If you've been looking for the perfect vegan sandwich bread recipe, your search ends here. This bread has a light but tight-knit crumb that is great for sandwiches or just to spread some peanut butter on. And it's an easy, foolproof recipe that anyone can make. Lots of tips included for new bread bakers too. A soy-free, nut-free recipe.
A recipe for a good, basic, hearty sandwich bread is a necessary tool for every home baker. Today, I want to re-share with you my recipe for a basic white--or part whole-wheat--vegan sandwich bread. This is a foolproof recipe that is easy to make and is guaranteed to give you great results each time.
When I first posted this recipe nearly 11 years ago, I shared some tips for new bakers. While most of you likely don't need them, I realize that at this extraordinary time many more of us are cooking, and baking, more at home. So I am going to retain these tips and add to them from my own improved experience over the years that have lapsed.
Bread-baking can sometimes seem daunting to even a veteran baker, because you are not always entirely in control of your recipe. There are so many things to think of, including the weather. The moisture in the air when you bake, the temperature outside and in your home, will all determine how your bread turns out. And unless you are experienced with doing this over and over, you may not always know what's going on or how to modify your recipe or technique so you don't end up with bread that won't rise or bread that's more like a rock than anything you can eat.
My own journey to becoming an experienced home bread baker has not been free of pitfalls, but the only reason I can bake a successful loaf today is because I didn't give up. And that's an important thing to remember. You may not make the best loaf of bread the first time you bake, but stick at it and you'll get there.
Tips for baking bread:
- It all begins with the yeast. I use active dry yeast in all my recipes and I usually buy a big packet of it from Costco. I put it in a jar and freeze it, and it can last a very, very long time this way. When ready to use, measure out your yeast, add lukewarm water (not hot), and make sure it "flowers" -- that is, it bubbles up and becomes frothy after a few minutes. This means your yeast is alive and well and you are ready to move forward. If your yeast doesn't bubble, your yeast is likely dead and you need to buy more.
- There's one more thing I cannot stress enough to new bakers: follow the recipe instructions carefully. You've probably heard this cliche before, including from me, and it's quite true: baking is a science, unlike cooking, which is more of an art. A little substitution here and there can cause everything to go off-kilter.
- What flour you will use will also make a big difference to your bread. Most white breads are baked with all purpose flour or bread flour. Both are refined, but both make the best and lightest breads because they are packed with gluten and that helps your bread dough form great structure and rise effortlessly. Baking wholegrain breads is a little more complicated and that's because such flours include the germ and the bran of the grain, which don't have gluten. So ounce for ounce, whole grain flour has less gluten in it than refined flour does, see? What that means is there is less gluten in your dough and therefore less gluten to help your bread form great structure and rise. This does not, by any means, mean you should not bake with wholegrain at home. There are many ways to ensure your wholegrain breads turn out beautifully, and you can find some of my favorite recipes here, including this Whole Wheat French Bread and my Fast Whole Wheat Bread.
- When you follow a recipe, be sure to follow rise times as closely as possible. For instance, when the recipe asks you to let the dough rise for two hours, don't let it rise for four, because it can seriously damage the structure of your bread. In some cases the rise time is less important, in which case the recipe will tell you so. But usually it does matter.
- That said, how fast your bread will rise also depends on how warm or cold your house it. On cold days it will take longer for the yeast to multiply and for the bread dough to rise, so just follow the rule of thumb of letting your dough double in size. To avoid too much guesswork, I place the dough, tightly covered, in a cold oven with the light on, which creates the right temperature for the dough to rise.
- Make sure you preheat the oven before baking bread. I can't stress this enough because I know it feels like a waste of energy, but if you want your bread to bake as it should, you absolutely need the oven temperature to be where the recipe says it should be before you place the bread inside. Not doing so will result in a flat loaf, a dense loaf, and basically an inedible loaf.
- Also resist the temptation to open the oven while the bread is baking because the unexpected rush of cold air can cause your bread to act in ways you don't want it to.
- Breads can sometimes tend to stick to the pans you bake them in, although most shouldn't. If you find it challenging to get the bread out of the loaf pan, sprinkle some cornmeal on the sides after oiling the loaf, and then place the dough inside. This will make it much easier to unmold and you can brush off the cornmeal after your bread leaves the pan.
- Once your bread is out of the pan, cool it thoroughly on a rack before you slice it. Slicing warm bread is not recommended because the moisture in the bread still needs to dissipate and if you cut into it your bread won't slice as well.
