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Easy Homemade Bread Recipe for Beginners

Easy Homemade Bread Recipe for Beginners

This easy homemade bread recipe is perfect for beginners and uses simple ingredients you probably already have in your kitchen. It bakes up soft on the inside with a golden crust, and you don’t need any fancy equipment to make it from scratch.

Ingredients

  • 3 cups all-purpose flour
  • ½ teaspoon active dry yeast
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 2 cups warm water
  • 1 tablespoon oil — coconut oil, olive oil, avocado oil, or whatever you normally use
  • 1 tablespoon sweetener of choice — honey, maple syrup, or sugar

Oil + sweetener: I usually eyeball these, but about 1 tablespoon of each works well. I use whatever oil and sweetener I have on hand.

How to Make Easy Homemade Bread

  1. Mix the dough. Add the flour, yeast, salt, warm water, oil, and sweetener to a large bowl. Stir until everything is combined and you have a sticky dough. No kneading required.
  2. Cover and rise. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough sit at room temperature for about 5 hours.
  3. Prepare the pan. Line a cast-iron bread pan with unbleached parchment paper, then transfer the dough into the pan.
  4. Start in a cold oven. Place the covered bread into the oven without preheating. Set the oven to 450°F.
  5. Bake covered. Bake for 30 minutes.
  6. Bake uncovered. Remove the lid and bake for another 20 minutes, or until the crust is golden brown.
  7. Cool completely. Let the bread cool before slicing and storing.
easy homemade bread recipe baked in a cast-iron bread pan

Tips for the Best Easy Homemade Bread Recipe

Don’t worry about sticky dough. This dough is supposed to be wet and sticky, so there’s no need to keep adding flour or knead it.

Give it time to rise. I usually let mine sit for about 5 hours. You’re looking for the dough to rise and become bubbly before baking.

Start with a cold oven. There’s no need to preheat. Put the covered cast-iron bread pan directly into the cold oven, set it to 450°F, and start the bake.

Let it cool before slicing. As tempting as fresh bread is, letting it cool helps the inside finish setting and gives you cleaner slices.

Why I Love This Recipe

This easy homemade bread recipe is the one I come back to because it’s genuinely simple. There’s no kneading, no mixer, and I don’t even preheat the oven. I mix everything together, let the dough rise, and bake it in my parchment-lined cast-iron bread pan. It’s one of those from-scratch recipes that made me realize homemade doesn’t have to mean complicated.

Looking for another easy from-scratch recipe? Try my 2-Ingredient Peach Ice Cream next.