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!)
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.
Baking with Yeast Guide
Reference this Baking with Yeast Guide whenever you work with baker’s yeast. I include practical answers to all of your common yeast questions.
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.
- 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.
- Yeast: I recommend Platinum Yeast from Red Star, which is an instant yeast blended with natural dough improvers.
- 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.
- Eggs: 2 eggs provide structure and richness.
- Butter: Butter promises a soft, flavorful roll. Make sure you’re using room temperature butter.
- Salt: Salt adds flavor and offsets the sweetness.
- 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:
- Brush of honey butter
- 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
Honey Whole Wheat Dinner Rolls
- Prep Time: 3 hours, 30 minutes
- Cook Time: 25 minutes
- Total Time: 4 hours
- Yield: 15 rolls
- Category: Bread
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
Soft, hearty, and sweet homemade honey whole wheat dinner rolls.
Ingredients
- 1 cup (240ml) whole milk, warmed to about 110°F (43°C)
- 2 and 1/4 teaspoons Platinum Yeast from Red Star instant yeast
- 1/2 cup (8 Tbsp; 113g) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature (cut into 4 pieces)
- 1/3 cup (113g) honey
- 2 large eggs
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3 and 1/2 cups (420g) whole wheat flour (spooned & leveled), plus more for kneading/shaping
Topping
- 2 Tablespoons (28g) unsalted butter, melted
- 2 teaspoons honey
- sea salt for sprinkling
Instructions
- Make the dough: Pour the warm milk over yeast in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook attachment. Or, if you don’t have a stand mixer, a regular large mixing bowl. Whisk together, cover bowl with a towel, and allow to sit for 5 minutes. The mixture will be frothy and foamy after 5 minutes.
- On low speed, beat in the softened butter until it is slightly broken up. Then beat in the honey, eggs, and salt. The butter won’t really be mixing into the mixture, so don’t be alarmed if it stays in pieces. On low speed, gradually add the flour. Once it is all added, beat on medium speed until a soft dough forms.
- Knead the dough: Keep the dough in the mixer and beat for an additional 6-8 full minutes, or knead by hand on a lightly floured surface for 6-8 full minutes. (If you’re new to bread-baking, my How to Knead Dough video tutorial can help here.) If the dough becomes too sticky during the kneading process, sprinkle 1 teaspoon of flour at a time on the dough or on the work surface/in the bowl to make a soft, slightly tacky dough. Do not add more flour than you need because you do not want a dry dough. After kneading, the dough should still feel a little soft. Poke it with your finger—if it slowly bounces back, your dough is ready to rise.
- Transfer the dough to a lightly floured surface (if you kneaded with your mixer) and knead it with your hands for 1 minute. Form the dough into a ball, coat your mixing bowl with nonstick spray or olive oil, and place the dough back in and turn it over so all sides of the dough are coated with the oil/spray. Cover the dough/bowl loosely with plastic wrap, a paper towel, or aluminum foil and let sit in a warm place until doubled in size, about 1.5 – 2 hours. Here’s what I do: turn the oven on to 150°F (66°C). Once heated to that temperature, turn the oven off. Stick the covered dough inside the oven and allow it to rise in this warm environment.
- Grease the bottom and sides of a 9×13-inch baking dish. Set aside.
- Shape the rolls: Punch the dough down to release any air bubbles and turn it out onto a lightly floured work surface. Using floured hands, stretch the dough into a 9×13 rectangle (doesn’t need to be exact, it can be a little smaller). Use a pizza cutter and cut into 15 rolls. See photo above for a visual. Round out the edges of the rolls since they stretched a bit as you cut them. Arrange in prepared pan. Loosely cover the rolls and allow to rise in a warm environment again until puffy and double in size, about 1 hour.
- Bake the rolls: Preheat the oven to 375°F (191°C). Bake rolls for about 25 minutes or until they are golden brown. About halfway through the bake time, I like to cover the rolls loosely with aluminum foil so the tops don’t brown too much. Remove pan from the oven and allow to cool on a wire rack for 5 minutes.