Whew. Now that I've got that out of the way, here is my perfect vegan sandwich bread recipe. This bread is really soft and delicious the day it's baked, and it firms up just a little bit the next day, which makes it great for a sandwich or even better for toast. Slather on a touch of banana jam or raspberry jam for the perfect snack.
It stays fresh in the fridge for at least a week, and -- best of all-- unlike most store-bought bread, it has no preservatives.
Although these days I mostly bake with sourdough (you can find my sourdough starter recipe here as well as recipes for all of my sourdough breads here), this sandwich bread is not one I will ever stop making. It's just that good.
Looking for more vegan bread recipes?
- Vegan Whole Wheat Challah Bread
- Tuscan Bread (Pane Toscano)
- Whole Wheat Burger Buns
- No Knead Sourdough Bread
Vegan Sandwich Bread Recipe
Vegan Sandwich Bread
Equipment
- Stand mixer or large bowl
Ingredients
- 4 teaspoon active dry yeast
- 1 ¼ cup warm water
- 1 cup almond milk (or any nondairy milk)
- 2 tablespoon avocado oil
- 2 tablespoon sugar
- 1 tablespoon salt (use less if on a low sodium diet)
- 3-4 cups bread flour (can substitute 1 ½ cups with whole wheat flour)
Instructions
- Mix the yeast and sugar with ¼ cup of water and set aside for five minutes until it froths, indicating yeast is active.
- To the yeast and water mixture, add the remaining cup of water, milk, oil and salt. Then add 2 ½ cups of bread flour or 1 cup of bread flour and 1 ½ cups of whole wheat flour, if using that.
- Mix in a stand mixer on low speed or by hand until a dough forms. If it's sticky, continue adding more bread flour, a little at a time, until you have a soft and supple but not sticky or tacky dough.
- Continue kneading for another 10 minutes.
- Form a smooth ball with the dough and place in an oiled bowl, turning over once to cover the top with oil. Cover and let it rise in a warm place for 1 to 1 ½ hours, until doubled in volume.
- Punch down the dough, form into a ball, and return it to the bowl to rise for another hour.
- Grease two standard (6-cup) loaf pans. Now punch the dough down again and divide it into two. Using a rolling pin, roll out each loaf into a rectangle, about 6 X 8 inches. Roll it up into a cylinder and tuck the seams underneath. Place each loaf into a loaf pan.
- Cover the dough loosely with oiled cling wrap or with a shower cap, and set it aside to rise for about 1 hour until the dough rises above the pan, forming a nice dome.
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Bake the loaves for 35 minutes.
- Cool on a rack for about 10 minutes, then remove the loaves from the pan and continue cooling before you slice.
Nutrition
Stefan Cartmale
Recently found out I am allergic to casein and have been looking for a good bread recipe with zero dairy. This one isn't bad! I personally had to modify it to 5 cups of flour as anything less was just a soggy mess. I start with 2 1/2 cups flour in my stand mixer and add a half cup every few minutes until I reach 5 and a nice consistency. After the 2nd rise and before the loaf pans, I add flour as needed in my work surface to keep the dough from sticking to everything. I also reduced the salt to 3/4 tbsp as 1 full tbsp was too much for my taste. Bread rises very well, I don't skimp on the mixing stage- letting the dough really kneed together for long sticky strands. Very crusty when it comes out of the oven but very soft interior. Really nice! I'd give it a try- for now it will be my dairy free go to recipe. I use Sproud unsweetened pea juice but I guess any white juice such as almond or soy would work. I like the pea juices as they contain a higher protein content than oat/almond/etc.
Vaishali
So awesome you tried the bread, Stefan. Thanks for the detailed feedback, very helpful!
Ebony
Could you advise how I would divide the dough into & mini loaves? If so, are the extra loaves able to bw stored in the freezer until needed? I’m making them for my son for days he has sandwiches for lunch at school and don’t want to include any soy as most vegan white breads do.
Vaishali
Hi Ebony, you could get eight mini loaves but you should reduce the baking time to about 25 minutes. And yes, you can store in the freezer.
Kathy D
This is my favourite sandwich bread!!! Springy and delicious, easy to add herbs to as well. Love this recipe
Vaishali
So happy to hear, Kathy!
Anne-Marie
Can this recipe be used to make dinner rolls or buns?
Vaishali
Yes, absolutely. but cut down baking time to about 25 minutes.
