Easy White Dinner Rolls
Did you grow up eating a special weekly dinner with your family? Maybe every night was a home-cooked meal. I always looked forward to my family’s weekly Sunday dinners my dad cooked. It usually consisted of meat and potatoes or “rice-a-roni” (my childhood favorite). Every Sunday was a little bit different but always delicious. When I started contributing to the meal I’d often make crescent rolls or bake some bread using our ancient bread machine. If only I’d had the recipe for these easy white rolls, they would have made a weekly appearance. Light, fluffy and soft, these are the perfect easy white dinner rolls.
These rolls are fluffy, melt-in-your-mouth deliciousness and one of the simplest recipes you can make. If you’re looking for an easy, crowd-pleasing recipe to start with, make these! They won’t disappoint. You can even make them into hamburger buns (my favorite is with pulled pork and coleslaw on top) or with a dab of butter inside. Whatever way you choose to eat them pull out these simple SIX ingredients and get baking.
Ingredients in Easy White Dinner Rolls
- Warm Water: Warm water increases the dough temperature. This makes the rolls rise a little faster.
- Instant Yeast: I use instant yeast instead of dry active yeast in this recipe. If you want to use dry active yeast, activate it with some sugar and water for 5 minutes before using in the recipe.
- Granulated Sugar: Sugar adds a bit of sweetness to the rolls, but they are not overly sweet. You can substitute honey or any other sweetener if you wish.
- Olive Oil: This adds some fat to the rolls and gives them a soft texture. Any neutral flavor oil can be substituted.
- Salt: Salt gives the bread flavor. Don’t leave it out.
- Bread Flour: Bread flour has a protein content around 12.5%. For rolls that are fluffy, springy and soft, bread flour will make a better roll. All purpose flour can be substituted in a pinch.
Easy White Dinner Rolls
Ingredients
- 1.5 cups warm water
- ¾ Tablespoon instant yeast
- 2 Tablespoons white sugar see recipe notes
- 2 Tablespoons olive oil or any neutral oil
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 3.5-4 cups bread flour see recipe notes
Instructions
- To a bowl fitted with a dough hook, mix together warm water, instant yeast, sugar, olive oil, salt and 3 cups of flour. As you add in your final cup of flour, check the dough. If it’s overly sticky, keep adding flour a tablespoon at a time. The dough should be able to roll into a ball in your hand but should still be a little sticky.
- Continue mixing the dough (mixer with dough hook or attachment) about 8 minutes. Add more flour as needed, it should feel tacky–not sticky.
- Put a teaspoon of oil in a bowl and place the dough in the bowl. Coat the dough with the small amount of oil (this keeps the dough from sticking to the bowl). Cover the dough with plastic wrap or a kitchen towel. Let rise in a warm place about an hour or until doubled in size.
- Turn risen dough out onto your workspace and portion into 24 pieces. I eyeball the dough and use my dough cutter (or a sharp knife). If you use a kitchen scale each ball should be about 1.4 ounces.
- Shape each piece of dough into a round ball and place on parchment-lined (this keeps the bottoms from burning) baking sheet. Your baking sheet should be able to fit 24 of these rolls. Check out my Instagram tutorial "Easiest Rolls" for shaping help.
- Cover the baking sheet with a kitchen towel and let rolls rise until doubled in size.
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Once rolls have doubled in size bake for about 10-12 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through if possible. Once the rolls brown on top, pull them out of the oven and brush melted butter on the tops. For convenience I take a stick of cold butter from my fridge and lightly touch the tops of the hot rolls for the perfect shine.
- Enjoy warm with a little bit of jam or butter. Enjoy!
Hi nicce reading your post