These homemade garlic knots are extra soft and fluffy, made from my favorite 6 ingredient pizza dough, and are topped with flavorful garlic herb butter before AND after baking. Shaping is a breeze with my video tutorial and step-by-step pictures for visual help. This recipe is brought to you in partnership withย Red Star Yeast.
These are the BEST garlic knots. I’m knot even kidding. ๐
Tell Me About These Garlic Knots:
- made from homemade dough
- leftovers freeze beautifully
- super soft and fluffy
- golden brown
- extra garlic butter
And I know you’ll appreciate this too: You can use the entire batch of dough for 16 knots or you can use half of the dough to make a pizza or stromboli with 8 knots on the side. Perfect for pizza night– no delivery required.
Garlic Knots from Pizza Dough
You can make these garlic knots with 1 or 2 pounds of store-bought or homemade pizza dough. My homemade pizza dough yields about 2 lbs of dough, which is enough for 16 knots or 1 pizza + 8 knots. If you only need about 8 knots, freeze the other half of dough for another time. You will want to make these garlic knots again.
- Besides garlic knots and pizza, I use my homemade pizza dough for cheesy breadsticks, pepperoni pizza rolls, and ham & cheese pockets too! So versatile.
Even though store-bought dough is convenient, I encourage you to try homemade pizza dough. The dough only requires 6 basic ingredients and about 60-90 minutes of rise time.
Use the best yeast: You need flour, yeast, sugar, water, salt, and olive oil. For the BEST pizza dough, I always use Platinum Yeast by Red Star. If you’ve been baking my yeast breads for awhile, you know I swear by it! (I’ve used this yeast exclusively for years.) Its careful formula strengthens dough and makes working with yeast simple.
Garlic Knots Video Tutorial
How to Shape Garlic Knots
After the pizza dough rises, punch it down to release the air. Then begin shaping the dough. If you know how to tie a knot, you can shape garlic knots.
- Shape into a 16 inch log: Using your hands, shape the dough into a 16 inch log. No need to use a rolling pin because this doesnโt need to be perfect.
- Cut into 16 strips: Cut the log into 16 1-inch strips.
- Roll each strip into an 8-inch rope.
- Tie the rope into a knot.
Along with the video tutorial above, here are step-by-step pictures of the shaping process. It’s a lot easier than it seems and you don’t need any special tools or equipment.
Shape each strip into knots:
You can tuck the ends underneath the knot or leave them out– that’s totally up to you.
Let the shaped knots rest for about 30 minutes before brushing with butter and baking.
Garlic Herb Butter
Right before baking, generously brush the knots with garlic herb butter. Simply combine melted butter, fresh garlic or garlic powder, Italian seasoning, and salt.
- If you can’t find a spice labeled “Italian Seasoning” in the spice aisle, use dried oregano, dried basil, and/or dried parsley instead. Any herb you love works.
Bake the knots until golden brown and experience the lofty smell of garlic throughout the kitchen. Everyone (um, even your neighbors) will know what’s on the menu tonight!
Flavor Tip: Save some of the garlic butter to brush onto the knots as they come out of the oven, then top each with fresh parmesan and chopped parsley. The parmesan and parsley are completely optional, but make an awesome garnish. This is your happy place:
More Surprisingly Simple Homemade Bread:
- Sandwich Bread
- Homemade Cheese Bread
- Dinner Rolls
- Focaccia (an absolute MUST try!!)
- Soft Pretzels
Homemade Garlic Knots
- Prep Time: 3 hours (includes rising)
- Cook Time: 20 minutes
- Total Time: 3 hours, 25 minutes
- Yield: 16 knots
- Category: Dinner
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: Italian
Description
Follow these in-depth instructions for super soft and flavorful homemade garlic knots. Review video tutorial above and recipe notes below before beginning.
Ingredients
Homemade Dough
- 1ย and 1/3 cups (320ml)ย warm waterย (between 100-110ยฐF, 38-43ยฐC)
- 2 and 1/4 teaspoons Platinum Yeast by Red Starย (1ย standard packet)*
- 1 Tablespoonย (13g)ย granulated sugar
- 2 Tablespoons (30ml)ย olive oil
- 3/4 teaspoonย salt
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder (see note)
- 3 and 1/2 cups (450g) all-purpose flourย (spoon & leveled), plus more for hands and work surface
Topping
- 5 Tablespoons (70g)ย unsalted butter, melted
- 3 garlic cloves, minced or 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon Italian Seasoning*
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- optional after baking: 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
- optional after baking: 2 Tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
Instructions
- Whisk the warm water, yeast, and granulated sugar together in the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with a dough hook or paddle attachment. Cover and allow to rest for 5 minutes. *If you donโt have a stand mixer, simply use a large mixing bowl and mix the dough with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula in the next step.
