By J. Kenji López-Alt
- Total Time
- 4 hours, plus 13 hours’ to 3 days’ resting
- Rating
- 4(262)
- Notes
- Read community notes
With a little extra shaping and a loaf pan, basic low-knead bread dough can make great sandwich bread. (The low-knead loaf is itself inspired by Jim Lahey's influential no-knead bread recipe.) For a softer, richer loaf, replace up to 100 grams of water with 100 grams of whole milk. For a glossy brown crust, whisk 1 egg with a couple tablespoons of water and brush it over the top of the proofed loaf with a pastry brush just before placing it in the oven. You can sprinkle the loaf with coarse sea salt, spices like caraway or cumin, or seeds, such as sunflower, sesame or pepitas, after brushing on the egg wash.
Featured in: No-Knead, Revisited
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Ingredients
Yield:1 loaf
- 400grams bread flour (about 2⅔ level cups; see Tip), plus for more dusting
- 8grams salt (about 1½ teaspoons table salt, 2 teaspoons Morton kosher salt, or 2½ teaspoons Diamond Crystal kosher salt)
- 2grams instant or “rapid rise” yeast (about ½ teaspoon; see Tip)
- 280grams warm water (about 1 cup plus 3 tablespoons; see Tip)
- ⅛teaspoon white vinegar or lemon juice
- Vegetable or olive oil, for greasing
- 1egg, whisked with 2 tablespoons water
Ingredient Substitution Guide
Preparation
Step
1
Mix the dough: Combine the flour, salt and yeast in a large bowl and mix with your hands until mostly hom*ogenous. Combine the water and vinegar or lemon juice, then add to the bowl. Form one hand into a stiff claw, and stir with it until no dry flour remains and the dough forms a sticky, shaggy ball. Roll the ball around the bowl until most of the dough is part of the same large mass. The mixing process should take no more than 30 to 45 seconds.
Step
2
Rest the dough: Scrape your dough-covered hand with your clean hand to get most of the dough into the bowl, then invert a tall-sided medium metal or glass bowl and place it on top of the large bowl, tapping it to ensure a tight seal. Allow the dough to rest for 20 to 40 minutes.
Step
3
Fold the dough: After the dough has rested, remove the inverted bowl. The dough should look very wet and sloppy. Dip your hands briefly in a bowl of water, then shake off the excess. Using one hand, scoop your fingers under one side of the dough to the very bottom of the bowl and, working quickly, lift that side, stretch it a few inches, and fold it over to the opposite side. Rotate the bowl and repeat 4 to 6 times until you’ve worked all the way around the dough. (The dough will become noticeably tighter and a little more difficult to stretch with each fold.) Lift the dough and flip it over.
Step
4
Cover the bowl with the inverted bowl and allow to continue resting. Repeat this every 20 to 40 minutes within the first 2 to 3 hours. (No need to be very precise with timing at this stage.) By the last folding step, the dough should be significantly smoother and tighter and resemble a more traditional (albeit slack) bread dough. Cover with the inverted bowl (or a cutting board), then transfer to the refrigerator and let rest at least overnight and up to 3 days.
Step
5
Lightly oil a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan. While the dough is still cold from the fridge, dust it with flour and tip it out onto a generously dusted work surface. Working quickly with lightly floured hands, flatten the dough out into a rough 8-by-8-inch square, then roll it up like a jelly roll, pinching the seam to seal.
Step
6
Transfer the dough to the prepared 9-by-5-inch loaf pan, seam-side down. Cover it with a floured kitchen towel, and let rise at room temperature until the dough is crowning over the top of the loaf pan, about 2 hours. At least 30 minutes before baking, adjust an oven rack to the center position and heat the oven to 400 degrees.
Step
7
Brush the top of the loaf with the egg mixture. (You could also sprinkle with coarse salt, spices or seeds at this point, if desired.) Bake until deep brown and the center of the loaf registers 205 degrees, about 35 to 45 minutes.
Step
8
Run a knife or a thin metal spatula between the bread and the loaf pan to loosen the loaf, then remove loaf from pan and rest on a cooling rack until completely cool.
