Learn how to make the most perfect, soft and fluffy sourdough sandwich bread! An active sourdough starter gives this bread a beautiful rise without any need for added yeast.
Sourdough breads, like this amazing no-knead sourdough bread, these crusty sourdough rolls, this bread machine sourdough bread and this sourdough olive and sage loaf, are some of my favorite breads to bake. This reader-favorite sourdough sandwich bread, with more than 320 five-star reviews, is on a par with these excellent breads and one I make most often in my kitchen.
The bread turns out just right each time and the recipe makes two sandwich loaves, which last us all week long. And yes, it's mostly white flour, but I don't feel like the devil about it. Research shows that the healthfulness of white sourdough bread exceeds that of wholegrain and multigrain breads.
That's because sourdough has a powerful effect on blood sugar: when left to work its fermenting magic, it breaks down the starches in the foods it's added to, making them easier to digest. Sourdough is also probiotic, which means it is packed with healthy gut bacteria, so you can feel truly holier-than-thou when you smear this bread with some peanut butter or use it to cradle a delicious vegan burger.
Many sourdough breads need to be started a day before, but this sourdough sandwich loaf can easily be made in about eight hours from start to finish, including three rise times. So if you start your bread late in the morning, you can easily have some in time for dinner.
Table of Contents
Why you will love this sourdough sandwich bread
- Buttery and delicious. The sourdough gives the bread a wonderful, buttery flavor in addition to the soft, fluffy texture.
- Healthy bread. Because sourdough starter is fermented, it is full of healthy bacteria that are probiotic and extremely beneficial to the gut microbiome.
- Quick recipe. This bread needs about eight hours of proofing time, total, which is pretty quick for a bread leavened entirely with sourdough and with no added yeast.
- Perfect, fluffy texture. The crust is just lightly chewy and the crumb is soft and fluffy (without any eggs) and just perfect for cradling your favorite sandwich fillings. Stale bread makes great toast.
- Vegan, soy-free, nut-free recipe.
Ingredients
- Sourdough starter: Make sure you use an active, bubbling, recently fed sourdough starter for the best results.
- Unbleached all-purpose flour and whole wheat flour
- Extra virgin olive oil. Or any neutral oil of your choice.
How to make sourdough sandwich bread
Place the sourdough starter in a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer.
Add to it the wholewheat flour, 1 cup of all-purpose flour, and water.
Mix well and set it aside, covered, in a warm place for four hours.
After four hours the starter should be fluffy and bubbly.
Add 2 cups of all-purpose flour, olive oil and salt to the bowl and mix.
Add more flour as needed and knead until the dough becomes quite firm but still feels a little sticky to your fingers. You can do this by hand or in a stand mixer on medium-low speed.
Turn out the dough on a flat surface and knead by hand for 4-5 minutes or until the dough feels smooth and springy. Shape into a ball and place in an oiled bowl, turning the ball of dough around once to coat the top with oil.
Cover tightly with a lid or plastic wrap and let the dough rise for two hours in a warm spot. After two hours it should have doubled.
Punch down the dough and divide into two.
Roll out each half into a rectangle, then roll it like a jelly roll and tuck in the ends to form a loaf. The dough should be very pliable.
Prep two standard loaf pans by spraying lightly with oil and then sprinkling on some cornmeal or semolina. Place the formed loaves in the prepared pans. Cover with a kitchen towel and let them stand in a warm place for at least two more hours or until the dough rises above the top of the loaf pans.
About half an hour before baking, preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Place the loaves in the oven and bake 40 minutes. Remove the loaves from the oven, turn them out on a rack, and let them cool thoroughly before slicing.
Top tip
How much water you need for the bread could vary depending on the hydration of your sourdough starter and the weather where you live. If you find that adding two cups of water results in a very sticky dough, reduce the amount of water next time to 1 cup and trickle in the remaining water while kneading the dough, if needed.
Recipe FAQs and troubleshooting
Yes, just halve the amount of ingredients and you are all set!
The culprit here is your sourdough starter. If it is not active and fed recently (as in eight hours to 24 hours before use) you simply won't have enough natural yeast in the starter for the dough to rise.
