Bread Recipes I Swear By

The one thing I can’t live without is bread. I thank God and King Arthur* every day that I am not restricted to a gluten-free diet.

Twelve years ago, the only bread I made was banana bread. You’ve got to watch out for the banana bread. It’s a gateway gluten. It starts with adding chocolate chips to the loaf, and before you know it, you’ve named your sourdough starter.

I can’t invite you all over to break bread with me, so the next best thing is to dish up the 10 bread recipes I swear by that keep our bellies full and our house smelling delightful.

No Knead Brioche Buns | Alexandra Cooks

Brioche anything has gotten so expensive at my grocery store, so I started making my own brioche burger buns. It was the ‘no knead’ part of this recipe that hooked me. I kid you not, these are easy enough to make that I rarely buy basic hamburger buns anymore.

These buns aren’t as buttery as the brioche burger buns I’ve bought at my grocery store. That’s not a complaint. I’m just setting expectations.

However, these brioche buns feel versatile for sandwiches other than burgers, such as BLTs and egg sandwiches.

Artisan, No Knead Crusty Bread | Recipe Tin Eats

I spend more time brushing my teeth than I do making this artisan bread dough. That’s the ‘no knead’ part of the recipe doing you a favor.

I’ve made this artisan bread recipe the night before I want to bake it, and three hours before I want to bake it. It turns out delicious either way, but the longer the dough rests, the more artisan in texture it will become.

I didn’t have a Dutch oven when I started baking this bread, so I baked mine in a cast-iron skillet and tossed some ice cubes in the oven to simulate the steam from baking the bread in a Dutch oven with the lid on.

Homemade Bagels | Sally’s Baking Addiction

I live close to New York City, where people are very serious about their bagels. I’m not saying this bagel recipe is authentic, so don’t come at me waving your cream cheese-coated knife, but this recipe is really tasty.

On the downside, it does have to be kneaded. I knead all of my bread dough by hand instead of using a mixer, and that does possibly mean I’m a lazy kneader. However, I follow the kneading instructions for this recipe to the minute, and it is WILD to experience the texture of this dough change beneath your hands.

I’m still working on the shaping part of bagel-making. I do make my bagels smaller to get one more bagel out of the batch. My family has not noticed.

Homemade Naan | Half Baked Harvest

This naan recipe has never failed me. For the ingredients, I do use sour cream instead of yogurt because I never have plain yogurt on hand. I’m not tough enough to eat plain yogurt.

My kids like to brush the naan bread with melted butter and sprinkle cinnamon and sugar on it. Who are we kidding? I’m the one who taught them how to do that. I love it, too!

The leftovers make a great base for personal pizzas or quesadilla-style sandwiches.

Fry Bread | What’s Cooking America

Have you ever had fry bread? It’s a delicious indulgence. It is also a quick bread, so as soon as it is mixed, you can fry it up.

We eat tacos with fry bread probably once a month – just pile your taco ingredients on top. We also like to eat fry bread with soup, like white bean chicken chili or tortilla soup.

The only downside is that fry bread doesn’t reheat well. Not that we ever have leftovers, but if we did, it wouldn’t work well. It’s best consumed right after frying.

(image: What’s Cooking America)

Buttery Flaky Biscuits | Orgasmic Chef

I will issue a biscuit challenge. These biscuits are the best I’ve ever had. You don’t call your website the Orgasmic Chef if you’re not willing to deliver.

Also, I don’t bother using a biscuit cutter to shape biscuits. I flatten the dough to the necessary depth and cut it with a knife. They taste the same, and it requires less work.

Sweet Potato Knots | Tasty Kitchen

These sweet potato knots have ruined me for regular bread rolls. After you’ve experienced the flavor and texture of these sweet potato knots, regular bread rolls seem so underwhelming.

If you don’t have sweet potato, canned pumpkin works just as well. If I open a can of pumpkin just for this recipe, I freeze the remainder in ice cube trays to use later.

You can also add sausage to the knots if you want to make it more of a meal. (Pictured below.)

