Frybread Recipe

Way too much water! and the recipe didn't mention that the dough would have the elasticity of a rubber band or that the finished flatbread would require something to dip it into or something to put on it (apple butter and a combination of cinnamon and suger both worked well for breakfast). After various minute adjustments (more flour to take up the water, additional pinches of salt and baking powder to offset the increased flour) and trying both grilling and frying, I found that frying in very hot oil until each side was puffy and lightly brown produced results from this recipe almost as good as my own version. VC (Rains on the Ground)

Last weekend I attended Chief Joseph Days in Joseph, OR. One of the group I was in found a fry bread trailer the first night we were there and got a portion which he shared with others in our little group which included five young girls, four of whom were members of rodeo royalty courts. The next night I went to the same stand and was told she was out of frybread, that she had sold the last one. Since I hadn't shared in the first snack I told her I was sorry since I'd never tried the treat before. The lady who bought the last 2 pieces offered to let me have one of hers since she was an old hand at it. I thanked both the vendor and the other lady in line and returned to my place in the rodeo audience. I offered to share the last piece of frybread with the girls and they took all but the last bite! Guess I will have to try this recipe before the next rodeo.

I have no idea where fry bread originated, but it is not just culinary favorite with the southwest Native Americans; it is all over! Tribe in the Pacific Northwest eat it (and sell it in vending booths at tribal events & potlatches, First Nations people in British Columbia eat it, and I've heard that it is found at Pow Wows across the country.

I live in Arizona not far from the Navajo Indian Nation. Whenever I am in Window Rock or any other even where the Navajo congregate, I look for a frybread vendor. If this recipe works for you, great. If not, it probably only needs a slight alteration. Keep trying the rewards are worth the extra time and work.

If you find yourself in northern Arizona go to Tuba city, there is a small resturant on the high way right in Tuba City that heads north, they have great fry bread, they make a Navajo taco it's fry bread with beans, lettuce, tomato and cheese on top. the firt time I went there was 1963 and the last time was 2004 it was still the same. I'll go that way again this year.

I am curious about the comment/observation that fry bread is a "complicated symbol in Navao culture." Since wheat and wheat flour, as well as baking powder are not native to the Americas, one would think that the availability of wheat in the Southwest would have not been possible until contact with the Spanish coming up from Mexico, and the diffusion of wheat, etc., to the Navajos. I suspect the same would be true of cooking oils based I assume on animal fats, also not easily available to the Navajos until the adoption of sheep domestication from the Spanish as well. Does anyone have any information about this?

Not having grown up on a rez, I wasn't raised with my father's people. I realised there was alot of things I missed both educational wise and social wise as well, when I finally was able to. I was taught a very valuable lesson to this day, even with such simple ingredients and meager ones at that (seen by others with tons of things to have and eat) its the feast of many if you have the gathering of others. As for the man that only got the last bite, you were indeed fortunate becuase you were given something then you in turn offered to share with others as well, your heart is big in the eyes of others.

"This seemingly simple food is a complicated symbol in Navajo culture." i love fry bread -- especially with honey drizzled over it. but i've always thought it odd that it's so closely tied in to native culture's when it's my understanding that native cultures didn't have wheat flour until europeans introduced it to them (and they certainly didn't have white flour). i've always wondered if there was a fry bread before wheat berries arrived. would that just be tortillas, or was there something else?

I had hoped to find more than a recipe here. I am curious about the beginnings of Fry Bread in the Native North American cultures. I suspect it came from the reservation food supplies and was created then. As Donald Wolberg stated above, fry bread ingredients are not indigenous to the "New World" I can imagine the original basic idea forming from the use of corn which was used in many different ways including the flat tortilla style.

