Paratha ([pəˈɾɑːtʰɑː][please use correct ISO code], also parantha/parontah) is a flatbread native to the Indian subcontinent,[2][3] with earliest reference mentioned in early medieval Sanskrit, India;[2] prevalent throughout the modern-day countries of India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Maldives, Afghanistan, Myanmar,[1] Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Mauritius, Fiji, Guyana, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago where wheat is the traditional staple.

[6] Alternative spellings and names include parantha, parauntha, prontha, parontay, paronthi (Punjabi), porota (in Bengali), paratha (in Odia, Urdu, Hindi), palata (pronounced [pəlàtà]; in Myanmar),[1] porotha (in Assamese), forota (in Chittagonian and Sylheti), faravatha (in Bhojpuri), farata (in Mauritius and the Maldives), prata (in Southeast Asia), paratha, buss-up shut, oil roti (in the Anglophone Caribbean) and roti canai in Malaysia and Indonesia.

[7] Recipes for various stuffed wheat puran polis (which Achaya (2003) describes as parathas) are mentioned in Manasollasa, a 12th-century Sanskrit encyclopedia compiled by Someshvara III, a Western Chalukya king, who ruled from present-day Karnataka, India.

[11] Parathas are one of the most popular unleavened flatbreads in the Indian subcontinent, made by baking or cooking whole-wheat (atta) dough on a tava, and finishing off with shallow-frying.

[14] Plain parathas are thicker and more substantial than chapatis/rotis because they have been layered by coating with ghee or oil and folded repeatedly, much like the method used for puff pastry or a laminated dough technique, and as a result have a flaky consistency.

[14] These include covering the thinly rolled-out pastry with oil, folding back and forth like a paper fan and coiling the resulting strip into a round shape before rolling flat, baking on a tava and/or shallow frying.