Simply Sandwich Bread

With step-by-step pictures, a full video tutorial, and plenty of helpful tips, learn how to make simple white sandwich bread using a few baking ingredients like flour, water, yeast, salt, and milk. Bread flour promises a super soft interior with an extra chewy crust. This recipe yields 1 loaf, so it’s perfect if you only have 1 loaf pan.

If you’re new to working with yeast, reference my Baking with Yeast Guide for answers to common yeast FAQs. This recipe is brought to you in partnership with Red Star Yeast.

Let’s make homemade sandwich bread. This is a basic staple in any bread baker’s repertoire, but it’s also a recipe that shouldn’t be overlooked. There’s nothing on earth quite like homemade bread and my recipe is loaf perfection—rising tall, tasting buttery-soft, and making the most epic sandwiches. It’s truthfully the best homemade bread I’ve ever tasted and it all comes from just 7 ingredients. And if you’re nervous to bake with yeast, I guarantee you will finally feel confident with this no-fuss recipe.

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This Sandwich Bread Is:

• Soft white bread with an extra chewy exterior
• Crisp right out of the oven!
• Made from 7 easy ingredients
• Golden brown with a super impressive rise
• Extraordinary on its own or as the base of a sandwich
• Simple to make
• Easy to make ahead or freeze

Looking for a no yeast alternative? Here’s my no yeast bread.

Just 1 Loaf of Bread

Besides the simplicity of the process, you’ll appreciate that this sandwich bread recipe yields just 1 loaf. You don’t need a crazy amount of flour, multiple loaf pans, and you’re not left with 2-3 leftover loaves on your hands. (Which wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing.) Just 1 loaf to prepare, rise, shape, and bake—convenient, approachable, and straightforward. My recipes for multigrain bread, homemade cinnamon swirl bread, and honey oat bread both produce just 1 loaf as well.

Overview: How to Make Sandwich Bread

• Make the dough. Continue below to learn more about this dough recipe.
• Knead the dough. Reference my How to Knead Dough video tutorial for extra help with this step.
• Cover the dough and let it rise. The dough rises in about 1-2 hours in a relatively warm environment.
• Punch down the dough to release the air.
• Shape the dough into a large rectangle, then roll it into loaf.
• Let the loaf rise for about 1 hour.
• Bake for 30-34 minutes until golden brown.

As shown in the video tutorial below, the dough comes together with a mixer. You can use a paddle attachment or a dough hook. You can also make the dough by hand, but it requires a bit of arm muscle. After the dough comes together in the mixing bowl, it’s time to knead. You can continue beating the dough with the mixer for this step or you can knead the dough by hand. If you’re new to bread baking, my how to knead dough post and video can help with this step.

Sandwich Bread Ingredients

You need 7 ingredients—practically the same as my homemade cinnamon swirl bread but less sugar. Likewise, they’re basically the same ingredients as my soft dinner rolls too, but in order to bake a bread that rises tall and has legitimate structure, we’ll leave out some of the fat. Swap some of the milk for water and leave out the egg.

1. Water: Liquid activates yeast. I use mostly water in this dough because we need a bread that has structure. Using all milk, like I do for my dinner rolls, would yield a flimsy bread without much texture.
2. Milk: To make a soft bread, you need fat in the dough so make sure 1/4 cup of the liquid is milk. Low fat milk works too, but whole milk produces phenomenal texture.
3. Yeast: You can use active dry yeast or instant yeast. If using active dry, the rise times will be a bit longer. I recommend Platinum Yeast from Red Star, which is an instant yeast blended with natural dough improvers. It’s my go-to for all bread.
4. Sugar: Sugar feeds the yeast, increases its activity, and tenderizes the dough.
5. Butter: Butter promises a flavorful loaf. I tested this recipe with melted butter, softened butter, and even olive oil. We liked the loaf made with softened butter the best because it had pronounced buttery flavor and a softer (yet still sturdy) interior.
6. Salt: You can’t make flavorful bread without salt!
7. Flour: You can use all-purpose flour or bread flour. All-purpose flour is convenient for most, but bread flour produces a chewier crust. There are no other changes to the recipe if you use bread flour. For best taste, I highly recommend bread flour. It’s what I always use when I make artisan bread. If you wish to use whole wheat flour, follow my recipe for whole wheat bread instead.

After you make and knead the dough, let it rise. Then, punch it down to release the air:

Roll it out into an 8×15-inch rectangle:

Roll it up tightly starting with the 8-inch side, so you have an 8-inch roll to fit into your 9×5-inch loaf pan. (Unlike cinnamon rolls where you roll up the dough starting with the larger side.) Let it rise until it’s 1 heaping inch above the rim of the pan:

Bake until golden brown, about 30-34 minutes.

Uses for Homemade Sandwich Bread

• Any sandwich. Like the Ross Geller’s Turkey Moist-Maker Sandwich 🙂
• BLT or grilled cheese
• Avocado toast or bacon & egg sandwiches
• Soup dipper
• Make croutons
• French toast or Blueberry French Toast Casserole
• Or in savory recipes like Breakfast Casserole and Sausage & Herb Stuffing

But our favorite way is simply warm toast with regular butter or honey butter & jam. Honestly, toast made from mass-produced bread doesn’t even compare. You can actually taste the soft and buttery toasty crumbs here. Or make an easy turkey sandwich—store-bought bread can’t make a sandwich taste as PERFECT as this.

I understand there’s a major convenience with store-bought bread and I’m not asking you to only make homemade bread for the rest of you life, but try it at least once. It takes a few hours one afternoon and most of the work is hands-off while the dough rises. Fresh-baked sandwich bread smells incredible, tastes even better, and I’m confident there’s no better baked good than this perfect loaf. You won’t regret trying this.

More Easy Bread Recipes

• Focaccia
• Multigrain Bread
• Artisan Bread
• Cheesy Breadsticks
• Pizza Crust
• Homemade Soft Pretzels
• Bread Bowls
• Homemade Breadsticks
• Olive Bread
• Cranberry Nut No-Knead Bread

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