Fry bread is made and sold by vendors, school groups, and anyone else who has a food stand or concession at fairs, carnivals, rodeos, baseball games, auction sales and similar gatherings in North Dakota. The recipe is essentially the one you list. My family has ranched in N. Dak. since 1882 or six years before statehood. I'm 76 and my mother made fry bread when I was in grade school. Then it was, of course, fried in lard from the hogs we slaughtered. (The big food experience, though, for my family and my late wife's family was oyster stew on Christmas Eve. This was the only time we could afford it. Ranching life was quite grim in the thirties and during WWII price controls were deliberately set to discourage livestock feeding so grain could be used for food. The subsidization of ethanol has been a repeat of that.

Best fry bread I ever had was at a crossroads in vicinity of Shiprock--along w/BBQ lamb--back in summer of 1985.

ElEsJaydePAWA

After reading all of these posts, I think I will try my hand at making fry bread. I think I will use white wheat flour and add yeast to the recipe. I'll let you know how it turns out.

My Mother was born on the Yakima Reservation in Eastern Washington. My family had Indian Fry bread as long as I could remember. We had it just with a little butter and salt or with whatever jam Mom made that year. It was my understanding that Fry bread came along after Native Peoples were sent to the reservations and they were furnished with wheat flour and lard. It is not the best thing in the world for people to eat but as a treat it is wonderful and brings back a lot if good memories.

Traditional frybread is not made with white or wheat flour but rather a flour made from local plants. "Modern" fry bread was introduced to native cultures by europeans. One of the native plants was Timpsula: Prairie Turnip Psoralea esculenta - also known as the prairie wild turnip, Indian breadroot, and several other names.

Albuquerque is home and we're lucky enough to have many Pueblos nearby. The best part of late Spring through Summer is being able to go to all the Feast Days and enjoy the food. And the easiest way to spot the Fry Bread vendors is to look for the longest lines of people! It's very similar to the very popular Sopapilla but tastes better...maybe because of the environment, eating it outside or just being surrounded by other fry bread lovers. Everyone loves the fry bread no matter how it's used - plain, with honey, in a Navajo Taco or any other way you can think of. I even have a bumper sticker that proclaims "I'd Walk A Mile For Fry Bread". Luckily, I have the recipe and I don't have to!

In the 90s I was blessed with the oppurtunity to Sundance with the Crow tribe in Montana. After each dance the feast would include Buffalo stew and frybread. I have been looking for a recipe ever since. I hope I can do the Old Elk clan justice when I try this at home.

That sounds like a recipe I might try.

Hello everyone.My son-in-law (like a son to me) is Native American of the Chickahominy Tribe in Virginia. I had the privilege of going to the Pow-Wow's and enjoyed the delicious fry bread with ground beef, cheese, lettuce and fresh tomatoes; it was wonderful!!! I'm going to print the recipe and try it; hopefully I won't ruin it, but I do have skillets that have been passed down through my family for generations and I love cooking in them. Hope everyone has a wonderfully blessed week. ~Brenda-Richmond, Virginia

My mother (1/8 Algonquin but raised in Washington State) taught me to make fry bread and we always topped it with sugar. It is wonderful and a great tradition to hand down to your children. I feel a part of my native american ancestory each time I make it.

My Grandmother, who was part Cherokee, made what she referred to as "fried bread" all of the time. She would make out her loaves of bread and with the left over dough, pat out oblong pieces with her hands and let them rise. She would then fry them in hot bacon grease in her cast iron skillet. We would eat it with homemade tomato preserves (jam). Shortly before her death in 1984, she told me she wanted some fried bread so I made it for her. I have not made it since. Perhaps I will someday. Diana Jo P Soquel, CA

I had fried bread somewhere near St Xavier del Bac in AZ. It was around 1993 but I guess they still make it. Yeah, you would need something else on it...probably honey or sugar.

Ginger Nichols is, I am sure, right that modern fry bread was a product of the monthly "rations" that were sent to Reservations by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. These rations were often delayed and subject to a huge amount of corruption. "Rations" included on the hoof cattle for meat. A number of early ranches in the Northern Plains had contracts to deliver cattle periodically. These cattle had, of course, never had a cupfull of grain in their lives but then, of course, neither the the ration staple before reservations buffalo.