- Top the rolls: Meanwhile, mix the melted butter and honey together. Brush over warm rolls. Sprinkle with sea salt. Serve warm.
- Cover any leftover rolls and store at room temperature for a few days or in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.
Notes
- Make Ahead & Freezing Instructions: After dough has risen two hours in step 4, punch it down inside the mixing bowl and cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap. Refrigerate overnight or for up to 2 days, then remove from the refrigerator and continue with step 5. Or freeze the dough for up to 2 months, then allow to thaw overnight in the refrigerator and continue with step 5. You can also freeze the baked dinner rolls. Allow them to cool completely, then freeze for up to 3 months. Thaw in the refrigerator or at room temperature, then reheat as desired. If reheating the whole pan, lightly cover and reheat in a 300°F (149°C) oven for about 10 minutes or until warm.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): Electric Stand Mixer | Whisk | Pastry Brush | Pizza Cutter | 9×13-inch Baking Pan
- Milk: Lower fat milk can be substituted, but the rolls won’t taste as soft. I strongly suggest whole milk.
- Honey Butter: Don’t leave off that honey butter/sea salt topping. The rolls will be lacking a little flavor without it. I prefer spreading the honey butter on the rolls after they bake as opposed to before they bake. Brushing butter on top of the delicate, airy unbaked roll weighs them down and encourages them to deflate. Best to spread on the honey butter right after baking.
- Reference my Baking with Yeast Guide for answers to common yeast FAQs.
Reader Comments and Reviews
After having such success with the white dinner rolls (soft rolls! for once!), I decided to try these. As with others, my yeast did not foam. I tried again and though it did not foam this time either, decided to soldier on with the non foaming yeast. The dough was very wet– I guess I should have noticed that it had twice the butter and eggs of the white rolls plus 1/3 C honey, but only 1/2 C more flour. So, I was continually sprinkling flour in the kneading process. Even so, they actually came out. In the future, I’ll add some sugar to the yeast and may swap out honey for brown sugar.
These turned out great! I had to use maybe 100-150g of extra flour while it was kneading as it was too sticky (I live in a humid place). I also added a full teaspoon of salt. Thanks for all the wonderful recipes, Sally!
These rolls turned out great! I didn’t get the froth at the beginning (even with honey), but the dough rose perfectly. The texture is nice and they taste great. Thank you so much!
Your dinner rolls have been part of my rotation for the past few months. I am stuck with it and can’t seem to try something new – it is that good! But then my grocery ran out of plain bread flour and the only the wholemeal bread flour is available. I searched online if there is a wholemeal dinner rolls recipe and viola, yours showed up! No second thoughts, I had to try it!
Sooo now, this is my new favorite! Earthyyyy is really the best way to describe it!
Similar to the dinner rolls recipe, I adjusted the milk because I found the flour that I buy here in UK needs more liquid to get the right dough texture.
Thank you very much Sally for this recipe and all your detailed basics! You are such an “influencer” with recipes that people across the globe adoreee! 😉
We’re so glad you love these too, MA!
I’m giving this a 4 instead of a 5-star rating because of one step in the process. After 3 attempts I could not get the warm milk and yeast to become frothy (after 5 minutes of sitting, covered). Only when I add the honey would the milk and yeast become frothy. So now I mix the yeast, milk, and honey together first, and let that sit for 5 minutes. Then the rolls come out fantastic! I suppose I could add just part of the honey and save the rest for the later part of the recipe; that would probably also work. Overall, this is a great recipe and much appreciated to have a recipe with whole wheat flour!
I have a sourdough starter that I like to use but how do I substitute that in this recipe (I assume for yeast somehow)?
Hi Julie, we wish we could help, but have no experience baking with sourdough. Let us know if you try!
Hi, I halved your recipe, but my mixture is very very wet after mixing it. Is it supposed to be wet? I’m guessing not, but I followed the ingredient list to a T.
Hi Sarah, we generally do not recommend halving yeast recipes, as they don’t always work as well by simply halving all ingredients. So that could be the cuplrit here. The dough should not be wet. If you do try it again using the full measurements, and your dough is still wet, you can add additional flour (about 1 Tablespoon at a time) until the dough comes together into a workable consistency. Hope this helps!
