Honey Whole Wheat Dinner Rolls

These soft and hearty whole wheat dinner rolls are made with 100% whole wheat flour and sweetened with honey. They have structure, body, texture, and staying power—and hold their own against any white flour rolls.

This recipe is brought to you in partnership with Red Star Yeast.

Baking a batch of whole wheat rolls that are both SOFT and FLAVORFUL feels like winning the lottery. Or, at the very least, winning dinnertime.

What normally results in hockey pucks can finally grace our dinner tables proudly. These honey whole wheat dinner rolls easily compete with (and beat) the tastiest white flour rolls because they taste nutty, a little sweet, and have a bit more oomph in the texture department. Just like my whole wheat bread, this recipe is 100% whole wheat.

Whole Wheat Flour Is Picky

Whole wheat flour is picky and can be difficult to work with. Why? It’s heavy and doesn’t contain the same level of gluten as white flours. This missing gluten poses a problem when it comes to bread making. Many whole wheat bread recipes call for the addition of vital wheat gluten to make up for it, but I don’t keep that in my kitchen and you may not either. Other recipes suggest subbing some whole wheat flour for all-purpose or bread flour—but then the whole wheat rolls won’t be 100% whole wheat. Keeping this in mind (and after a few failed whole wheat dinner roll attempts), I landed on a recipe and method I loved. And I’m confident you’ll be satisfied too.

Admittedly, these whole wheat rolls aren’t as fluffy and tall as their white flour counterpart, but I like their heartier texture. If you crave extra texture in bread, you’ll love my multigrain bread recipe as well. (You can turn that recipe into rolls!)

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Behind the Recipe

I adapted this whole wheat roll recipe from my dinner rolls recipe. We use the same exact ingredients, except we’ll swap the flour for whole wheat flour. A few other differences make up for the heavy and dense whole wheat flour:

• Increase the amount of butter. I tested with more butter in batch #2 and even more in test batch #3. 1/2 cup (8 Tablespoons) produced the best tasting whole wheat rolls.
• Use 2 whole eggs instead of 1 egg. The extra liquid keeps the dough a little more hydrated.
• Add honey for flavor.

For best results, use a superior baking yeast: Platinum Yeast from Red Star. This is an instant yeast and my preferred brand. I’m a Red Star Yeast fangirl and use it exclusively in my kitchen because it’s always a guarantee.

Ingredients in Whole Wheat Dinner Rolls

Like my regular dinner rolls and even my sandwich bread recipe, this dough comes together easily with 7 basic ingredients. Each has an important job to do, so I don’t recommend substitutions.

1. Milk: Liquid activates the yeast. For the softest rolls, use whole milk. Nondairy or low fat milks work too, but whole milk produces phenomenal flavor and texture.
2. Yeast: I recommend Platinum Yeast from Red Star, which is an instant yeast blended with natural dough improvers.
3. Honey: This sweetener feeds the yeast, increases its activity, tenderizes the dough, and adds a welcome sweetness. And if you love honey in your homemade breads, you’ll enjoy this honey oat bread too.
4. Eggs: 2 eggs provide structure and richness.
5. Butter: Butter promises a soft, flavorful roll. Make sure you’re using room temperature butter.
6. Salt: Salt adds flavor and offsets the sweetness.
7. Whole Wheat Flour: We can’t have whole wheat rolls without whole wheat flour!

I recommend using a stand mixer with a dough hook attachment (most stand mixers are sold with it), but if you don’t have a stand mixer, mix the dough together with a wooden spoon and knead by hand. (Feel free to reference my How to Knead Dough tutorial if you need extra help with this step.) Whole wheat dough requires a slightly longer rise time since it’s weighed down with wheat germ and bran.

The Best Shaping Trick

When making dinner rolls, I typically divide the bread dough and roll each piece into individual balls. (Just like with my dinner rolls and honey butter rolls.) It works, but this dough never rolls up perfectly. Maybe it’s because I’m impatient, but some of the rolls end up looking a little scraggly and misshaped. It’s frustrating, especially when I want uniform shaped buns. Ha!

And that brings us to the best shaping trick: Take the risen dough and shape it into a long 9×13-inch rectangle, the size of our baking pan. Almost as if we were making cinnamon rolls, but we’re not stretching the dough out quite that far. It’s pliable, so just use your hands to shape the dough as best you can.

Then, using your pizza cutter, cut into 15 evenly shaped rolls. No individual rolling:

Then it’s business as usual. Loosely cover and allow the rolls to rest and rise one more time. They’ll get nice and puffy in about 1 hour.

Two Delicious Extras

We’ll bake the whole wheat rolls until they’re golden on top and finish them with 2 goodies:

1. Brush of honey butter
2. Sprinkle of sea salt

You know I’m a big fan of finishing touches and trust me when I say: the brush of honey butter and sea salt are the best. The honey butter soaks into all the cracks and crevices and the sea salt makes that honey flavor pop. You could even take it a step further and make some homemade honey butter for serving with the rolls.

While these whole wheat dinner rolls are soft, they aren’t particularly fluffy. Remember what we learned when we made whole wheat pizza dough? The reality is that whole wheat yeasted dough just cannot rise to the same level as white flour dough. But that’s honestly one of their best qualities. Unlike rolls made with refined flour, these whole wheat rolls are hearty and a little textured.

And if you love rolls with BIG flavor, try these brown butter sage dinner rolls or sweet potato dinner rolls next!

What to Serve with Whole Wheat Dinner Rolls

• Minestrone Soup
• Walnut Crusted Chicken
• Creamy Chicken Noodle Soup
• Baked Chicken Meatballs
• Slow Cooker Chicken Chili
• Baked Lemon Garlic Salmon

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