Homemade Passover Matzo

When you think about Passover matzo, what do you think? If you grew up eating store-bought matzo like Leah did, then you have an image of what matzo should look and taste like. And you may be wondering: why would I want to make my own dry, tasteless, flatbread with a homemade recipe? Because when you try our simple, homemade Passover matzo recipe, you’ll discover that this Passover staple does not have to be dry or even tasteless. Truly.

The history of the Passover matzo

Every year at the family Passover seder, we would retell the story of the Jewish exodus from Egypt. This was not exclusive to Leah’s family — this is an integral part of every Passover seder.

Anyway, as the story goes, the escaping Jews had to move quickly and did not have time to let their bread rise. So they baked it unleavened. From this, we have the Jewish tradition of eating unleavened bread, or matzo (alternatively spelled matzah or matzoh) during Passover.

When is Passover? The dates change every year.

A Simple Homemade Matzo Recipe

We started making homemade matzo in 2020. Because in 2020 we were not getting together in person with our family for a Passover Seder. In fact, we celebrated with a Zoom seder with our family in New York.

While we were able to get some Passover staples by using Instacart, matzo was not one of them. So, Bill created a recipe for homemade matzo. We used it for the Zoom seder as well as making matzo brei — basically the Passover version of French toast — for breakfast during Passover. Bill has used the recipe to make a batch of matzoh ever since.

Ingredients

• 4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 cup water
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 2 tablespoon olive oil

Instructions 

• Preheat the oven to 475 F.
• Mix the ingredients, reserving 1/2 cup of water. Add this water, one tablespoon at a time, until the dough is moist enough to work. You may not use all of the water. If you add too much water, add flour, one tablespoon at a time, if the dough is too sticky to work with.
• Create 10 roughly equal balls of dough. Place each on a clean surface and smash it flat.
• Transfer to non stick, or parchment lined, baking sheets.
• Bake until crisp, about five minutes.

Important Points When Making Matzo

Basic matzo is simply two parts flour to one part water. So if you were using two cups of all purpose flour you would use one cup of water. Mix quickly, but thoroughly, shape on a lightly-floured surface and bake. The reason I added “quickly” in there is that, by tradition, dough is considered to begin to rise 18 minutes after the water touches the flour. So, if you are trying to mimic the kosher process, the dough needs to be in and out of the oven before the 18 minutes has elapsed.

Notes

Many bakers sprinkle a touch of kosher salt for flavor and olive oil to make the dough a little more workable. Also, to make it look authentic, pierce the dough with fork tines to get the dimpled look.

I also encourage you to experiment. Often, I’ll add a half teaspoon of onion or garlic powder, for example, to give our matzo a pop of flavor. Of course, if you’re trying to stick with the simple unleavened bread eaten by those fleeing Egypt, then skip the additional fancy flavorings.

If you have a recipe calling for matzo meal, such as Leah’s grandma Yetta’s Passover honey cake, bake some plain matzo and let it cool. Then toss it in a blender or food processor to grind it up so you can use it in place of regular flour, which is forbidden during Passover.