How to make Ethiopian Injera Bread from scratch

Injera bread

Injera bread is a classic African bread recipe

Ingredients

2 cups teff flour

2 cups water

¼ teaspoon salt

Vegetable oil for coating the pan

Directions

Mix flour, water and salt. Put the batter aside overnight or up to three days to ferment. The batter will start to bubble and obtain its well-known tartness.

Heat a lightly oiled cast-iron skillet over medium low heat. In a large mixing bowl add all ingredients and lightly mix well. Heat a lightly oiled cast-iron skillet over medium low heat. 

Coat skillet with a thin layer of batter. Cook until holes appear on the surface of the bread flip and repeat cooking on other side. Cover completed bread with a damp cloth.

What is Injera bread? What is Teff?

Injera bread is a flatbread traditionally eaten in the African countries of Ethiopia and Eritrea. Injera bread is thicker than a crepe but thinner than a pancake. 

In making Injera, teff flour is mixed with water and fermented over several days however, wheat flour or all-purpose flour can be used however, the taste and texture changes.

Eating with Injera bread is a stable in some African households in order to eat dishes of vegetables, meats and stews. Injera bread is used in place of utensils using pieces of Injera to pick up bites of food. 

Injera bread is eaten daily in all most every Ethiopian and Eritrean household. The Ethiopian dish Spicy Red Lentils goes perfectly with injera.



Teff is a grass, small sized fine grain that grows mainly in Ethiopia and Eritrea. The grain has a very mild, nutty flavor, cooks quickly and is naturally gluten-free. 

Ground into flour, teff is used to make the traditional bread, injera. The teff crop’s history traces back thousands of years as a reliable staple crop.