Tips
- It is strongly recommended to use a gram scale for accuracy and success in this recipe. This recipe calls for bread flour, ideally King Arthur brand flour, which has a protein content of 12.7 percent. If using all-purpose flour, decrease water content by 20 grams. If using active dry yeast instead of instant or rapid rise, increase the amount to 2.25 grams (a heaping ½ teaspoon). The water should feel warm to the touch and register around 90 degrees on an instant-read thermometer.
- To make a rye or whole-wheat version of this bread, substitute 100 grams of the bread flour with an equal quantity of rye or whole-wheat flour, and increase the water by 10 grams.
Ratings
4
out of 5
262
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Cooking Notes
Dana Murphy
I'd like to use my sourdough starter... how much do you think it would change the recipe?
Cat B
For those asking about whether plastic wrap can be used to cover the dough...I use a shower cap instead - it's never used for any purpose other than covering dough! It works very well and cuts down plastic waste.
Imbrod
I’ve made several sandwich loaves with the original no-knead recipe—tasty but the crumb was a bit coarse. Here I added about a teaspoon of olive oil to the weighed ingredients. The dough was much drier than the gloopy no-knead I was used to and the gluten developed very quickly with the casual stretch and fold method. The next day the loaf formed from the chilled dough took 3 hours to proof. I rubbed butter on the top crust. Slicing into the cooled loaf I discovered I had made—Wonder bread!
Phil M
Instead of inverting a bowl to cover, can plastic wrap be used instead?
Justin
Actually, I'm thinking less 50g water, less 50g flour. That sounds about right.
Andrew
Two words: olive oil. There's a reason bakers do NOT put fat into this type of bread, and you just found it (well, one of them) -- you're not going to get the kind of development you want for an "artisanal/country"-type crumb (and I don't mean "crumb-y crumb - I mean that great gelatinous look, good hole structure, etc.) vs. a Wonder Bread "crumby crumb". Your fat tore the entire thing apart.
Andrew Fackler
I’d also like to know about this!
Ian G
A fine loaf of bread. Not spectacular, but certainly serviceable. Sub'd 100g milk for water in dough per tip. After removing from fridge, divided dough into 4 parts. Rolled each per directions, nested all 4 in loaf pan for merged rise. Glazed w whole egg + 1.5 tbs H2O; + sprinkling of sesame seeds. Put pan of boiling water on bottom rack. Top came out caramel colored & crusty. IMO it needs an infusion of butter and sugar to give it a bit more life (will experiment with that and report back.)
Larry M
As a novice baker, I have come to rely on the NYT for many of my bread recipes. This one is simple to follow and yielded wonderful results! Plan to use it often...it is THAT good. Look forward to substituting rye flour to make a nice rye loaf.
Imbrod
This has become our household staple loaf. It’s a great WFH recipe, as it needs a few hours of casual tending but the timing is forgiving. I use 300g water, and bake it in a 12” Pullman loaf pan; half the loaf gets frozen, and the other half lasts beautifully in the fridge, without either drying out or growing moldy. It’s especially delicious as toast.
Erika
Yes, agree with Justin, if you use 100g starter, you would subtract 50g of flour and 50g of water from the recipe. This is assuming your sourdough starter is the typical 100% hydration variety that most people use (equal parts by weight flour and water; or if you measure by volume (using a measuring cup), about twice as much flour as water). Since sourdough has its own natural acid, you probably wouldn't need to add the lemon juice or vinegar.
k-dawg
I use non-dairy milk (2 tbsp) and maple syrup (1 tbsp) combo
Rachel
Update: I've also made this loaf with buttermilk. I replaced 60 ml of water with buttermilk and omitted the vinegar/lemon juice, but otherwise followed the recipe exactly. It turned out beautifully: nice light texture and a slightly richer flavor.
Ross
As Justin said, whatever amount of starter you do put in, you want to remove the extra flour and water (half of each) from the recipe. You can use any amount, it will just affect how long it takes the dough to rise. If you want to keep roughly the same timings from this recipe, you'll probably need to play around with a few attempts, but 50g starter might be a good first attempt. Alternatively, you could probably use 5g starter and skip the refrigerator while proofing overnight.
