Naan is a soft, puffy leavened flatbread from South and Central Asia, popular in Indian, Pakistani and Afghan cooking. It’s traditionally baked by slapping the dough onto the hot inner wall of a tandoor, a clay oven heated to around 480 °C (900 °F). It cooks in about a minute, forming bubbles and charred spots.

What Is Naan? The Indian Flatbread Baked in a Tandoor

How naan is made

Step	Detail
Dough	White wheat flour, water, salt and a leavening agent: yeast, yogurt, or both
Rest	The dough rises for a few hours
Shape	Stretched into a teardrop or oval
Bake	Pressed onto the tandoor’s wall with a cushion; it sticks as it bakes
Finish	Lifted out with long metal rods and brushed with ghee or butter

Yogurt and milk make naan especially soft and slightly tangy.

The tandoor

A tandoor is a cylindrical clay oven, heated with charcoal or wood. Tandoors have been used in South and Central Asia for thousands of years. Besides naan, they’re used to cook tandoori chicken, kebabs and other breads.

Naan vs roti vs chapati

Bread	Leavened?	Flour	Cooked in
Naan	Yes	White wheat flour	Tandoor
Roti / chapati	No	Whole wheat (atta)	Flat griddle (tawa)
Paratha	No	Whole wheat, layered with ghee	Tawa, pan-fried
Puri	No	Whole wheat	Deep-fried

In many Indian homes, roti is the everyday bread, because few homes have a tandoor. Naan is more common in restaurants.

Popular types of naan

Butter naan
Garlic naan, topped with garlic and coriander
Peshwari naan, filled with coconut, almonds and raisins
Keema naan, stuffed with spiced minced meat
Cheese naan

The name

Nan is the Persian word for bread, and similar words are used across Iran, Central Asia and Turkey. The bread reached India with Persian and Central Asian influences, and became famous in the royal kitchens of the Mughal Empire.

Naan pairs well with curries and dips; for a Middle Eastern favorite, see what hummus is made of. For more on India, see when India gained independence.

What is naan?