I learned about Indian Fry Bread while living in Spokane many years ago. I have made it and taught campers how to make it at Girl Scout Camp. A few years ago, while on staff at Long Beach, CA GS Council, a visiting troop of Girl Scouts from Arizona, gifted us with fry bread that they and their leaders made. So very good with butter and hand picked huckleberries made into jam. Sadly huckleberries don't grow in CA. While visiting the recently opened Smithsonian Native American Museum a couple of years ago, their restaurant featured among other things, Indian Fry Bread - Cool - I am headed to Winslow, AZ shortly and will seek out the real deal. Thanks for the reminders.,

Growing up my family called fry bread, 'grease bread'. It was always and still is fried in lard by my family. It was never a staple food in my family, but made only for those occassions that were special. My family makes a fry bread with a yeast dough. Just as many Natives use a yeast dough recipe as those who use the baking powder recipe. Having traveled throughout the U.S. I've come across many variations of fry bread, from large flat crispy breads to small doughy biscuits, but they were all fried. Fry bread was introduced by Europeans. When Natives were placed on government reservations and doled out commodities Native people made do with what they had. This was the beginning of the demise of our natural Native diets and the beginning of the slow death of our people through the consumption of processed foods.

It makes sense that fry bread was introduced by the Europeans. We have had fry bread in many Bed and Breakfast establishments in ireland,England and France. None had connections with Native Americans. My English friends also make it as did my German-descent Grandmother. I think the comments of Billierose were on target.

I will certainly try this recipe! I now live in a city with a large Portuguese population, both mainland as well as from the Azores and Cape Verde Islands. They make a fried dough called "malasadas" which sounds very similar and it is dipped in sugar after it's fried. I also lived in the Caribbean for several years and had the pleasure of eating their version of fried bread which was quite similar but smaller and the sugar was mixed with the dough and fried. Needless to say, I quite enjoyed all of them and still do.

I tried American Indian Fry Bread from a recipe in Better Homes & Garden back in the 60's and have been making it ever since. I used a cast iron skillet and solid shortening and we didn't put anything on it, just ate it with a meal. It gave me a great deal of pleasure to see places like Tuba City and Shiprock mentioned as places to find fry bread these were places mentioned in the books that the late Tony Hillerman wrote and I always wanted to see them and now I have added reason to see them. Thanks

"Fried bread" was a common way to have bread in my home when I was growing up in eastern North Carolina. My mother made "fried flour bread", very similar to the recipe here (except she used self-rising flour as well as all purpose, whatever she had at the time, and did not use warm water) and "fried corn bread", made from corn meal. The fried flour bread was not cooked in a lot of oil, if any; however, the fried corn bread was cooked in more oil and was crispy. She used both recipes simply as quick breads to go with a meal. The fried flour bread was often eaten with molasses or dried beans. We loved both types of fried bread, but they were not considered treats...just another way to have bread with a meal. My mother is also 1/8 Cherokee, I might add, so maybe there is a connection.

Fried Bread has nothing to do with Indians. My German mother used to fry some bread dough for me when I was a kid. I ate it with bread and jam. When the Native Americans were forced onto reservations, they no longer had their original wild foods to rely on. They were given rations of lard, white flour and meat and it was eat it or starve. Because they no longer ate beans, vegetables and the various other foods they'd hunted and gathered, they began to develop obesity and other health problems (note the lack of fiber or green vegetables in this diet and the excess of fat). They were fed like poor whites and it shows in the health problems that have since cropped up. I've read studies since then that researchers are trying to reintroduce the original native diet to combat the almost 100% occurance of diabetes in Native Americans. You want Native American food? Eat succotash.

