Homestead on Lakeside

Whenever mistakes turn out well in the kitchen, I love to share what I’ve learned in case you, too, have found yourself with way over fermented sourdough. I hope you enjoy this sourdough pita bread. It ended up being a perfect twist on sandwich bread, and everyone’s tummies were very happy.

Jump to Recipe

In preparation for the next day, I try to mix together enough dough for two loaves of sourdough bread to be baked the next day. After putting the boys to bed, I found myself so tired from the day that I completely forgot that I had dough rising. Dough that needed to be formed and shaped and put in the refrigerator before I went to sleep.

The next morning, I woke to my kitchen aid mixer bowl overflowing with sourdough. With a sigh of disappointment and frustration that I wasn’t going to have sandwich bread for lunch, I was determined to find a use for this terribly over fermented double loaf dough. I rolled out the dough, placed it in the oven, and out came this beautiful and delicious bread. It reminds me of a pita bread, but better! The bread opens, and a perfect little pocket is created to place all kinds of yummy sandwich fillings. The day we ate these sourdough pita sandwiches, I filled them with jam and brie cheese, then toasted them in the oven. It was such a hit that my boys have asked me to make this sourdough pita bread again!

Easy Sourdough Pita Bread Ingredients

This recipe can be halved to yield approximately 4 to 5 pita sandwiches. I recommend using a round cast iron skillet to bake the sourdough pita bread when halving the recipe.

• 6 cups of all-purpose flour
• 2 cups of filtered water
• 2 cups of sourdough starter
• 2 tsp of salt
• drizzle of olive oil
• salt and pepper to taste

Interested in Making your own Sourdough Starter?

If you’ve wanted to learn how to make sourdough bread this year, I highly encourage you to try it. It’s the best thing that I’ve ever learned how to make. It’s so much better for you that the bread from the store that’s filled with twenty different ingredients. Can we even really call that bread? I feel like that is more of a “bread food.” It reminds me of “cheese food”, the yellow slices that aren’t even real cheese.

Sourdough is easier to digest and works for many people with gluten sensitivity. Plus, it tastes delicious! Check out my posts here on getting started with sourdough.

• The Simple Way to Care for Sourdough Starter
• Fast Sourdough Bread, Ready in a Few Hours
• How to Make a Sourdough Starter

Easy Sourdough Pita Bread Recipe

I love to use my Kitchen Aid mixer when putting together loaves of sourdough. It’s  slightly less romantic than using my hands. I can’t pretend that I’m in an old-world kitchen cooking like our ancestors. But I can turn out bread conveniently and without making my hands a giant sticky mess. So, the mixer is totally worth it!

Here is the Kitchen Aid mixer I use with the glass bowl. This mixer is going 10 years strong.

Here is the link to the glass bowl sold separately.

When Mistakes Turn Out Delicious

Here you can see that my dough has over proofed when I forgot about it overnight. It exploded out of the bowl and left me a little unsure of what to do. So, to replicate my mistake, start by mixing together the flour, water, salt, and starter. Use active starter that is filled with large bubbles. This will help your dough rise and ferment properly. Mix until all of the ingredients are well combined. Then cover and leave overnight on the counter. To avoid the bowl overflowing and becoming dry in spots, like mine did, use a lightly damp cloth to cover the bowl rather than a plastic lid. I recommend mixing your dough together shortly before going to bed. This dough does well with a 12-hour fermentation.

Using a Cast Iron Skillet for the Perfect Bake

The next morning, prepare the cast iron pan for baking. I used a Lodge 20-inch cast iron griddle. If you are halving this recipe, I recommend using a 10-inch or 12-inch round cast iron skillet.

Rub a light coating of coconut oil or other high temp oil on the skillet if it is not well seasoned. Place the skillet in the oven and preheat to 400F.

Gently roll out the dough on the counter, being careful not to push out all of the bubbles that have formed in the dough as it was fermenting overnight. Shape the rolled dough to match the shape of the skillet.

When the oven is done preheating, and the skillet is hot. Remove the skillet from the oven and place the rolled dough on the skillet. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste.

Bake for approximately 20 to 30 minutes, depending on how thin the dough was rolled out. Remove from the oven when baked to a light golden brown and slice with a pizza cutter into 8 to 10 pieces. Gently pull the bread apart, creating a pocket to place all of the goodies for your sandwich.

Thank you for joining me as I made this mistake gone right of easy sourdough pita bread. Hopefully, this encourages you to make something delicious from a kitchen mess up. For more homemade family inspiration and recipes from scratch, follow along on Instagram @homesteadonlakeside .

This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through my links, at no cost to you. Thanks for your support!