- Add the olive oil, salt, garlic powder, and half of the flour. Beat for 15 seconds, then add the remaining flour. Beat on low speed for 2 minutes. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. With lightly floured hands, knead the dough for 3-4 minutes (for a visual, watch me do it in the video above). The dough can be a little too heavy for a mixer to knead it, but you can certainly use the mixer on low speed instead. After kneading, the dough should still feel a little soft. Poke it with your finger โ if it slowly bounces back, your dough is ready to rise. If not, keep kneading.
- Lightly grease a large bowl with oil or nonstick sprayโ just use the same bowl you used for the dough. Place the dough in the bowl, turning it to coat all sides in the oil. Cover the bowl with aluminum foil, plastic wrap, or a clean kitchen towel. Allow the dough to rise at room temperature for 1-2 hours or until double in size. (Tip:ย For the warm environment on a particularly cold day, heat your oven to 150ยฐF (66ยฐC). Turn the oven off, place the dough inside, and keep the door slightly ajar. This will be a warm environment for your dough to rise. After about 30 minutes, close the oven door to trap the air inside with the rising dough. When itโs doubled in size, remove from the oven.)
- Shape the dough: Use the video tutorial and step-by-step photos above as your guide for this step. When the dough is ready, punch it down to release the air. Using floured hands on a lightly floured work surface, shape the dough into a 16×5 inch log. (5 inch width really isn’t as important as the 16 inch length here, no need to be exact.) Using a very sharp knife, pizza cutter, or bench scraper, slice into 16 1-inch strips. Roll each strip into 8 inch ropes. Tie each into knots. You can tuck the two ends of the knots underneath the knot or leave them out, that’s up to you. Arrange the knots on 2 lined baking sheets. (Either parchment paper or silicone baking mats work.)
- Lightly cover the shaped knots and let them rest for at least 30 minutes and up to 45 minutes. They will slightly puff up during this time, producing softer rolls.
- Towards the end of the rise time, preheat oven to 400ยฐF (204ยฐ).
- Topping:ย Stir the melted butter, garlic, Italian seasoning, and salt together. Brush on the knots. Reserve some of the topping for when the knots come out of the oven.
- Bake for about 18-23 minutes or until golden brown on top. Remove from the oven and brush the warm knots with remaining garlic butter. Sprinkle with parmesan cheese and/or parsley, if using.
- Serve plain or with marinara sauce for dipping.
- Cover and store leftover knots at room temperature for up to 2 days or in the refrigerator for up to 1 week. Freeze baked and cooled knots for up to 3 months. Thaw on the counter, then reheat as desired. (I usually just microwave them for a few seconds.)
Notes
- Freezing Dough or Overnight Dough Instructions: See Pizza Dough recipe for details.
- Freezing Shaped Knots Dough: Instead of freezing the dough as a whole, you can freeze the shaped knots before baking them. Shape the knots as directed in step 4. Arrange on a lined baking sheet. Freeze, uncovered, for 1-2 hours. Remove from the freezer. Knots should be frozen and no longer sticky. Place into a freezer-friendly container or bag. Freeze for up to 3 months. Thaw in the refrigerator or on the counter. Bring to room temperature, arrange on 2 lined baking sheets, cover lightly, and allow to rest/rise for 1 hour before continuing with step 6.
- Dough: You can make these garlic knots with 2 pounds of store-bought or homemade pizza dough. My homemade pizza dough, written in this recipe, yields about 2 pounds of dough, which is enough for 16 knots or 1 pizza + 8 knots. For 8 knots, punch the dough down as directed in step 4. Cut in half. Use the other half of dough however you’d like or freeze for later. Shape into an 8 inch log and cut into 8 1-inch strips. Continue with the recipe as directed.
- Garlic Powder: We recently began adding garlic powder to the dough. You won’t see that addition to the dough in the recipe video, but it adds a little extra flavor. Highly recommended.
- Yeast: Platinum Yeast by Red Star is an instant yeast. You can use active dry yeast instead. The 1st rise time may take a little longer. Reference my Baking with Yeast Guideย for answers to common yeast FAQs.
- Italian Seasoning: If you can’t find a spice labeled “Italian Seasoning” in the spice aisle, use dried oregano, dried basil, and/or dried parsley instead. Any herb you love works.
Keywords: garlic knots, rolls, yeast bread
Super awesome recipe for garlic knots. Soft chewy n yummy. Feeling satisfied
★★★★★
Soft and crunchy in the right places =)
★★★★★
Excellent recipe! We all loved it.
★★★★★
Hi Sally!
Thank you for simplifying baking- everything weโve tried has been delicious and fairly easy!!
