells flours via their website and via amazon. You can buy Bob’s Red Mill Coconut, Rice, Almond, Cassava, Tapioca, Buckwheat, Arrowroot, Flaxseed, Chickpea, Millet (not bajra, Proso millet), potato flour, potato starch ,quinoa, brown rice, white rice, teff, sorghum, sweet rice, amaranth, corn, oat, and quinoa flour. You can purchase Millstream Gluten Free Atta from Saveon foods, and can also purchase their chickpea flour and corn flour. Anthony’s flours include almond flour, coconut, cassava, arrowroot, chickpea and more and can be purchased locally or via amazon. Almond flour and flaxseed can be found at save on or Costco. Those with celiac obviously have to be very careful about not buying contaminated flours, those who aren’t celiac but are looking for benefits of other flours should be fine to buy them if they say may contain wheat. In that case, where you aren't worried about contamination, bulk barn will often have these flours and so will ave maria.
Why Not a Wheat Roti?
There are lots of people who don’t tolerate wheat rotis very well, those with celiac, and some people who are looking for variety in the nutrients in their rotis or looking for rotis with a low glycemic index. There’s lots of reasons to look beyond a regular wheat roti.
Working With Gluten Free Atta
Gluten free atta has its own characteristics and is definitely harder to work with than a wheat roti. I find some gluten free attas do have benefit when you sieve them otherwise there are particles that don’t taste good when you eat the roti. When you make a roti you first have to add water to the flour (atta). I found for all gluten free flours its beneficial to work with boiling water. It helps to bring the flour together better. I boil my water in a quick kettle. Then you pour it into the flour, just enough to get it to mix together. If you add too much, add more flour. If you add too little you can always mix in more. Many traditional Punjabi aunties know this as the method to making makki rotis. I initially like to mix it with a spoon because its too hot to touch. Once its cool enough to touch I do it with my hands. I find it helps if you butter up your hands so it doesn’t stick. You can also just use water on your hands. Knead it out. The gluten free dough doesn’t really need that much kneading. When I was reading into it, kneading for a traditional roti has a lot to do with the gluten, as does the “letting it sit” which is also not really required for gluten free dough. If you do wait too long, or let it sit, the dough dries out. You have to cover it up with a wet kitchen towel. The next step is rolling it into little balls. If you find it is crumbling, add more water and keep kneading. If it is too wet, add more atta again. Keep working with it until it is smooth. If it cracks now your roti will definitely crack too.
Now comes the trickiest part which is rolling out a gluten free roti without having it stick everywhere, and without having it fall apart. Some people use a tortilla press. Some people use sheets of saran wrap, or parchment paper- put a sheet down, the atta, then another sheet, then roll it out over top. Some people cut a ziplock and roll it between. I’ve seen all kinds of things on youtube. My own magic trick is using a SILICONE BAKING MAT. I read about these for rolling out pizza dough and stuff like that and I love mine. Basically you take your roti, and if it is buttered up on the outside you can just roll it out. If your roti is sticky, like most roti flour mixes are, you have to put some flour down on the baking mat (parethan), and you put some on your ball of atta just like for a wheat roti. Then you roll it out! It works great because when its time to take it off, you can either just pick it up, or if your roti is too thin, pick it up with a spatula, or you can just flip the mat a little and pick it up. Its really easy. I haven’t seen this used anywhere for making rotis, but you can wash it and use it over and over and its way better than wasting plastic wraps. Silicone is known to be safe for baking. Some people in India don’t roll out their dough. They use different techniques: patting, hands on a pan and flipping. Here’s some examples:
The edges of the roti: Depending on the flour you use, some edges are smooth like a wheat roti, some edges are jagged if the flour is thicker. I saw someone online cutting it into a circle using a lid, you can certainly do that if you are really wanting a round roti and you have flour that doesn’t allow that. (For those with celiac you have to be careful to remember to use your own rolling pin, surface, sieve, silicone mat etc.)
