This easy No Knead Bread recipe is made with just 5 ingredients and requires hardly any hands on time. It’s our favorite dutch oven bread for sandwiches, toast, or to serve alongside a bowl of soup. Hearty and delicious with a subtle sweetness thanks to the molasses and honey, this is a bread recipe you’ll find yourself making again and again.
Love homemade bread? Us too! Check out these favorites: Irish Soda Bread, Cornbread and Banana Bread!
Easy No Knead Bread
If you’ve never head of no knead bread before, you’re in for a treat! This type of bread uses long rise times to develop flavor and texture but the upside is that there is less than 10 minutes of actual hands on time.
No knead bread recipes can be made with a few as three ingredients: flour, yeast and salt (plus water of course!) but for this no knead dutch oven bread, I’ve added a bit of honey and molasses for flavor and color.
Make sure to use pasteurized honey for this recipe. If you don’t have or like honey, agave or maple syrup can be used instead.
No Knead Bread Recipe
There is a lot to love about no knead bread recipes – they really are special in so many ways:
- No kneading. This bread requires zero kneading. You fold it over a few times and that’s it.
- No special ingredients. With just three primary ingredients along with some molasses and honey for color, flavor and sweetness, this short list of ingredients makes this easy homemade bread recipe a favorite.
- No special equipment. This homemade bread recipe is so easy you don’t even need a mixer! A bowl and a wooden spoon will do the trick. This oven is baked in a dutch oven but if you don’t have one, it can also be baked on a pizza stone or even a heavy duty baking sheet.
What you will need is time – up to 20 hours actually. What happens during that time is a slow fermentation that gives this recipe it’s texture and flavor. Make sure to plan in advance for this dutch oven bread!
More Yeast Recipes
Yeasted bread and rolls have a very special flavor and are worth the wait. Here are some of our favorite recipes with yeast:
- Dinner Rolls
- Angel Biscuits
- Homemade Crescent Rolls
- Bread Machine Pizza Dough
- S’mores Cinnamon Rolls with Marshmallow Frosting
Dutch Oven Bread Ingredients
You will want to make this easy and delicious, 5-ingredient No Knead Bread over and over again. Trust me! As previously mentioned, this no knead bread recipe needs just a handful of ingredients. As always, scroll to the end of this post to find a printable recipe card. Let’s take quick look at what you’ll need:
- all-purpose flour – The flour should be spooned and leveled for the most accurate measurement.
- water – be sure the water is at room temperature. You don’t want to use hot or cold water.
- honey – You can use maple syrup or agave instead. If you decide to use honey, make sure that it has been pasteurized. Since this recipe is a yeasted recipe, you don’t want to use raw or unpasteurized honey, since that honey will destroy the yeast in the recipe and the bread won’t rise.
- molasses – The molasses adds flavor and color to your bread.
- salt
- instant yeast – If you know how to use active yeast with the water, you can do so. This requires using water, temperature is between 100°F and 110°F and letting the active yeast sit in the water for 5 to 10 minutes until it starts to foam. Feel free to do that if you prefer.
If you don’t have any all-purpose flour, you can use whole-wheat flour for this recipe in a straight 1:1 ratio. You can also use 50% all purpose flour and 50% whole wheat flour.
How To Make Dutch Oven Bread
- Combine flour, water, honey, molasses, salt, and yeast in a large bowl and stir until it comes together as a sticky dough.
- Stir an additional ten strokes with a spoon.
- Cover the bowl in plastic wrap and set let rise for 12 to 18 hours.
- Set a large piece of parchment paper out on the counter and sprinkle with flour.
- Turn the dough out and gently fold the dough over twice on itself. The dough will be sticky so do the best you can.
- Lift parchment paper and place dough in a large bowl.
- Cover the dough with a towel and let rise for another 2 hours.
- Place a Dutch oven into the oven and heat to 450°F.
- Carefully place the dough and parchment paper into the hot dutch oven.
- Lightly score the top of the dough with a very sharp knife.
- Cover with the dutch oven lid and place back in the oven to bake for 25 to 30 minutes.
- Remove the lid of the Dutch oven and bake for another 10 to 15 minutes.
- Let the bread cool at least 5 minutes before cutting and serving either warm or cool.
Baking bread in a dutch oven gives the bread a beautifully crunchy exterior and gorgeous color!
The overnight rise allows for the dough to ferment and accounts for the taste created in the dough.
Storage Information
Room Temperature: This no knead bread recipe should be stored in an airtight container or plastic bag at room temperature for 2 to 3 days. It can then be transferred, tightly wrapped, to the refrigerator.
Freezer: Bread should be wrapped in plastic wrap, then wrapped in foil and finally placed in an airtight container or freezer safe ziplog bag for up to 6 months.
Can I put parchment paper into the oven?
Yes! You can absolutely put your parchment paper directly into the dutch oven with your bread! I especially like this option because it means you handle your loaf a little bit less, which is nice and can keep it from flattening.
Just make sure that you aren’t using wax paper. Wax paper will burn in the oven and can be a fire hazard, especially with the high oven temperature. The parchment paper is perfectly fine to heat in the oven.
More Bread Recipes
- Irish Soda Bread
- Banana Bread
- Beer Bread
- Cornbread
- Cinnamon Bread
- Pumpkin Bread
- Cinnamon Swirl Apple Bread
How To Make No Knead Bread
Molasses No Knead Bread
Ingredients
- 4 ½ cups all-purpose flour spooned and leveled
- 1 ¾ cup water at room temperature
- 3 tablespoons honey pasteurized (agave or real maple syrup can be substituted)
- 2 tablespoons molasses
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ¾ teaspoon instant yeast
Instructions
- Combine the all-purpose flour, water, honey, molasses, salt, and instant yeast in a large bowl and stir until it comes together as a sticky dough.4 ½ cups all-purpose flour, 1 ¾ cup water, 3 tablespoons honey, 2 tablespoons molasses, 1 teaspoon salt, ¾ teaspoon instant yeast
- Stir an additional ten strokes with a spoon to create a little bit of movement and air in the bread.
- Cover the bowl in plastic wrap and set out at room temperature to rise for 12 to 18 hours or until the surface of the dough becomes bubbly and the bottom of the dough becomes stringy. The overnight rise allows for the dough to ferment and accounts for the taste created in the dough.
- Set a large piece of parchment paper out on the counter. Sprinkle flour on top of parchment paper.
- Turn the dough out of the bowl onto the floured parchment paper. Gently fold the dough over twice on itself using lightly floured fingers or a spoon. The dough will be sticky so do the best you can.
- Lift parchment paper by the edges and place dough and parchment paper in a large bowl.
- Cover the dough with a kitchen towel and let rise for another 2 hours. Dough will be done rising when it has doubled in size and is springy.
- Thirty minutes before the two hours is up, place a Dutch oven into the oven and heat the oven to 450°F.
- Once the two hours are complete, carefully remove the Dutch oven out of the oven. Carefully place the dough and parchment paper into the hot dutch oven.
- Lightly score the top of the dough with a very sharp knife.
- Cover with the dutch oven lid and place back in the oven to bake for 25 to 30 minutes. Remove the lid of the Dutch oven and bake for another 10 to 15 minutes or until the top of the bread turns golden brown.
- Let the bread cool at least 5 minutes before cutting and serving either warm or cool.
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