I love the look of a free form artisan loaf of bread, but I found it tedious to bake enough loaves in a home oven at one time to feed our crew. So I changed my recipe around to bake it in a loaf pan and create a Sourdough Sandwich Bread! This way I can bake 6 loaves of sourdough bread at once and it's a much more efficient use of my time!
Sourdough Sandwich Bread is a very customizable recipe to make your own. Swap some of the flour for whole wheat. Add in ½ cup of oats, or some seeds such as sunflower, sesame or flax! Add in raisins and cinnamon. As a guide, ½ cup of add-ins and you won't need to change the recipe. One cup of flour can be swapped out for whole wheat without needing to tweak anything either.
Sourdough Sandwich Bread
Ingredients
- ½ - ¾ cup sourdough starter if your starter is runny, add less, thick, add more
- 1 - 2 tablespoons honey or sugar more honey/sugar makes a softer bread. Double this if you want a soft soft bread!
- 1 ½ teaspoon salt
- 2 tablespoons olive oil/fat of choice
- 1 - 1 ¼ cups water
- 3 - 3 ½ cups white flour
Instructions
Sourdough Sandwich Bread Dough
- Mix starter, honey, salt, oil and water together in a mixer or by hand. I love my Danish dough whisk for this!
- Add flour in until you have a kneadable consistency that either A.) The dough doesn't stick to side of mixer bowl or B.) Dough doesn't stick to your hands when you knead it.
- Knead it for a few minutes then cover with a damp towel and choose your path for first rise depending on your schedule and weather. Warmth speeds up sourdough, cold slows it. This is all on counter unless specified
Winter Rising
- Let the dough sit 12-18 hrs.
- Shape the dough and allow to rise a second time for 2-3hrs.
Alternative Winter Rising
- Let the dough sit 4-6 hrs.
- Shape the dough and put it in the fridge to rise a second time for 12-18hrs.
- Take out an hour before baking. Our laundry room is fridge-ish temp so we put them back there. Before baking when I use this method, I put bread pans in oven, turn oven on for 2 min then turn it off. Let sit in warm oven an hour, take out, then preheat oven for baking. This is my current favourite method.
Summer Rising
- Let the dough sit 6-8 hrs.
- Shape the dough and allow to rise a second time for 1-2 hrs.
Shaping Sourdough Sandwich Bread
- After your first rise, its time to shape! Dump your dough onto a floured surface.
- Press dough roughly into a 6x8inch rectangle, fold like a letter with long sides in, flip seam side down and let sit about 10 minutes. This is called a preshape/bench rest and makes your loaves taller!
Baking Sourdough Sandwich Bread
- Prep your loaf pan by lining with parchment or greasing the pan.
- After the bench rest, flip seam side up, press into rectangle again but this time roll it up, and tuck sides under to make a tidy loaf, then put into the loaf pan.
- Let rise for second rise depending on which path you choose.
- Preheat oven to 425F.
- Using your sharpest knife, slash the loaf by slicing a one inch deep line down the length of the bread. You can get artistic or just leave it at that. This allows the bread to expand and rise in the oven better.
- Put pan into oven and bake for 25 min, turn around and then bake 20 more.
- Remove bread from oven and put on a cooling rack. Remove from pan and let cool until around room temp. Its hard to wait but I promise its worth it! The bread is still finishing up baking as it cools.
Notes
- I make this in a x6 recipe cause it's our favourite and freezes well!
Nutrition
More Sourdough Recipes
Once you've mastered working with sourdough you'll find you're wondering what other recipes you can try with it now? Here are my tried & true favorite sourdough recipes!
Chadwick Grass Farms
This is our family bread recipe now! Thanks so much, Katie! It freezes perfectly and is a great texture. Also not a hard recipe. ?
Jennifer Lucas
I have been baking with sourdough for decades, and this recipe is a keeper! It is flexible and always works (no matter the state of my starter or how I ammend it). Perfect!
Tanya
If I were to make it a raisin loaf with the mentioned 1/2 c raisins and switch out for 1c fresh ground whole wheat would I need to make any alterations
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No it should be just fine, but make sure you let it autolyze because of the fresh ground flour.
Jo Thomas
What size loaf pan is best?
4x8 or 5x9?
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I don’t think you could go wrong with either size.
Samantha
I made this for the first time and I had to pull it out of the oven early (15 minutes) as it was getting very brown on top. This happened with another sourdough recipe too. Any suggestions? Should I lower the oven temperature? I am newbie to sourdough and bread baking! Thank you for any help!
Laura B
I find this loaf usually gets too brown before it reaches ideal temp/doneness. I grease another loaf pan and place it over the top of the bread loaf before putting it in the oven, then pull the bread out and remove the top pan before baking it the final 20 minutes or so. Hope this helps!