Once you put the roti on the tava (cast iron) you should put the side with the most parethan up, and put some water on it with your fingers, once the water evaporates and it starts to bubble, flip the roti. It helps to press it down. I found you can get most rotis that are gluten free to fluff up using this method, but you have to be patient in learning, and if your flours are too “heavy” like too much besan, sorghum, etc. you can get them just being totally flat and not rising.
Agents to Join Flours
In general baking, cornstarch, tapioca flour/starch, cassava flour, arrowroot flour, potato starch (not flour), sweet rice flour (mochiko in Japan), polenta, sweet potato flour, xanthan gum, guar gum, flaxseed, ground chia seed, psyllium husk, and mashed potatoes, apple sauce, and plain yogurt can be used to bind gluten-free flours. I found that from my experience watching videos and working with the flours you don’t necessarily need that in a gluten-free roti. After all people eat makki rotis without adding that, but it can be beneficial with some flour mixes. I left out xanthan because not all people can digest it well.
Flours
There are so many gluten free flours I couldn’t possibly have tried all exponential recipes of rotis. I stuck with flours that were easy to find. Gluten-free bajra (pearl millet) is almost impossible to find in Canada. There are some flours I just chose not to use for preference. I think we also need to think about what our bodies will be used and able to digest easily.
The following are gluten-free flours: Teff, Banana, Soy, Black Bean, White Bean, Fava Bean, Green Pea, Mesquite, Chestnut, Hazelenut, Pistachio, Peanut, Hemp, Tigernut, Finger Millet (Ragi in Hindi), Masa Harina (different than makki), Almond Meal, Almond Flour, Bajra (Pearl Millet), Proso Millet (most of the Canadian Millets), Coconut, Quinoa, Rice flour (Akki Roti in India), Corn (Makki), Sorghum (Jowar), Oat, Amaranth (Rajira), Buckwheat (Kuttu Ki Roti in Gajrat), and Chickpea flour (Besan). Each of these flours has their own great nutrient profiles. Many of them are whoel grains, some of the mare more starchy, some have more fiber, some more protein. They have their own features in terms of adding different qualities and textures. It took a long time for me to figure out exactly what each added to a mix.
Roti Trials
As I mentioned, I ran 123 different roti “experiments.” My little sister called it my roti factory. I want to summarize some of what I learned. Tapioca forms like a silly putty texture and doesn’t form into a roti when in a mix. Potato flour makes rotis very mushy. Almond flour and Coconut don’t hold structurally. Buckwheat rotis are traditionally eaten in Gajrat and there are lots of recipes online. Personally I found it had a very strong taste that was not my preference and the same goes for Amaranth. Rice flour makes rotis dry and stretchy, although again in other areas of India they are very popular for rotis. I didn’t like the texture for my rotis. Potato starch and flax didn’t work well as binding agents.
I created some rules around rotis after observing my 109 “failed” recipes. Don’t worry, I made small versions of only 1 roti each! Almost all of them were edible, but I took them off the list for various reasons: texture (mushy, stiff, soft, stretchy, crumbly), thick/heavy, and taste. In fact, one of the rotis is mentionable for being the absolute worst roti I ever tasted and making me vomit. It was an equal combination of besan, sorghum, corn and cassava. I noticed when working with Besan (Chickpea flour) that it generally only really works on its own and in combination with cassava. It doesn’t work well with oats, or corn, unless it is a small portion (1/7th or less) of a larger mix, and shouldn’t be mixed with sorghum (jowar) or it has a bad aftertaste to the roti. Hence my bad experience with the besan/sorghum combination above. Quinoa flour needs to be toasted before you work with it. You bake it for 3 hrs at 215 F and have to keep mixing it about every 20 min, sometimes it gets made faster and you have to be careful not to burn it. It takes its strong taste away and leaves a more palatable flour. Some celiacs don’t tolerate oats because the protein in it is a similar structure to gluten. But for people who don’t have to worry about that, oats work with cassava, and sometimes corn. They don’t work with sorghum or besan. Corn flour doesn’t hold together very well and works well with oats, but not besan or sorghum. Cassava is not a whole grain but is stretchy and useful to join the rotis together, similar to sweet rice flour (Mochiko).
