Tessa's Recipe Rundown
Taste: Surprisingly flavorful for bread made without some sort of starter or pre-ferment.
Texture: Clearly the best part! Crunchy and crusty on the outside, soft and airy inside.
Ease: Just 4 ingredients and no-kneading. The hardest part is working with the sticky dough.
Appearance: I could stare at bread all day long. Is that weird?
Pros: Easy recipe for a special dinner or holiday occasion.
Cons: None!!
Would I make this again? Yes.
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4 ingredients. 5 minute prep time. Can be made ahead. SUPER CRUSTY.
This crusty bread roll recipe is truly a beautiful thing. I have tried a lot of recipes for crusty bread rolls but most require time-consuming or complicated pre-ferments, starters, or rising instructions. That’s all fine for me because I spend so much time in the kitchen, but I know most of you need recipes that are as quick and easy as possible. Especially around the holiday season when there’s so much else to make and do.
Be sure to check out the video below so you can see exactly how these rolls come together. I also share some of my favorite baking tips and explain how to achieve that crusty texture. I’ve included different make-ahead options within the printable recipe too.
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Ingredients
- 2 1/2 cups (11.3 ounces) bread flour
- 1/2 teaspoon instant yeast
- 1 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1 1/4 cups (10 ounces) lukewarm water
Instructions
- In a large bowl combine all the ingredients. Stir until the mixture is thick and sticky. No kneading is necessary!
- Cover with plastic wrap and let rise until puffy and bubbly on top, about 3 hours. MAKE AHEAD: Alternatively, you can also let the dough rise overnight in the fridge.
- Using a scraper, fold the dough over about 12 times, adding enough flour so that it doesn’t stick. Use the scraper to cut the dough into 8 equal pieces. Flour your hands before shaping each piece into a ball.
- Place the dough balls on a parchment-lined baking sheet and cover with a clean towel. Let rise until puffy, about 35 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 450°F.
- Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until golden brown. Serve warm.
- MAKE AHEAD: Store bread rolls in a container at room temperature for up to 2 days or in the freezer for up to 1 month and re-crisp in a 325°F oven for 5 minutes from room temperature or about 15 minutes from frozen.
Dough VERY sticky, impossible to shape into a roll even using extra flour. Rolls didn’t rise, came out flat as pancakes and hard as rocks. I used all purpose flour and fresh active yeast.
Amazing! Simplest bread recipe ever. Crusty rolls hot from the oven? Yummy!!
Absolutely, hands down, the best rolls I have ever made. I am not a great cook, but tried this recipe and while they didn’t look wonderful (again, I am not a great cook) they tasted unbelievably good!
Can ou use all purpose flour instead of bread
Directions say 450, video says exactly 425…. I will go with 425 and see how they work out. Either way you may want to make video and recipe match
Came out like Little Rock’s. For the second time. Am suspecting a yeast problem. Will get new and try again!
This is truly the best roll recipe ever! I wasn’t looking for an easy recipe so the simplicity is a bonus. They came out crusty on the outside and with good bread taste and texture inside. Thanks for sharing it!
Made these last night and they were delicious! I only had exactly the 2.5 cups of flour left that the recipe called for so I didn’t have any left for making the roll shapes so I used oil instead and couldn’t get them shaped perfectly but that’s ok! I added just a half tsp of sugar just because most bread recipes have at least a little sugar and covered them in melted butter before baking. They turned out amazing! For such a simple recipe with so little ingredients I thought they might be ok but turned out to be the best rolls I have ever made (and I have tried many recipes) this one will be a keeper! Thanks!
I am a long time bread baker & this recipe is easy, tasty & quick .I doubled recipe to have rolls for next weeks dinner party & added parmesan cheese to a few of the rolls . Froze some rolls before baking anol will let you know how that works out.
Please remove my last name from the comments.
I made these. Very, very tasty. Did not add any flour. I weighed the flour. I only made 6 rolls because I wanted them large enough for grilled potabella. . The only complaint is that they were kind of thin. I lightly spayed the rolls 2 times while in the oven – at 1 min. and at 4 min. Then baked convection 450 for 15 min. Maybe the convection was a problem?
I made these. Very, very tasty. Did not add any flour. I weighed the flour. I only made 6 rolls because I wanted them large enough for grilled potabella. . The only complaint is that they were kind of thin. I lightly spayed the rolls 2 times while in the oven – at 1 min. and at 4 min. Then baked convection 450 for 15 min. Maybe the convection was a problem?