How to Make an Easy Beginner Sourdough Bread Recipe (2024)

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Sourdough bread was a struggle for me. Maybe because I didn’t do it that often, since my husband was the only one who could eat it. I didn’t start making a good bread until I started using this beginner sourdough bread recipe along with getting a good active starter.

Now I can make a perfect sourdough loaf every time…. the best part is that it is incredibly easy and you don’t have to be a professional bread maker to be able to do it.

Last week I shared how to make a good strong and active sourdough starter. Turns out if you don’t have a good starter, your bread isn’t going to be that great either. So for best results, make sure you have your own strong starter going.

If you are unsure how to get a starter going, check out my post on how to get agood strong sourdough startergoing. Once you have your starter active, you are ready to make some bread!

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How does a sourdough bread work?

With sourdough bread being on the rise, no pun intended, it’s important to understand how it works and the health benefits.

Sourdough bread a lot of times is easier to digest and in my personal opinion is healthier for you. You are using a fermented wild yeast in place of a commercial yeast to make your bread rise. Fermented foods are incredibly healthy for you so it is no wonder sourdough bread is a healthier option.

Sourdough bread is known to be easier to digest and easier on your gut. Sourdough bread has higher amounts of vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants then a regular yeasted bread. This is because of the fermentation process.

With the long fermentation process, the lactic acid bacteria in the dough produces an enzyme called phytase. The phytase pre-digests the phytic acid. This partially breaks down the phytic acid in the fermentation process, which then makes it easier to digest.

People that have an intolerance to gluten sometimes can tolerate a regular sourdough loaf of bread. Please understand that sourdough bread is NOT gluten free. I have been asked that and it is a big misconception. Gluten is a protein in wheat, so when you are using a flour that has gluten in it, the protein will still be there even after the fermentation process.

If you have had problems digesting gluten but can handle sourdough bread easily, it likely isn’t the gluten that is bothering you but the process.

Some even claim sourdough bread promotes healthy aging and reduces the risk of chronic diseases.

And then there are some that just love the taste of it. Whatever your reason for making sourdough bread, this beginner sourdough bread recipe is the perfect place to start.

Before we get started, it is important to understand that sourdough bread is a long process. So make sure you give yourself at least a days notice before wanting to eat the loaf of bread. I will share my schedule in this post from start to finish to give you an idea.

Let’s talk about the flour in this beginner sourdough bread recipe.

There is so much confusion out there as to which flour to use in a sourdough bread. Should you use a bread flour, a rye flour, a whole wheat flour, or an all purpose flour? Should is be bleached or unbleached?

Let me break this down for you.

You can essentially use any of those different flours in this recipe, but one thing is for sure. I would stick with unbleached flour no matter what you use. It is important to note that whatever flour you do use, will depend on the texture of bread you get.

What I mean is, if you are using a whole wheat bread, you may get a little more dense product that has a “wheaty” taste to it, as my husband says. However, an all purpose flour will be white, light, and fluffy.

What equipment do you need?

There isn’t much you need to have to be able to make this beginner sourdough bread recipe. It is rather simple. But there are a few things that will make it easier!

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Banneton Basket or Proofing Basket

This isn’t completely necessary but it does make for a nicer rise and a better shaped loaf. The final step in your bread making process will be to shape it and place it in a well flouredbanneton basket.

If you want to try making this bread without buying anything you can just use a well floured glass bowl. I have done this before and it works fine. The shape may be a little wonky depending on the bottom of your glass bowl, but it gets the job done!

Bread Lame or Razor Blade

When I first started making sourdough bread I would use a sharp knife to score my bread. This worked fine, however your bread is a little sensitive.

You just spent a whole day getting your bread to rise nicely. You don’t want to ruin it by being too rough with a dull knife when scoring. Even my sharpest knife didn’t slide through the loaf of bread easily like a razor blade.

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Thisbread lame setworks great. I don’t usually attach the razor blade to the handle and just use the razor blade to score my bread.

Dutch Oven

A dutch oven is the perfect depth to bake your bread in. As your bread bakes it is going to rise even more! So you want your bread to have enough room to rise while also keeping it covered for half of the bake time.

I like to use myLodge dutch oven. You will bake the bread with the lid on for half the time and then remove the lid so you will need something to be able to cover your bread for the first bake time.

If you don’t have a dutch oven and don’t want to buy one, you can just use a cast iron pan and cover the bread with foil. I would tent the foil so it doesn’t really touch the bread.

Now that you know what flour to use and what equipment you need, let’s make some sourdough bread!