Successful Rotis
Here is my list of rotis that were my favorite and I consider to be the most successful. I have to say there were others in my “semifinal” list, but they weren’t as good as this list so I shortened it to 12 rotis. I was a little disappointed that none of my home mixes were as good as the mix of dhayee with millstream atta, but millstream makes it with bajra and bajra is very difficult to find these days as it is imported from India and covid has reduced supplies. That was definitely my favorite. Here is the list!
Dhayee mix: Started with a 1:1 ratio of plain yogurt to millstream flour, then I added more flour until it wasn’t too sticky.
Oats, corn, cassava and quinoa: I added 1:1:1 portions of oats, corn, and cassava, then added a much smaller portion of quinoa. Ex. To make 1 roti you add a tbsp of the first three and 1 tsp of quinoa.
Besan/cassava: equal portions
Millstream multigrain atta: just making a roti out of this atta was pretty good
oats, corn, sweet rice flour: equal portions
Pure Makki roti
Besan/millstream: half and half, sometimes you can put even more of the millstream than the besan. In a wheat roti its usually 50/50 but for gluten free a little less than half of besan works to prevent it from being dry.
Quinoa Roti: Add a little bit of olive oil or butter
Oat Roti: add a little bit of oil or butter.
Cassava/jowar roti: 2/3 portion cassava to 1/3 of the sorghum (jowar)
Sorghum (jorwar): just pure sorghum. It tends to be a strong and heavy taste, not preferred by all.
Jowar/flax: equal portions. Same as above, some people might not like the taste or texture but good nutrient profile. I got this one online, so it definitely has been tried and tested by others as well.
Wraps: I found the combination of corn, cassava, and oats in equal portions to be great for making wraps. It was a little too stretchy to be a good roti.
Besan Cheela: Vegan omlettes (called Besan Ka Cheela in India), is a delicious recipe my aunts like to make and super easy. Basically you take a bunch of vegetables and some chickpea flour and mix it into a batter which you make like a pancake. For the sake of not leaving you with a recipe that has more exact numbers, here's one from online (sorry don’t remember where!) I tested and modified: Grind or finely chop 1/2 cup broccoli, 1/2 c spinach, 1/2 cup carrots, 1 inch minced ginger, 1/2 tsp turmeric (use less. I used this amount and it was too much!), 1/2 tsp whole cumin, salt to taste (I did 1/4 tsp), 1/2 tsp red chili (i dont like too many spices so i did less), 1/2 tsp roasted cumin powder (i skipped this), and the recipe didn't call for it but I added some scallions (1 tablespoon chopped). Then add in 1 cup of chickpea flour (besan), and mix. Slowly add water until it turns into a batter. I didnt measure but they said it ends up being about a cup of water. Then oil a pan, cook with 1/2 cup of batter, and add 1/2 tsp of oil around the outside before flipping (I did lactose free ghee since i'm not vegan). You can change around the veggies and test out which spices you like.
Variations of Rotis
Once you have basic rotis down, you can start making combinations of parothas- you can add potatos, sweet potatoes, mooli, cauliflower, carrots, ajwain, papaya, dhal, methi/palak parothas! For gluten free rotis instead of stuffing them inside of the flour, or even instead of putting two rotis on top, you might want to consider just mixing it in. I found this worked well for sweet potato. You can also try a sweet roti with gur (jaggery) and sesame seeds. You can try a tandoori roti in the oven as well.
I hope you enjoy your gluten free rotis and learn from my trial and error for recipes. A big thanks to all those ladies on youtube who also taught me a lot from observing them making their own rotis.