Anne
I would slide a piece of aluminum foil over the top to stop the browning while the bread finished baking.
Lisa Dana
I love this recipe. Thank you for sharing it. I finally feel as though I am getting the hang of making sourdough bread.
Liz
I’m new to sourdough this year and this is 100% my go to recipe! I’m so glad I found it because I’m sure it is a large part of my early success. I often triple it and make two plain loaves and one with a cinnamon swirl. ? I usually make it in the loaf pans, but I’ve also done many free form loaves and last bake I even tried proofing in a bowl with a floured towel and baking on my baking stone. It turned out great!
Dori Groff
Amazing bread!!! Only reason for 4 stars is oven temp. I'm not sure if that's a typo or my oven is just different, but 375 for 40 min is perfect. (And 2 other women I know who use this recipe also do 375) I have to tent the loaves for the last 20 minutes though or it would be way too dark.
375 for 40 min is perfect, loaves are just over 200 degrees at that time!
And this is simply the yummiest bread on the planet.
Amber Blamer
This is the first recipe I ever made with sourdough and my family loved it! I am so thankful for the detail of the instructions. I love that it’s for a loaf pan, making it more practical for using for my family. This will be my go to recipe and I’ll start making it in bulk because the first loaf was gone in a day! Thanks for the great recipe!!
Michelle
This is my first successful sourdough bread! I'm so excited! ? If I triple the patch can I freeze part of the dough to bake fresh later? Our freezer is too small to store a lot so freezing the already cooked loaf is out. How would I change the rising/baking when I take the dough out of the freezer?
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The freezer will kill the sourdough so I wouldn't recommend doing that.
Emily Higgins
Love this recipe, I bake a couple loaves for my family every week. I've tried so many sourdough sandwich bread recipes and this one is the best by far!
Heather
I made my worst bread loaf ever using this recipe/method. Just wondering why is it missing the first step of doing the pre-ferment/levain and just goes straight to mixing starter with honey salt oil and water then the flour? Isn’t the preferment a crucial step with a sourdough bread? Mine turned out terrible/waste of time and I know that’s partly why. I noticed you have a better/updated version of this sandwich loaf on your site that’s thorough and includes all necessary steps. I wish I would’ve found and tried that one instead!
kateschat
If you're starting with active, bubbly starter as stated, this recipe is amazing. Your starter needs to be happy. I'm sorry it didnt work for you...I know many people that this is all they use because they dont like the extra steps of the other ones.
Steph
I’ve tried many sourdough recipes, but this is the one I keep coming back to again and again (and it’s my husband’s favorite!)
I’ve most recently started rolling with cinnamon and sugar and am perfecting getting the perfect swirl.
Laura Recker
This is a favorite here! First recipe where I found success with sourdough!
Maxinne Oosterkamp
I make this recipe weekly! I’ve tried many recipes and this one is by far the best. So happy I’ve came across this page.
Heidi Loe
Is there a way to get this recipe in grams? I like to measure all my things.
kateschat
I havent converted it, this one was for people 'scared' of weighing and just needing to get started baking sourdough!
Christy
This is by far our favorite sourdough recipe. I also make 6 loaves at a time and it freezes beautifully! Thank you so much for sharing your recipe
Elizabeth
What's the best way to freeze this recipe?
kateschat
I buy a roll of thick produce bags every couple years
Amelia B
LOVE THIS BREAD! My go-to was the Tartine country sourdough boule, but this recipe has replaced it! SO easy and forgiving. Easy to multiply recipe. Delicious. Sometimes I add raisins and cin/sugar swirl. Thank you Kate!
kateschat
that sounds so delicious!
Day Homestead
Awesome recipe! This has been my go-to sandwich breakfast recipe for my family. I can’t wait to give the new one a try!
Elizabeth
Amazing loaf. This recipe made me switch to never buying store bought again for school lunches. The kids love it!
Bethany
This is my go to recipe for a loaf of sourdough bread! I love adding in a 1/4 cup of hemp hearts or rolled oats or other seeds! My kids always love this bread and it is such an easy, go to recipe!
Jess
I made my starter this week following your Instagram stories and made this loaf today. I am so impressed with how well it turned out for my first time. Thank you!
Libby
I baked this today and I found the bottom very dark, almost burnt. Should I have baked it at a lower temperature or less time? I baked it in the lower third of my oven.
kateschat
Try in the middle of your oven, and lower temp?
Sarah
Does this work with white wheat flour?
Dee Porter
It should! You may have to experiment a bit with how much flour to use.
Jaylssa Loew
My family and I loved this recipe! If I want to make more than one loaf at a time do I mix the dough all together and then seperate the loaves? If so how and when would I do that? Or do I make the recipe in seperate bowls?
Dee Porter
Yes mix all together then separate into loaves!