Ingredients:

125gactive sourdough starter
355-365g warm water (see video for instructions)
500g all purpose flour
13g salt

How to make this beginner sourdough bread recipe:

Using a digital scale and a large mixing bowl, measure out your bubbly starter and warm water in a large bowl. Remove the bowl from the scale and use your hand to mix it all together. The water should get “milky” looking.
Place bowl back on the scale and measure out the flour into the bowl. Using your hands mix the flour, water, and starter together until completely combined. Cover with a plate, a damp kitchen towel, or plastic wrap and let the dough rest on your counter for 2-5 hours. At this point your dough is very sticky.
After several hours, remove your cover and add in the salt. With wet hands, pinch the salt into the dough until completely mixed in.
Now you will do sets of stretch and folds with your dough. Stretch one side of the dough and then fold over, do a quarter turn with the bowl and repeat this for about 3-5 minutes.
Cover the dough back up and let it rest on the counter for an additional 2-3 hours.
Remove dough from the bowl onto a lightly floured work surface. Pull the sides out to stretch the dough out slightly into a rectangle. Fold each side in together and roll into a ball. Gently push the dough ball away from you and then pull it back towards you to create friction in the dough. Do this several times and then let it rest for 20 minutes.
After 20 minutes, gently reshape the dough again and do the same pushing and pulling motion with the dough several times. The second shaping, the dough remembers it’s shape and you don’t want to pull the sides out as wide when making your rectangle to pull the sides in and roll into a ball. Definitely be much more gentle with your dough this time around.
The next step is to place the dough in a well floured proofing basket for its final proof. Cover the basket with a tea towel or I like to use cheap plastic shower caps I get at Walmart. I re-use them over and over. Place in the fridge for a minimum of 2 hours or overnight.
The next day, usually in the morning, turn your oven on and place your dutch oven inside. Preheat it to 425 degrees. You want a hot oven and dutch oven before placing your bread in.
Gently dump your bread out onto a piece of parchment paper and score your bread with a pretty design. Get creative!
Carefully lift the parchment paper with the bread and place it into the hot dutch oven. Place the lid on and bake for 35 minutes.
After the 35 minutes remove the lid and bake for an additional 20-25 minutes. Watch it at around 15 minutes so it doesn’t burn. You want your bread to be golden brown with a crispy crust.
Remove the fresh sourdough bread from the dutch oven and let it cool completely before slicing.

Learning to read your dough.

One important step in any bread making is learning to read your dough. You will see in the video, I talk about how much water to add. This is really going to depend on your climate and location.

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Here is Missouri, I am in a very humid climate. So I always do around 355g of water and I always just wet my hands slightly when pinching in the salt. We have enough moisture in the air, your dough does not need more water.

However, if you are in a dryer climate you will likely use closer to 365g of water.

On the first mixing, your dough should come together but be very sticky. If it is overly wet you had added too much water. Always start with less water because it is so much easier to add a little bit more water then to add flour to get the right consistency.

See the video below to check out the consistency of my bread dough at each stage.

How to store your bread?

Now that you have the perfect loaf of sourdough bread, how do you store it? You will want to keep your bread room temperature in a ziploc bag or some sort of airtight container to avoid it from going stale too quickly.

This easy sourdough bread will last for almost a full week in an airtight bag or container.

You can also slice your bread up and place it in a freezer bag and it will freeze well! Sometimes I do this for my husband because he is the only one that can eat this loaf of bread. Then I can take one or two slices out at a time and defrost them and the whole loaf of bread lasts a lot longer!

We use this simple sourdough bread recipe as our base bread recipe. We like to use the bread in french toast, grilled cheese, on a sandwich, or just eat as a side of bread! I have also taken this base recipe and turned it into dinner rolls.

I love having one recipe that I can make into multiple different things. No need to re-invent the wheel!

My beginner sourdough bread recipe schedule.

One thing I get asked often is, how do you have the time? My simple answer is a schedule.

Without a schedule I would be lost!

Sourdough bread is an entire process. You are not going to be able to wake up one morning and decide to have some sourdough bread for lunch! For better results you really need to give yourself a whole day and a half.

But rest assured, that you really will only be working with your bread dough for a few minutes each time. A lot of the process is waiting on the dough rise because of the long ferment.

Here is what it looks like when I want to make bread:

Before bed the night before, feed my starter.
The next morning, mix up your starter, flour, and water.
Halfway through the day, add your salt and do your stretch and folds.
Evening time, shape dough and place in proofing basket. Place in fridge over night.
Next morning, bake bread.

When I do it this way, I always get the best loaf because I am not rushing the fermentation process. You also won’t realize you need to do a step in the middle of the night because your timing is off.

Each of those steps only takes a few minutes but you will always get the best loaf of bread!