I am 69 years old and Kiowa and always remember frybread in our diets, at church, dances, etc. In the late 50s and early 60s I remember hearing about Navajo Tacos, which is frybread, meat, beans, lettuce, tomatoes, onions and cheese, just like taco tacos only with frybread. And you are right, we did not have white flour or grease to fry things in until commodities so it is a "new" thing. BUT who cares where it came from or when it started, that is not important, it is only important that it is light and greasy and good to eat, with soup or with beans or as a taco or with honey or powdered sugar or by itself. Much ado about frybread. Just mnake it or pay for it and eat it!!!!!

Hmmm .. I wonder if this is what my Irish granfer called Irish Running Bread. The recipe is amazingly similar, with added wrinkled apple bits for morning bread & bits of onions and bacon for dinner bread. I'll have to ask Mom. Thanks for the info ... SeaJay

I live in Northern California. The native Americans in this area used to grind acorns (evidence everywhere), leach out the toxins in a basket that wasn't waterproof and make "cakes" with the acorn flour. Maybe this is a beginning.

When I was growing up in upstate NY in the 50's our local Catholic Church had a Festival once a year as a fund raiser. The dish I looked forward to each year was fried pizza dough sprinkled with powdered sugar.

I learned to make greasy bread (fry bread) from my mother-in-law who was Maidu (California). We never measure the ingredients, when first learning it is a trial and error; pan too cool, pan too hot, baking powder too old. I love hot with melted butter. My mother loves me to make leftovers so she can put jam or jelly on it for breakfast.

I think greasy bread and pinto bean juice was the first non-baby food my daughter was given.

my friend who is an alaskan native (nupiak) wants me to make fry bread today for a pot latch.his daughter that lives in arizona used make it for him. i made this recipe as a test last nite.earlier in the day he was telling his friend, "i want to see if this white woman can make fry bread". he liked it. i didn't. i tried it plain tho.no cinnamon and sugar on it. the flavor was good.i followed the recipe for the 1st 2 and then rolled the rest thinner. he liked the thinner better.my father used to make fried bread from bread dough and i liked that better.we shook it in cinnamon and sugar. what a treat.my heritage is german,irish and english. i think all races have some form of fry bread in their history.

I am from New Mexico and learned how to make fry bread as a child. Presently I live in Nevada and make fry bread whenever my son and his family or my husband ask for it. Sometimes I use milk, sugar or yeast in the mixture depending on who is making the request for fry bread. I don't use these ingredients if I am making the fry bread for Navajo tacos.

I wonder! If fry bread was borrowed from Spanish invader's culture, it should be originated from the Pita bread, inherited by the Spanish from their Moorish conquerors, the same that built the beautiful Al'hambra!! Another culture that has fried wheat breads is the Indian culture, with their nans, one more delicious than the other! I have about 20% of Native Brazilian American blood, from the Amazon, and their culture does not include wheat, but tapioca, extracted from the cassava root (manioc, yuca, etc.).

I LIVED IN A CABIN ON THE THORNAPPLE RIVER NEAR HASTENS, MICHIGAN, WITH MY HUSBAND, SON AND FOUR DAUGHTERS, WE WERE BOATING AND DISCOVERED A PARK ACCROSS THE RIVER,(SHALDEN PARK COME TO MY MIND, BUT I AM NOT SURE) GOING THERE ONE DAY WE SAW SOME INDIANS MAKING FRY BREAD FOR SALE.FROM THEY ON WE MADE MANY TRIP TO THE PARK AND THE INDIAN FRY BREAD PLACE. MOST OF MY CHILDREN WERE TOO YOUNG, MY SON HAD ONLY STARTED SCHOOL AT THE ONE ROOM SCHOOL HOUSE NEAR US AND THE GIRLS WERE YOUNGER. I REMEMBER IT WAS A WONDERFUL EXPERIENCE AND AGAN HUNGER.THANKS FOR THE ADDED INFORMATION ON THIS FOOD. I WOULD LIKE TO SAY HELLO TO ANYONE WHO WAS AROUND THAT AREA AT THAT TIME, 1958-62.I REMEMBER SOME OF YOU, EVEN NAMES BUT HAVE LONG SINCE LOST TOUCH WITH ANY OF YOU ANYONE REMEMBER THE STEAMBOAT, THEY HAD "STEAM ENGINE MACHINE FESTIVAL" I AM SURE IT WAS CALLED SOMETHING ELSE. FRY BREAD WAS A BIG HIT THERE.THANKS FOR THE RECIPE.