Janine
Love it! So good!
When I put it in the fridge after shaping the loaves should I cover it with anything? Feels weird to leave it to the air?
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yes cover will a damp towel or in a plastic bag so it won't dry out.
Nicole
Do you use white AP Flour? Or white bread flour? Eager to find a loaf recipe to convert my sourdough baking to lunches for the kiddos!
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I usually use an all purpose, unbleached (organic sometimes) white flour
Connie
I'm excited to try your recipe. For the starter are you using a fed, active starter or discard?
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It's an active starter
Eva
First time making the recipe and with 10 minutes left on the timer the top of the bread is already burnt. What can I do to fix that?
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Is your oven too hot? Is the rack too high? If you have an instant read thermometer I would test the bread earlier. Maybe it was ready to come out before it started to burn?
Sue
I've been looking for an easy sourdough sandwich recipe that stayed close to a true sourdough recipe and this is it! I've tried so many and this one offers the best flavor with minimal ingredients! I'm sure as i perfect my following of the recipe it will only get better.
Thank you for putting it out there to share. Cheers!!
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So great this one is working for you!
Kate Elizabeth
Would it be possible to use all fresh ground flour for this recipe? If so, is it necessary to change the amount of water? Thanks!
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Yes, you would definitely need to make some adjustments. It would also depend on what type of fresh ground flour you were using. I would also suggest sifting out some of the bran to help with the lift. You are going to have to play around with the amount of water.
Emily
Thanks for the recipe Kate! My four year old and two year old enjoyed this bread and I enjoyed baking it!
betty b
im vry confused. your youtube video that links to this blog for this bread, says youre adding milk, not water. but the video doesnt say how much millk.
is it the same amount of the water you indicate here on your blog? the recipe here seems very different than the youtube. you are not heating the butter, honey mixture here, but you are on the youtube. can you please clarify as i really want to make your bread! thank you so much
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Sorry for the delayed reply. We think you might have confused this recipe with the Master Soft Sourdough which is the one that uses the milk.
Steven W Royal
Hi, can this recipe be baked in a pullman loaf pan with the cover on?
Thanks,
Steve
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Kate says you could try using it like a dutch oven, but she's never used a pullman loaf pan.
Sharla
I bake a loaf in my large Pullman pan almost every week. I weigh out 1.5 pounds of dough for my pan, & allow to rise until about an inch from the top. I bake at 400° for my oven & I remove the lid after 25 minutes.
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Helpful information for people with Pullman pan! Thanks for sharing.
McKenna
Absolutely love this bread!! It’s our go to on a weekly basis! The only question I have is the top gets super brown quickly. Can I bake it at 375 without affecting the spring?
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Absolutely! and we absolutely apologize for the late reply!!
Jane Stein
Hi Kate. Love your channel. Did you use all purpose flour or bread flour?
This bread looks delicious.
Thanks Kate
Jane
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I know Kate uses all purpose flour.
Jane Stein
Hi Kate. Did you use all purpose or bread flour?
Bread looks delicious.
Thanks Kate
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I know Kate uses an all purpose flour for this recipe.
Cam
Do you use fan-forced mode in your oven? If you're baking 6 loaves at once then I imagine that you do, but I just want to make sure I dont need to lower the temperature if I use fan forced.
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I’ve actually read that it’s better to not use, the fan impedes rising.
Jan
I'm a newbie at sourdough bread making and know I have much to learn. My husband and I loved the flavor of this bread and I thank you.
I found the crust extremely thick; unfortunately, we couldn't eat it. I did stop the second portion of the bake at 10 minutes (the internal temp was 200). What did I do to cause this and how do I prevent it in the future?
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You could cover it in foil, or when it comes out, immediately put butter on it to soften it. Or wrap it in a cotton tea towel while it cools down to soften the crust.
Nicole Seegmiller
Hello Kate! Thank you for sharing this recipe - it's a favorite in this home! My wheels are spinning as my husband adores heat/spice and so I am curious as to your thoughts about adding gouda and jalapenos to this recipe? What might that do to the dough? Thank you!!
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I would take a look at Kate's Jalepeno Cheese bread and compare it to this recipe.
https://venisonfordinner.com/jalapeno-cheese-bread/
Chip Booth
Just made this bread and it is FANTASTIC!!!!! I baked at 375 for 40 mins and tented it the last 20 mins and i am so happy with it. So soft, and delicious. I recommend this recipe for everyone. Thank you so much for sharing.
Victoria
Thank you for such an easy delicious recipe! Gifted a couple loaves to my dad for his birthday and he said it reminded him of the bread his mom would bake when he was a child.
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That is very sweet.
Shandon
Can I use coconut oil in place of Olive oil? Thanks!
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Yes, you can use melted and cooled coconut oil in this recipe.