Troubleshooting your bread:

For years I would follow all the steps and get a blah bread. I would be so frustrated! What was I doing wrong?

It turns out there were a few things I was skimping on and once I realized that, I got a perfect bread every single time!

Bread doesn’t rise.

The most common thing I see is, your bread doesn’t hardly rise. Don’t worry, I’ve been there!

This happens because your starter isn’t completely strong and active. When you have fed your starter, you want to wait until it is bubbly and doubled in size. Once it reaches that peak rise, it is the perfect time to make bread!

Remember your starter is what makes your bread rise, so if it isn’t at it’s peak your bread will have a hard time rising.

The dough doesn’t hold it’s shape during the shaping process.

For so long this happened to me. It would look great the whole way through and then when I would get to the shaping process, it would flatten. By the end of the first 20 min rest, my dough would be a big pancake blob.

This was because I was adding too much water for my climate. When your air is humid your bread will hold onto some of that moisture and you will need to add less water to it. Start less and add more as needed until you figure out the sweet spot for your climate.

The dough never seemed to get past the “sticky” stage.

When this happens, it is likely you didn’t leave it enough time in between each step. It is important to not rush the fermentation process for a perfect loaf every time.

I have found that the longer it sits the better. I give a wide time frame in my steps above because your dough is very forgiving.

The longer you wait in between each step the better the loaf becomes, in my opinion.

The bread was too sour.

This is pretty common when you don’t bake a lot. I find that if you don’t feed your sourdough starter regularly, it will become sour.

You want to find that sweet spot of your bread being sweet and a little sour. The best way to do this is by feeding your starter often.

Once a day should do but if you have an exceptionally warm kitchen, you may need to feed your starter twice a day. If you don’t want that much maintenance you can always put it in the fridge to rest until you are ready to bake. This slows down the fermentation process and you won’t get a super sour bread.

My sourdough journey has really grown over the last few years and I have learned so much! If you are just getting started on your journey, make sure to try this beginner sourdough bread recipe. It will save you a lot of head ache along with trial and error!

Beginner Sourdough Bread

Prep Time: 1 day

Cook Time: 55 minutes

Total Time: 1 day 55 minutes

Using simple ingredients like salt, water, active starter, and flour this is the perfect beginner sourdough bread recipe.

Ingredients

125g active sourdough starter
355-365g warm water (see video for instructions)
500g all purpose flour
13g salt

Instructions

Using a digital scale and a large mixing bowl, measure out your bubbly starter and warm water in a large bowl. Remove the bowl from the scale and use your hand to mix it all together. The water should get "milky" looking.
Place bowl back on the scale and measure out the flour into the bowl. Using your hands mix the flour, water, and starter together until completely combined. Cover with a plate, a damp kitchen towel, or plastic wrap and let the dough rest on your counter for 2-5 hours. At this point your dough is very sticky.
After several hours, remove your cover and add in the salt. With wet hands, pinch the salt into the dough until completely mixed in.
Now you will do sets of stretch and folds with your dough. Stretch one side of the dough and then fold over, do a quarter turn with the bowl and repeat this for about 3-5 minutes.
Cover the dough back up and let it rest on the counter for an additional 2-3 hours.
Remove dough from the bowl onto a lightly floured work surface. Pull the sides out to stretch the dough out slightly into a rectangle. Fold each side in together and roll into a ball. Gently push the dough ball away from you and then pull it back towards you to create friction in the dough. Do this several times and then let it rest for 20 minutes.
After 20 minutes, gently reshape the dough again and do the same pushing and pulling motion with the dough several times. The second shaping, the dough remembers it's shape and you don't want to pull the sides out as wide when making your rectangle to pull the sides in and roll into a ball. Definitely be much more gentle with your dough this time around.
The next step is to place the dough in a well floured proofing basket for its final proof. Cover the basket with a tea towel or I like to use cheap plastic shower caps I get at Walmart. I re-use them over and over. Place in the fridge for a minimum of 2 hours or overnight.
The next day, usually in the morning, turn your oven on and place your dutch oven inside. Preheat it to 425 degrees. You want a hot oven and dutch oven before placing your bread in.
Gently dump your bread out onto a piece of parchment paper and score your bread with a pretty design. Get creative!
Carefully lift the parchment paper with the bread and place it into the hot dutch oven. Place the lid on and bake for 35 minutes.
After the 35 minutes remove the lid and bake for an additional 20-25 minutes. Watch it at around 15 minutes so it doesn't burn. You want your bread to be golden brown with a crispy crust.
Remove the fresh sourdough bread from the dutch oven and let it cool completely before slicing.