Pizza Dough | Lark and Lola

The pizza dough recipe I exclusively use is a copycat recipe of Mellow Mushroom’s pizza. Mellow Mushroom is a pizza chain in the southern U.S. The crust is the best part of their pizza. The texture. The flavor. It’s SO GOOD.

It’s not a traditional pizza dough. What makes it different is that it has a little bit of molasses in it.

I make this dough from memory and don’t even measure the flour anymore, so I was glad the recipe is still online so I can reliably share it with you.

The recipe makes two pizzas. I prep and bake both, but end up freezing one of them to reheat on a night when I don’t feel like cooking.

P.S. My family loves breadsticks made from this pizza dough. I bake the breadsticks for about 10 minutes.

A real treat in this house is, unsurprisingly, cinnamon sugar breadsticks. I’m hungry just thinking about them.

Pane Bianco | Lana’s Cooking

If you want a showstopper that tastes even better than it looks, it’s this recipe. It looks hard, but it’s not. It’s the same concept as making cinnamon rolls. Instead of slicing your roll, you shape it into a figure 8.

One of my nephews once told his mom when I brought this to a family dinner, “You’re a good cook, but what Aunt Annisa brought was next level.”

The bread is stuffed with sun-dried tomatoes, herbs, cheese, and sausage.

Dave’s Killer Bread Copycat | By Yours Truly, A Pretty Happy Home

I’ve been making a copycat recipe of Dave’s Killer Bread for over 10 years. It was my true gateway into breadmaking. The website where I got the recipe shut down, and for a long time, I had the only copycat recipe on the ol’ interwebs. This is kind of funny because I’m not a recipe blogger.

Anyway, I’m not even joking when I say I eat one slice of this bread toasted every morning for breakfast.

This is also a recipe I no longer measure when making (other than the water and yeast) because I’ve made it so many times. It is very forgiving to substitutions as long as you keep the proportions the same. In recent years, I’ve also reduced the amount of honey and molasses I use because we’re now of the age where we care about added sugar. (Exceptions are made for the occasional cinnamon sugar breadstick because I’m here to enjoy life.)

Bread I Love to Buy

It’s not all homemade bread in this house. I do buy some bread for the convenience factor.

Ciabatta Rolls – A BLT on a ciabatta roll is heaven on earth.

Olive Fougasse – I’ve only seen this at Trader Joe’s. It is so tasty warmed in the oven and then served with an herby cheese spread. It’s on my list of breads to try baking.

Tortillas – You can’t beat the convenience of a package of corn or flour tortillas.

Baguettes – It’s nice to have a couple of baguettes in the freezer for a last-minute addition to a meal.

English muffins – Breakfast sandwiches taste so good on a toasted English muffin.

I’m not here to overly romanticize the act of baking bread. I’m rather neutral on the topic, actually.

However, I do enjoy eating really good bread, especially tasty homemade bread. Life is too short to eat blah bread, and at our current rate of consumption, it is cheaper to make it than buy it.

In addition, I like to think my kids will someday associate the smell of home with the smell of freshly baked bread. It’s such a warm, cozy, comforting smell to me.

Do you enjoy homemade bread? Do you have a favorite recipe I should try? Let me know! Comments are like bread yeast. They are very uplifting. You can comment on this blog post, email me here, or reach out via direct message on Instagram or Facebook.

Happy baking!

P.S. I buy this Red Star active dry yeast in a 2-lb package because running out of bread yeast would be a tragedy. It’s also way cheaper this way. I store it in a Tupperware container in the fridge. I seem to buy it every 10 – 12 months, and have not noticed it losing its potency by storing it that way. Hope that helps!

*That was a very U.S.-centric reference to King Arthur flour, a popular brand of flour sold in the U.S.

Thanks for hanging out with me today. I hope you had fun. Here are some other blog posts you might enjoy.

May Day Basket Tradition – Did You Do This as a Kid?

Cooking With Kids. Did I Survive?

Thrifted Makeover – Wood Pedestal with Mini Wood Egg Trim

*affiliate links in this blog post*