Tried to make this. Went through 4 packets of yeast, even went to the store to buy another packet. No foaming. The back of the yeast packet says to add to dry ingredients and not to hydrate it first. Is this supposed to be made with active dry yeast instead?
Hi Laura! The yeast should foam up if it’s active – which is why we check with this extra step. Could your milk be too hot? That would kill the yeast. Or if it’s too cold, it wouldn’t activate the yeast and it wouldn’t bubble up.
After several attempts, I’ve found the only way to get the yeast and milk combo to foam is to add the honey as part of that step (not later). I’ve done this three times now and the rolls have come out great! I’m sure you could add only a bit of the honey at this point (I’d guess about 1 TBL), then add the remainder when the recipe calls for it. Hope this helps! I’d love to hear how it comes out!
Sally, would it be possible to substitute with white whole wheat flour (it’s all I have on hand)? And, any other steps to add in using WWF?
Thank you and love your recipes!!!
Hi Susan, you can use white whole wheat flour here, no other changes needed. Enjoy!
Can I knead the dough in my bread machine on dough cycle and pick back up at step 5?
Hi Lydia, we haven’t tested it but we’re sure you could. Let us know if you try!
These just tasted dry to me. Honey butter topping was good though, but made the inside dryness an even more stark contrast.
Sally you really outdid yourself with this one. This is my new go to!!!
In making ahead, your directions are confusing. Step 3 is kneading. but after it been in frig, you say to go to step 4 which is letting it rise in a warm place for 1.5-2hrs. But you’ve already done that in step 4. Do I let it rise again for 1.5-2hrs and then stretch and cut? I just did step4, put it in my frig overnight and was going to proceed to step 5 after I take it out. Am I doing it wrong? I bake lots of your stuff. First time I’ve been confused.
Hi Terri, thanks for catching that. The make-ahead instructions need to be updated. Refrigerate overnight or for up to 2 days, then remove from the refrigerator and continue with step 5. I’ll update that now!
Love these rolls. Can I use this recipe and make garlic bread sticks?
Thanks
Hi Denise, we’re sure you could make buns or breadsticks with this recipe, but we have not tested it ourselves. We do have a breadsticks recipe that you could use as a guide if you want to give it a try. You’ll have to let us know how they turn out if you do!
Love this recipe! We cut out all white flour and sugar and these rolls have added a great substitute for us.
Is it possbile to leave out the honey in the recipe? If so, do I have to substitute it with anything else? I want to make these and your amazing honey butter rolls for Easter lunch but I don’t want the other option to taste too honey-y, since I am already serving the honey butter rolls as well. 🙂
Thanks!
Hi Nathalie, you can replace the honey with regular granulated sugar in the dough. You may want to add the flour slowly as you might not need all 3 and 1/2 cups since you are removing honey (wet ingredient). You can brush the tops of the rolls with plain melted butter instead of the honey butter mixture.
Made these today to compliment my homemade soup. I did use about 1 cup of bread flour.
They were fantastic! The melted honey-butter made the rolls so tasty. Hubby loved them.
Thank you for your site.
Mam can we divide the dough into balls and make buns. Why can’t we do buns with this recipe?
Hi Nathan, we’re sure you could make larger buns with this recipe, but we have not tested it ourselves. Let us know if you do!
Hey Sally, love this recipe! I made them as dinner rolls the other night and they were amazing. My husband loved them which is actually pretty surprising hes very picky with bread. Would I be able to make this into a sandwich loaf? If so, what would be the cook time? Thanks!
Hi Jen, we haven’t turned this whole wheat roll recipe into a loaf of bread before, so can’t be certain. However, we have a recipe for this Whole Wheat Bread that you might enjoy!
Tastes amazing even without the topping! Very forgiving recipe as well; I made a few first-time mistakes and they turned out great.
Tried these yesterday and they were a hit!
Would adding gluten to flour mixture improve rise and fluffiness…if yes, how much could I use
Hi Ali, We haven’t tested these rolls with any adding gluten but it shouldn’t be necessary here.