Sourdough Discard Flatbread

Outdoorsmen and camp cooks have been using sourdough to make bread for about 4,000 years, give or take a year or two. Most sourdough historians (yes, that’s a thing) figure the first dough was an accident. Someone left flour and water out, some wild yeast landed on it, and when the forgetful cook finally got back around to it, they noticed it was bubbling and fermenting. Because making flour was pretty labor intensive back then, our cook likely shrugged their shoulders and went ahead with bread making. To their wonder, the bread rose and tasted pretty danged good. I’m betting they claimed that the fluffy, flavorful bread had been the plan from the beginning. Sourdough was born.

Use your sourdough discard to make this easy flatbread, which is perfect for a sandwich. Images by author.

Although everyone knew it worked, no one really knew why until around 1600, when Antonie van Leeuwenhoek looked at some sourdough through his rudimentary microscope and saw the individual yeast cells. A couple of hundred years later, when he wasn’t fixing milk issues, saving beer, and inventing vaccines against rabies, Louis Pasteur mapped out the complete fermentation process behind sourdough.

Although the invention of commercial baker’s yeast in the 1900s made sourdough unnecessary for baking bread, many bakers kept the tradition alive for the distinctive flavor you can only get with sourdough.

If you keep a sourdough starter, you know about discard — the leftover bits you remove from the jar every time you feed the starter. But the discard isn’t just a throw-away. You can use it to make all sorts of tasty recipes.

One of my favorites is this simple flatbread. Use it as sandwich bread, serve it alongside dinner in place of a biscuit or roll, or smear it with a little butter and some honey or jam for a tasty snack.

Use the bread as a sandwich, or top it with butter and your favorite jam or honey.

For maximum flavor, I like to fry the bread in beef tallow or lard, but you can use vegetable oil or even olive oil if you wish.

Frying in lard or beef tallow adds flavor.

Although the bread only takes a few minutes to fry, it requires some extended prep work. Actual hands-on time is brief, but the dough needs to rest and rise between steps, so plan accordingly, and make this on a day when you can pop in and out of the kitchen as needed.

Start with the dough. Add the flour to a large bowl.

Start with all-purpose flour.

Pour in your starter or discard.

Add active starter or discard.

Add salt, yogurt, the beaten egg and butter. If you are adding yeast, stir it in as well.

Add the salt, yeast and other ingredients.

Add the milk to the bowl. Blend everything into a shaggy dough. Cover the dough and let it rest for 30 minutes to hydrate.

Mix to form a shaggy dough.

After resting, turn the dough out onto a floured surface or into the bowl of a large mixer equipped with a dough hook. Knead the dough, by hand or by mixer, for eight to 10 minutes or until it’s smooth. It should still be a bit tacky at this point.

Knead by hand or by mixer with a dough hook for eight to 10 minutes.

Place the dough into a lightly oiled bowl. Cover and allow the dough to rise for three to four hours. It doesn’t need to double, but it should rise.

Add the dough to an oiled bowl to rest and rise.

Turn the dough back onto a floured surface. Divide the dough into eight to 10 sections. Roll each section into balls. Cover with a clean kitchen towel, and let the dough rest again for another 30 minutes.

Divide the dough into eight to 10 equal pieces.

Use a rolling pin to flatten each ball down to about a quarter-inch thickness. The circle should be 4 to 6 inches across, depending on whether you went with eight pieces versus 10.

Roll the dough flat.

Move the flattened dough to a plate, and repeat the process until all the dough has been rolled. Heat about a quarter-inch of your cooking oil of choice in a skillet over medium-high heat. When the oil has reached about 350 degrees, slowly lay in one disc of dough.

The bread will puff and brown as it cooks. Cook for two to three minutes or until the bottom is golden brown, and then flip and cook the other side. Move the bread to a paper-lined sheet pan, and repeat the process until all the dough is fried.

Fry the bread, and move each piece to a wire rack or paper-lined sheet pan.

Use the bread to make your favorite sandwich, add butter or something sweet, or just eat it with your meal or as a snack. I keep leftovers in a zip-top bag in the refrigerator for up to a week or slightly longer. You can crisp and warm them back up in a skillet over medium heat or in an air fryer for a few minutes.

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