Pakistani Breads: Naan, Roti, Paratha and Regional Breads

Pakistani bread is mostly wheat flatbread, and it does the job a spoon does elsewhere: you tear a piece with your right hand and use it to scoop up daal, karahi or salan. The everyday breads are roti (or chapati) made at home on a tava, tandoori roti and naan from the neighbourhood tandoor, and paratha, the layered, ghee-rich breakfast bread. Travel a little and the list grows: girda and bakarkhani with noon chai in Kashmiri homes, kaak baked around a hot stone in Balochistan, and thick loaves and filled breads in Chitral and Hunza.

What are the main types of Pakistani bread?

Roti and chapati

Roti is the bread most Pakistanis eat every day. It is made from atta (whole-wheat flour), water and a little salt, rolled thin and cooked on a curved iron tava, often finished over the flame so it puffs. In most homes it is made fresh at every meal and kept warm in a cloth-lined basket.

Tandoori roti and naan

Tandoori roti is thicker and chewier than the home version, slapped onto the inside wall of a clay oven and peeled off with a hook. Naan is the leavened cousin: usually white flour with yeast, softer and puffier, with blistered patches from the heat of the tandoor. Naan is seldom made at home, because it needs a tandoor, so families buy it from the neighbourhood tandoor wala.

Variations you will see on menus:

• Roghni naan: brushed with oil or ghee and sprinkled with sesame seeds.
• Kulcha: a softer, often stuffed naan, eaten with chanay in Punjab.
• Sheermal and taftan: slightly sweet, saffron-scented breads made with milk, served at weddings and with korma or nihari.

Paratha and puri

Paratha is roti dough rolled with ghee or oil and folded so it cooks into flaky layers on the tava. It is the classic breakfast with an omelette and chai, and chai paratha is shorthand for breakfast in Karachi. Stuffed versions are filled with potato (aloo), radish (mooli), minced meat (qeema) or egg. Lachha paratha is coiled before rolling, so it breaks into crisp rings.

Puri is a small round of white-flour dough deep-fried until it balloons. It belongs to the weekend breakfast of halwa puri with chanay, which Lahore and Karachi both treat as a Sunday ritual.

Breads from other grains

In winter, Punjabi households make makai ki roti from maize flour, eaten with saag and butter. Rural Punjab and Sindh also have bajray ki roti made from pearl millet. Sindhi kitchens add their own: ofrata, the Sindhi paratha, a rice-flour bread called chawaran ji mani, and a sweet bread called busri.

Which regional breads are worth trying?

Kashmiri breads: girda, bakarkhani and kulcha

Kashmiri food culture runs on bread from the local baker (kandur), eaten with salted pink noon chai. Girda is a round leavened bread with finger impressions pressed across the top before baking, eaten warm with butter at breakfast. Bakarkhani in its Kashmiri form is thin, crisp and layered, scattered with sesame. Kashmiri kulcha is small, hard and crumbly, and keeps for days. In Azad Kashmir, Muzaffarabad's bakeries are the easiest place to find them; our guide to the traditional food of Azad Kashmir has the wider picture. Check current conditions before travelling to Azad Kashmir: the 2026 protests brought deadly unrest and long internet shutdowns, and the UK advises against travel within 10 miles of the Line of Control.

Balochistan: kaak

Kaak is the Baloch bread made by wrapping wheat dough around a hot round stone and cooking it by the fire, giving a hard, dense ball that keeps for days. It is the natural partner to sajji. Our guide to Quetta's famous food explains where it fits on a Quetta table. All of Balochistan is under a UK all-travel advisory, so check current advice before planning a trip there.

Chitral: tikki, khesta and shapik

Chitrali food is built on bread and dairy. Tikki is a thick leavened loaf baked over coals in a mould, with a crust hard enough to keep for weeks, which made it a traveller's bread. Khesta is cooked on a griddle from a fermented batter, sour and spongy. Shapik is a thin layered bread, and rishiki are thin wheat-and-egg pancakes. Our Chitrali food guide covers where to find them.

Hunza and Baltistan

In Hunza, chapshuro is minced meat sealed between rounds of dough and cooked until crisp, and diram phitti is a thick bread of sprouted-wheat flour eaten with apricot oil. Buckwheat bread is part of the older diet across the valleys of Gilgit-Baltistan. In Baltistan, breads are eaten with butter tea and apricot oil, and the old recipes are mostly home cooking, so you usually need to ask a guesthouse a day ahead. Our guide to Hunza's traditional food goes into each dish.

How do you eat bread in Pakistan?

Tear a piece with the right hand, fold it into a scoop and use it to pick up the curry or daal. Bread arrives in a basket in rounds, and you ask for more as you go. Our post on dining etiquette in Pakistan covers the wider customs at the table.

Which bread goes with which dish?

• Karahi, tikka and barbecue: naan or roghni naan, hot from the tandoor.
• Daal and everyday salan: tandoori roti or home roti.
• Nihari and paye: naan, or khamiri roti in some old-city shops.
• Breakfast: paratha with eggs, or halwa puri at the weekend.
• Saag in winter: makai ki roti with white butter.
• Noon chai: Kashmiri bakarkhani, girda or kulcha.

Which breads suit which travellers?

If you are travelling with children or anyone who doesn't like spice, plain roti and naan are an easy fall-back anywhere in the country, and bread fresh from a busy tandoor, eaten hot, is one of the safest things to eat on the road. Vegetarians can eat almost every plain bread, but should ask about qeema parathas and chapshuro. If you head north, ask for the local breads rather than naan: they are what makes eating in Chitral, Hunza or Muzaffarabad different from eating at home. Our experiences page lists the food and culture side of our trips.

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