ELSA BEATRIZ HERRMANN
I just made your bread I'm not sure what happened by the third rice did not form a high Dome as you indicated. Also the cross is extremely crunchy. The inside soft I haven't try because I'm fasting. My husband is eating two pieces with butter right now LOL. I followed the recipe to the T, during the second Rise my dough deflated by itself. However I did what you indicated I'm play them into loaf pans. Waited almost three hours to rise a little bit. It was enough for me to put them in the oven and they look like sandwich press not as high as I would like. I'll try a piece tomorrow let you know. The loaves do not look as golden as in the picture. I live in Florida with a high humidity by my other Artisan breads came out perfect. What happened?
Stefan Cartmale
I personally believe that it sounds like your yeast is either old and not very active or you aren't giving it enough time to proof. One more culprit could be adding salt too soon as salt will kill your yeast if added to the 1/4 cup water mix. Just thoughts- hope this helps.
Evelyn
Can you provide some gram measurements for your Crusty Sourdough bun recipe that is made without Yeast?
Patricia
Though you could say it's my fault for not fully reading the recipe, but the total time for this recipe is EXTREMELY misleading. I started this recipe hoping for a quick bread, it definitely isn't. This does not take 40 minutes and the time should be changed. The dough is currently on its first proof, out of THREE proofs. Hopefully the bread is worth it, but it's already irritating that the timing is not correct.
Vaishali
I've updated the recipe to reflect the proofing time.
Samara
I used the exact measurements and my dough is always way too wet. I find that I have to add at least 3 cups of flour to get it to form a ball. I let it rise in my oven since we have AC. As soon as I take it out the oven so I can preheat the oven it shrinks. I've also experienced it shrinking once i placed it in the oven. Can you offer any tips. I really want to get this recipe to work. Its more cost effective for larger families since you get 2 loaves instead of one like most recipes online.
Vaishali
Hi, I've never heard of dough shrinking before, so not sure what's happening. Only thing I can offer is to advise you to handle risen dough more carefully. Setting down your pan too hard or touching the loaf unnecessarily with too much pressure could cause it to deflate.
pk
Could you modify your total time to include rise/rest time. So many times, I seek recipes based on time. Only to discover that the rise time was not included in the total time. Either add an additional notation or correct the total time. Actually, this recipe's total time has an additional 3-1/2 hours to produce this bread, not 40 minutes.
But aside from the time, your bread recipes are delicious. I am about to make this and I expect it to be good, as I have made your French bread recipe many times...it is so good.
Muriel
What can u use if don’t have avacado oil for the bread receipe
Vaishali
Any vegetable oil is fine.
Jennifer
Made this today! It’s fantastic...I used ripple for the “milk” and the texture was fabulous. Slathered a slice with strawberry jam and it was the perfect treat after being cooped up these last few weeks. Dropped off the second loaf for my neighbor.
Vaishali
Thanks for the feedback Jennifer, and so happy you and your neighbor enjoyed it. 🙂
Krithika
This looks delicious! We're running low on all purpose flour in many stores here, but maybe I can find bread flour. Do you think I could halve this recipe? For a single loaf?
Vaishali
Yes, you can definitely halve.
Anna
I have this bread in the oven now. Can’t wait for it to come out. I had to use quite a bit more flour than you indicated but I am comfortable making bread so knew what texture I need to get it to. I decided to try it as one large loaf and it grew so huge with each proofing. I hope it doesn’t rise right out of my pan.
Vaishali
Hope it worked out! 🙂
Ebony
Could you advise how I would divide the dough into & mini loaves? If so, are the extra loaves able to bw stored in the freezer until needed? I’m making them for my son for days he has sandwiches for lunch at school and don’t want to include any soy as most vegan white breads do.
Tanya
This bread looks amazing!!! Ok. I read the bit on flour. I have unbleached all-purpose (King Arthur). Will that work? I don’t have bread flour...didn’t even see it in the store).
Thanks
Vaishali
Yes, all purpose flour is fine!
Tanya
Thank you for the reply. One more thing...just making sure 1 Tbsp of salt is correct.
Vaishali
Use as much salt as you want it doesn't make any difference. ?
Peggy
Can this be made in a bread machine?
Ilana
If I don’t have any type on non-dairy milk will water work?
Vaishali
Water will give you a crustier bread, so the crust won't be like sandwich bread but more like French bread. If that works for you, go ahead.
Andy
So, my wife is feeling sick and requested some bread. But since there’s a pandemic and a giant ice storm, I decided to make some instead of risking a trip to the store. This is my first time making bread.
What am I supposed to do with the yeast I set aside in step one? I didn’t notice it until a had the oiled dough in the bowl. I’m gonna hazard guess that’s why my bread hasn’t risen much for the last hour and a half.
Vaishali
You need to add the flour and other ingredients to the yeast.