Hi,
Well I have never made Fry Bread.I always wondered how to make it. But what I have done in the past is buy Biscuit dough at the store kinda flatten it out then poke a hole in it now we have a Donut. So, I think I will buy some today and Flatten them out or maybe 2 of them to make bigger and then may turn out as Fry Bread? Hmmmm Not sure but I have Powdered Sugar and Cinnamon wasting away in my cabinets. Something Nice came out of reading this. All of you Have a Great Day!!!!!

Donald Wolberg commented as he wanted to know why it was a symbol of the Navaho culture. From what I know about it, after the Trail of Tears where the indians were walked and put in overcrowded situations, the Army furnished Wheat, Flour, Corn, Lard and other rancid and on the verge foods. This is where they made Fry bread and ate it and some have vowed to continue to eat it until the earth is again pure. I found this story online while looking for the recipie for fry bread.

My husband is Navajo, I learned to make Fry Bread from his old auntie's who did not keep the little trick a secret. One of the biggest secrets is do NOT use regular flour. For the average cook you should use cake flour, for those close to the Navajo rez, use Blue Bird flour from the old flour sacks. It is lighter and your bread turns out better. Use very warm, but not too hot, water. Make your dough sticky then add flour to bring it back to elastic. Do not punch your dough, but pull it to add air bubbles. Let it rest with a damp cloth or saran wrap over it, to hold in moisture. Real Navajo's eat fry bread with Salt on it, sort of like a pretzel. This is not considered a donut like us white people like to think. Try it, you will never go back to sweet toppings.

It is strange I read this today, I have a pot of lamb stew cooking and will make Fry Bread tonight to eat with it. YUMMY!!!

One more thougt . . . Many Navajo's make this same recipe but cook it over the coal of a fire. You can easily subsitute a hot cask iron skillet. Some add a little lard to the mix so it does not stick. This is a healther option to frying it.

Some call this method Navajo Tortilla's. Yummy!!!

I noticed that several people were questioning the origin of fry bread--I learned a lot from this website-

http://whatscookingamerica.net/History/NavajoFryBread.htm

Sounds like it was a product of rancid government supplies given as rations to starving Navajos in government camps circa the 1800's.

I grew up in a Mexican household with fry bread but we called it a "bunuelo". Most Americans think of bunuelos as a dessert. We had those too, thin crispy bunuelos with cinammon and sugar, and we had the doughy softer bunuelo with salt which you could use to make what most folks know as a Navajo Taco. We had refried beans on ours - super yummy!! Any Mexican worth his salt will tell you they grew up with this traditional treat, usualy enjoyed around the holidays!

People..Please, Stop thinking!
Mary Helen(4/7/09) almost nailed it, but it's Frybread & "Indian Tacos" Not Navajo. (A Kiowa Should Know That!)
The rest of you need to stop comparing other cultures, stop looking for origins, stop overthinking it until you try it yourself.
Good Frybread needs no condiments nor explanation, but experiment w yr favorites, it only gets better! From Calgary to Santa Fe... NYC to Schurz,NV...You can find a long line of great FryBread recipes (many of them guarded more closely than national secrets!)Buy, borrow, or trade for a recipe. Better yet, spend some time with the Artisans themselves. The time won't be wasted, and yer Tummy will thank you!