I have made the garlic knots twice now – while they taste very good- they donโt seem to maintain the knot shape and donโt brown like yours. Theyโre also a little crisper than I would have liked but yummy even so! What could I be doing wrong?
Thank you again I love your recipes!!
Hi Naina, Itโs possible the dough over-proofed during either of the two rises, most likely during the second rise. If you slightly cut down on that rise time, they should hold their shape much better. I hope this helps!
Followed directions closely. At 18 minutes the knots didnโt look at all ready. At 23 they were better looking but still not anything like the photos. They were kinda crunchy, tasted good, but weโre quite far from being fluffy and looking like the photo. How might I get them to turn out better?
★★★
Can I sub the butter with olive oil for the garlic butter?
Hi Zena, Yes you can brush the tops with garlic/seasoned olive oil instead.
Absolutely amazing!! Thank you it was a hit!!
★★★★★
Hi, can I use my bread maker for this?
I canโt see why not! We donโt have a bread machine to test it, but many readers have made the pizza dough with theirs and reported no problem.
Any way we can get that marinara recipe? Looks super dope.
Hi Larry, We just used store bought marinara sauce.
Very soft and delicious ! I made with half whole wheat and half all purpose white flour and it came out lovely .
★★★★★
Hi sally, I only have extra virgin olive oil. Would that be okay?
Yes, that is fine! Enjoy!
Hi Sally, This looks great. But before I try I need a tip from you. If I want to try half quantity of these, then how much of yeast should I 7u8use?
★★★★
Hi Shakeba, You can cut the yeast in half as well. So you would need 1 and 1/8 tsp (or half of a standard packet).
I always wonder when anything online gets all 5-star ratings, but I made these today and they were perfect, more like 10 stars on a 5 scale. The only change I made was half butter and half olive oil for the topping (trying to reduce saturated fat), which worked well. The garlic knots look just like your photos and were warm and almost flaky inside and just the right crispness on the outside. Totally delicious – thank you!
★★★★★
I only rate if I follow a recipe verbatim. These garlic knots are perfection!
★★★★★
This is the best dough recipe ever.
★★★★★
Just made these for family with garlic braised short ribs. They were perfect. I made them with raw pizza dough that I bought from the bakery at my local grocery store. Let it rise, punched it down, made a log…seriously it was that easy and everyone raved and went for more of the juice so they could dip the knots. Crunchy on the bottom and top and oh so tender inside. Make these. Seriously. Oh and when tying the knots….the dough is super forgiving and easy to tie.
★★★★★
We love these garlic knots! Thanks for sharing! My hubby wants cheesy garlic knots. Can shredded cheese be added to this recipe or should I try your cheese bread and add garlic to that recipe? It’s all so yummy!
★★★★★
Hi Molly! Either works. You could definitely add 1 cup of shredded cheese into this dough when you add the second half of the flour. The cheese might melt around the edges a bit as the knots bake, but that’s not a problem. Lining your pan with silicone baking mats or parchment is best.
I’m Italian and at ‘a spice labeled โItalian Seasoningโ’ my eyes bled
Might still try the recipe WITH REAL HERBS
Over react much? Sheesh. I canโt wait to try these for thanksgiving. And in such a terrible year as 2020, fresh baked knots sound amazing. Thanks so much Sally! Have never been let down by one of your recipes. Hope you have a wonderful holiday with your family.
Can you add spices to the dough to add more flavour? If so, how much would you recommend?
Definitely. The amount depends on the spice. 1 teaspoon of garlic powder and 1 Tablespoon of Italian seasoning would be convenient (and tasty!) since you’re using both in the topping anyway. I think 1 teaspoon of lemon pepper would be great too.
Great thanks so much!
Made this and my family loved it. <3 I followed the instructions carefully and the results are great! Crispy on the outside but supersoft on the inside. It really looked liked the same on the picturesss above. I don't have platinum yeast so I used eagle instant dry yeast.
I'm just wondering if I can put some cheese inside the dough during shaping?
★★★★★
Hi Lara, We are so happy your family enjoyed this recipe! You could definitely add 1 cup of shredded cheese into this dough when you add the second half of the flour. The cheese might melt around the edges a bit as the knots bake, but thatโs not a problem. Lining your pan with silicone baking mats or parchment is best.
Hi so I made this again for the second time and I added grated cheese on the second half of the flour. Same as the first time I made it, I followed everything but this time the dough became really sticky. I was having a hard time kneading. I only put 400g of flour since It was the only available stock I have and put the same amount for the rest of the ingredients. Was this the reason why the dough became sticky?
But after sometime, during shaping it was still sticky so I decided to ask for flour around XD and added some during shaping. Still it was good and my family loved it though I didn’t tasted the cheese very much. Haha.