For a softer crust, replace half the water with soy milk.
Bread flour will give you a crustier loaf and the crumb won't be as soft. But it will still be a pretty good loaf of bread.
Storage instructions
- Refrigerate: The bread can be stored at room temperature for four days and in the refrigerator for up to two weeks.
- Freeze: Freeze the bread for up to three months in a freezer-safe bag, whole or sliced.
- Thaw fully before reheating.
More sourdough bread recipes
Sourdough Sandwich Bread Recipe
Equipment
- Large mixing bowl or stand mixer
- 2 loaf pans
Ingredients
- 1½ cups sourdough starter (bubbling and active)
- 1½ cups lukewarm water
- 1 cup whole wheat flour
- 4-5 cups unbleached all purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil (or any neutral oil of your choice)
- 1 teaspoon sea salt (or any salt of your choice)
Instructions
- Place the sourdough starter in a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer. Add to it the wholewheat flour, 1 cup of all-purpose flour, and water. Mix well and set it aside, covered, in a warm place for four hours.
- Add 2 cups of all-purpose flour, olive oil and salt and mix. Add more flour as you knead until the dough becomes quite firm but still feels a little sticky to your fingers. You can do this by hand or in the stand mixer, using the dough hook attachment, on medium-low speed.
- Turn out the dough on the kitchen platform or any flat surface and knead by hand for 4-5 minutes or until the dough feels smooth and springy to your fingers and barely sticks to the platform.
- Shape into a ball and place in an oiled bowl, turning the ball of dough around once to coat the top with oil.
- Cover tightly and place in a warm spot (like an oven with the light turned on) for at least two hours or until the dough has doubled.
- Punch down the dough and divide into two. Roll out each half into a rectangle, about seven by 10 inches, and roll it up like a jelly roll. With the seam side down, tuck in the ends to form a loaf.
- Prepare two loaf pans by spraying or brushing lightly with oil and then sprinkling on some cornmeal or semolina on the bottom and sides.
- Place the loaves into the prepared loaf pans. Cover with a kitchen towel and let them stand in a warm place for at least two more hours or until the dough domes above the top of the loaf pans.
- About half an hour before baking, preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Place the loaves in the oven and bake 40 minutes.
- Remove the loaves from the oven, turn them out on a rack, and let them cool thoroughly before slicing.
Recipe notes
- You can increase salt by another teaspoon if you want to.
- If your sourdough starter is made using someone else's recipe, you may need more or less water to form the dough. In that case add 1 cup water in step 1 and trickle in more as needed when kneading the dough in step 2.
Tiana
After feeding your starter how long do you usually wait to use it and what exactly makes it the correct hydration?
Vaishali
I'd wait at least three to four hours. And there's no correct hydration--different hydrations would just mean you have to change the amount of liquid you use in your recipe when you actually bake with the starter.
Christina Corporon
Ok.... so quarantine being what it is. Will a foil bread pan work? Is it the same size will the heat distribution be off?
Vaishali
Should be fine. Keep it on a baking sheet if possible.
Rajalakshmy Varadarajan
I dont want my bread to be sour. It should have the usual bread taste. Will this recipe give me sich a bread. Asking because the proofing time is more in this bread. But I loved this recipe bcoz its very easy to follow and would like to make one. Please advise. Thank you
Vaishali
A mature starter will have a tangier taste, but if you want a milder flavored bread you might want to try feeding your starter just a few hours prior to making the dough.
Christian King
Just wondering what size loaf pan to use? I’m new to baking and a few loaves have risen to agonizingly low levels and I’ve found out it’s the size of my tins. I haven’t named my starter yet but it’s a toss up between Arnie ( Arnold Schwarzenegger) or Elvis ( Elvis).
Norma
Totally new to having s starter and bread baking but this turned out amazing yesterday!! Love it, thank you so much!!
Janice
Couple questions. I feed my starter 50 grams starter, 100 grams water and 100 grams water. For this bread how would I adjust for 75% hydration? Also, can the last rise been delayed by putting the loaves in the fridge overnight and allowed to rise in the morning before baking?
