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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.
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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
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Equipment
- parchment paper if desired
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 stand mixer 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 will feel a little bit tacky.
- 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.
- Cover the baking sheet with a kitchen towel and let rolls rise until doubled in size.
- Preheat oven to 400ºFahrenheit. 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!
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Hi…
The recipe sounds great but 2 things…
1. I only have Dried Yeast is the a amount difference to instant yeast
2. Is the flour sifted before or after cupping…
Cheers
John
It would be the same amount of yeast. If using the non-instant variety, you’ll want to make sure the yeast has a chance to activate in the warm water before adding to the other ingredients. You do not need to sift the flour for this recipe. Happy baking!
Hi! Quick question, how long does it take y’all for the shaped rolls to double in size?
It’s going to depend on the temperature of your dough. If you want a faster rise, use warmer water and keep the dough in a warm place proofing. It’s usually about an hour until doubled in size.
Delicious easy white dinner rolls. We love this easy recipe.
Hi nicce reading your post
Can the dough for these be refrigerated at any point or left out overnight for a rise? Would love to make these for a lunch time family get together! Trying to figure out how to have them ready by then!
I would refrigerate them after the first rise. Then shape them and let them rise again until light and airy before baking.
If I were to make hamburger sized buns, would it make 12 or 18?? Also would they take longer to bake?
These are small rolls so I would probably make 10-12 buns out of the recipe. They will probably take an extra 10-15 minutes to bake.
When do you recommend freezing the dough? After the first rise/forming the balls? Can’t wait, thank you for sharing!!
I usually freeze these rolls after I bake them. If you wanted to freeze the dough I would probably form the balls and then freeze…pulling them out to rise for a couple hours before baking. But being me I would probably just bake them and then freeze 🙂
These looks really good; soft and fluffy. I may give them a try. I have never been lucky with bread rolls. Mine always turned out hard and heavy in the past.
They are delicious! One tip to help keep them soft and fluffy is to be careful when measuring out your flour. You want the dough to still be a little sticky. If you pinch off a bit of dough and it sticks to your fingers but you can roll that dough into a ball (with a little sticky residue on your fingers) it is ready. That’s the test I usually use that will tell me. If you over-flour your dough it can be tough and heavy. Hope that helps! Let me know if you give them a try.
Thanks for the tips. I will give it a try and let you know how they turn out. 😊
I LOVE the memories from our family meals! I always loved your dad being in the kitchen on Sundays, as well as Saturday morning pancakes with you kids. It was always a beautiful sight. I was glad you guys were getting the role modeling of a father who shared in the cooking process. Mostly, however, I enjoyed the delicious food and fun conversations we had as a family. Good times, indeed!! ❤️🍽🙏🏻🍴
Yes. So many great memories in the kitchen 🙂 I’m hoping my boys will learn to cook like their Grandpa too.