Hello Sally!
I tried making this garlic knots today but I could not get pass the first stage of making the dough! The dough was so sticky, I could barely do anything with it ๐ It did not come out as per your video (Where you could just take the dough out of the bowl.. it was all stuck to my hands).
Where did I go wrong? ๐
Appreciate some help and tips from you. Thank you, Sally!
Hi J, Thank you for trying this recipe! There are a lot of variances that go into the consistency of dough, even down to the brand of flour and the weather and humidity in the air. Thereโs nothing wrong with adding a little more flour to bring the dough into a less sticky and knead-able consistency.
What if I don’t have a stand mixer, what would I do in the beginning?
Made these today with butternut squash soup and they were the perfect accompaniment! To be honest, I ate 5 of them, so it’s a good thing you recommended freezing half the knots. My stomach thanks you!
★★★★★
I just made these last night and they were amazing! It was pretty easy and the dough was so soft. If anyone is debating making these just go for it. I have some tips for anyone wanting to make these:
-I would recommend checking them in the oven around 14-15 minutes if you don’t want them crispy. I took them out at that time and they were perfect and still had that wonderful golden brown color. After the 15 minute mark just keep an eye on them to make sure they don’t get too dark
– I just used regular instant yeast (Fleischmann’s) and it worked fine
– If you want CHEESE STUFFED garlic knots~ what I did is after cutting the dough into strips, I just flattened each strip to make it wider and then sprinkled shredded mozzarella. Then I folded the strip and made sure to pinch the seams closed, before proceeding to make the knot. This way you have a cheese-stuffed strip of dough before shaping. Alternatively you could take cubes of mozzarella and tie the knot around it for a punch of cheese in the middle rather than little bits throughout the garlic knot
– If you want more garlic flavor consider adding some to the dough, and don’t be shy with the melted butter topping ๐
★★★★★
These were just delicious and fun to make!! I have extra wheat flour I haven’t used and did the same as one other commenter and split the flour to half wheat.
★★★★★
Love these garlic knots! Super easy and super delicious!! I was wondering if there way a way to freeze them before baking?
★★★★★
Yes! See recipe note #2 “Freezing Shaped Knots Dough”
Thank you so much!! I knew I had read it somewhere but I scrolled too fast this time around!! Thank you!
I tried this recipe last night and must say that it is super easy to make and delicious. Sally, however the crust was not soft. It had a biscuit-like crunch. What did i not do right? I used proofed yeast (1 3/4 tbsp), kneaded the dough for about time 5 min, Andy baked at 375 F in convection oven. Does convection oven (with a fan) make bread crust crunchy?
Please advice, as I would like to try the recipe one more time.
Hi Poonam, It could definitely be the oven. In our experience the flow of air from convection/fan ovens causes baked goods to bake unevenly (crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside) and also pulls moisture out of the air. If using convection the general rule of thumb is to lower your oven by 25 degrees F. But either way you can loosely tent the top of your pan with aluminum foil to help the tops from browning too quickly.
Im thinking of making these over the weekend and i would like to ask, for the garlic butter, if i use salted butter do i still have to add salt?
Hi Alana, You can use salted butter here and you can decrease the added salt if you wish. Enjoy!
these were pretty easy – and I am NOT a breadmaker! The dough was easy to mix up, and rose like expected. I cooked them a bit longer than I should have – so the bottoms were crunchier that I like, but the flavor was great!
First time I’ve had success with anything that included ‘yeast’.
★★★★
Hey Sally! I followed the recipe exactly except that I baked for 10 minutes only since my oven generally takes lesser time and has higher temperature. The top did not brown and turned a teensy bit hard, although they came out nice, fluffy and chewy from inside. What do you think is the issue?
★★★★★
Hi Shruti, It was likely the oven temperature and baking time. Is your oven convection heat? If so try turning down the temperature by 25 degrees F and they still may take a shorter time so keep an eye on them.
Thank you Stephanie!! I baked them again by lowering the temperature by 30 degrees and baking for 11 minutes. Everything was perfect except I didn’t get the beautiful brown colour on top
My first try turned out pretty good. I think I could’ve used used more butter/salt/garlic for a more intense flavour, but the dough was excellent.
The bottoms came out a bit burned and too hard and crunchy. Any tips on what I can do to avoid that next time?
★★★★
Hi Stan! Sounds like your oven may run a little hot. Try using an in-oven thermometer or turning your oven down a few degrees next time.
Hi Sally! Could I use whole-wheat flour instead of all-purpose flour?
Hi Kim, You can try to use half of each flour for a heartier dough. Or you can try using this recipe for Whole Wheat Pizza Crust shaped as knots.