My starter is called My Corona. I’ll always know when I received it. Absolutely loving it.
Janice
Revised. Couple questions. I feed my starter 50 grams starter, 100 grams water and 100 grams flour. For this bread how would I adjust for 75% hydration? Also, can the last rise been delayed by putting the loaves in the fridge overnight and allowed to rise in the morning before baking?
My starter is called My Corona. I’ll always know when I received it. Absolutely loving it.
Erin
I am assuming you mean just fed starter and not the discard starter
Amy G
I made this recipe last week and my husband just loves it. We went through one of the loaves last week. I actually allowed the first step to sit overnight. I'm pretty new to baking homemade sourdough and I have to say, I'm having great luck with it. So tasty too. This recipe was easy to follow and we had perfect sandwich bread.
Thank you for such a great recipe.
Julie Friend
Trying to get my kids of store bought white bread, hoping this will do it. My starter is named Marv after the robber in Home Alone (clearly my kids named it)
Marcie
I look forward to trying this! My starter is called Leviathan, and my sister named hers Audrey. 😉
Wendy Taylor
425 seems high to bake bread??
Ana marie lim
I find ur recipes best to compare with others i called my starter "mario"(mutant ninjas) thanks for sharing nice recipes i love to bake a lot
Vaishali
So happy to hear!
Nicole
Hi,
Can I cut the recipe in half? Does it still work for the rise?
Vaishali
Yes, that's fine!
Tina McKinney
I’d like to thank you for this recipe. I’ve made it three times successfully with my first ever sourdough starter. I was really intimidated with most of the other recipes I read with all the proofing and taking days. This recipe is just perfect. Thanks again!
P.S. I named my sourdough starter “Andrew” after reading your blog. I’m in Texas, but I just love Governor Andrew Cuomo from New York.
Vaishali
What a great name! 🙂 I think he's pretty amazing too! And so happy the recipe worked out for you.
Cristina
Thank you so much for this recipe! I’ve done it three times so far and modified it a bit after the first go. I used coconut milk instead of water, and coconut oil this last time using 1/4 cup of oil. I also used the coconut oil as an “egg wash” which gave it a nicer color like the one pictured in the original recipe. My family likes this better than the traditional rustic loaf, and I do too! The crust is like a croissant, and the inside a creamy soft loaf. And the coconut milk add reminds me of Jamaican coco bread. Thanks for this recipe!
Becky
If I only have one bread pan, what other pan can I use?
Vaishali
Halve the recipe.
Becky
Also, I'm on my second rise, my dough is not doubling. It's been rising for 3 and a half hours. Is there something I should do? Should I still divide the dough or keep it as one?
Thank you for any help you can offer
Vaishali
Give it some more time. Also sourdough bread usually rises quite high in the oven --it's something called "oven spring" that's unique to sourdough breads. So your bread will end up bigger than it is when it goes in.
Liz
Or shape one half into a nice artisan loaf on a cookie sheet!
Jeremy Scott
This was the 5th sourdough recipe I tried and the first time I did a non boule shaped loaf. This recipe really turned out great. Made two beautiful loafs that tasted great. I followed some peoples thoughts about putting melted butter on the loafs after they baked. This recipe will be added to the rotation. Nice crunch, nice flavor and really easy to make. My other recipes take about 36 hours to make, I made this one start to finish in about 9 hours.
Vaishali
Awesome to hear!
Libby
Hi Vaishali, thanks for all your great advice on sourdough. I’m a newbie, and I’m not having luck with my bread. I think my starter may be weak, the dough just isn’t rising much, I’m at day 14, and just popped my second loaf into the oven - last loaf was very dense (tasty, but hard) how do I strengthen my mother? It’s always got very gentle bubbles and even after a week or so on the bench it’s not very fragrant.
Any advice much appreciated.
Best Libby
Liz
Feed it smaller amounts more frequently and mind the temperature you're keeping it at. If it's near a cool window you may need to find a slightly warmer spot.
Vaishali
Good advice, Liz. Libby, hope your starter is doing better now.