Kelika
Double recipe 800g flour16g salt200g milk320 water1.25 tsp yeast1/4 tsp vinegar Egg for top
Dennis P.
I’ve made this recipe numerous times, have yet to match the 30-45 sec initial mix time but never a problem. A generous cup of grated cheese in the dry ingredients makes this into an excellent cheddar cheese loaf for those that care to try it
jj
I've been baking for 50 years, blah, blah, blah. The lemon juice/vinegar is to make you hard tap water less so. If you happen to have low pH water you don't need that; but never had that luxury. If you use bottled water you may still need the acid etc, etc. Hard water is a problem for these high hydration loaves; IMHO. Sourdough, again IMHO, doesn't have enough acid to solve the problem so I use 1/8 teaspoon of white vinegar and get much, much better loaves.
kaitlin
Great bread. Followed notes that said rising would take around 3 hours (not 2 hours as stated in the recipe). Used water/milk wash for the top as well instead of egg wash.
Serena
Tasted fantastic!! Added a pinch of sugar to my 90°F water for my active dry yeast. Took ~3 hrs to rise after 24 hrs in the fridge. Needed to foil top of bread after 15 min of baking at 400°F, lowered heat to 300°F for an additional ~30 min bake.
Teresa
I was looking for a good white bread for summer tomato sandwiches, and nothing from the grocery store or bakeries worked. This recipe is perfect if you just want a good basic white bread! I followed the recipe exactly and sprinkled a little coarse salt on top. I let it rest in the fridge two days, and it did take a while to rise—more like three hours. I’ll definitely keep on making it. It’s good!
ashannon
I love that this is a one loaf recipe. I've made it so many times that I can now improvise, but it's great as written. It's so good toasted, which is what I was looking for. I was inspired by a local pizza place that makes all kinds of sandwiches on house made Italian bread. Once this is toasted it is perfect for this.
ea
I’ve made this a few times now. Mine never crests above the pan even after 4 hours of rise out of fridge but it still rises sufficiently in the oven, whether I’ve used sourdough (fed or under) as part of it or not. I’ve used 50-60 grams of freshly ground whole wheat and it still works. Very flexible and adaptable.
Paul C
I've made this three times already. I need to let it rise for 4 or more hours. Only once has it crested the loaf pan and then it started collapsing before I got it in the oven. Right now I'm 4 hours in and it is an inch from the top of the loaf pan. I did use 150g of rye flour, 295g water, and 2.25 grams of Bob's Red Mill dry yeast. (I have the awesome Kitchen Aid scale which can read to 0.01g!) What else can I try next time?
hs
I increased all of the ingredients by 10%, then by 20% to get a loaf that rises to sandwich-loaf height. Forming the loaf in the pan, and letting it rise for an hour before refrigerating, seems to work better than refrigerating right away.
ea
Replace 25 grams flour and 25 grams water with 50 grams sourdough discard. The dough wasn’t as shaggy or loose as I thought it should be based on recipe description but still turned out fine. Suffices for when my kids are tired of sourdough.
Amanda
THIS IS GREAT
Added
299 g water little bread. 1 tea malt.2 TB potatoes
Imbrod
Just an added note to say that I baked this today after a night in the fridge. After forming the loaf I put it in the oven to rise and forgot about it for 6 hours. But the bread came out perfectly, perhaps a bit more aerated than after only 2-3 hours, but not at all overproofed or collapsed. It certainly is a forgiving recipe!
browning chicken
the whole wheat variation worked well for me with buckwheat flour. added a bit of honey and nigella seeds to the “jelly roll” step, and some honey to the egg wash. it’s really nice with herring or seaweed flakes or honey+butter. not the most spectacular looking loaf but moist and tender.
Kathleen
Thank you for being brand-specific about the kosher salt measurements.
Mary Beth
Really nice loaf for sandwiches. Have made twice, the first time using 100g spelt, the second time using 100g kamut (as the whole wheat option). The timing is very adaptable.
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