Old Fashioned Dinner Rolls Recipe - The Baker Chick (2024)

ByAudra

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When it comes to family dinners and holiday meals, nothing beats the smell of homemade dinner rolls filling up the kitchen. Today I’m sharing a recipe for old-fashioned dinner rolls that are not only easy to prepare but also melt-in-your-mouth delicious. Follow these step-by-step instructions for creating the perfect batch of buttery, fluffy rolls that will elevate any occasion, from Thanksgiving dinner to everyday family gatherings.

Ingredients for homemade rolls:

  • Flour
  • Sugar
  • Active dry yeast
  • Milk
  • Melted butter
  • Salt
  • Warm water
  • Eggs

What you need for Old-Fashioned Yeast Rolls:

  • Large bowl
  • Baking sheet
  • Whisk
  • Bench Scraper if you have
  • ​Warm spot for proofing (I like a barely preheated oven)
  • Electric mixer with dough hook (optional)

The Process:

  1. Warm the milk until it’s at room temperature. In a bowl, combine the warm milk, sugar, and butter. Let cool until room temperature.
  2. In the bowl of a stand mixer, or a large bowl with hands, combine half the flour, yeast, and salt. Add the eggs and milk mixture and knead, adding the rest of the flour as needed. Use the dough hook attachment and mix on low speed until a soft dough forms. You’ll know the dough is ready when it easily releases from the sides of the bowl.
  3. First rise- Transfer the dough to a oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap or a tea towel. Let the dough rise in a warm place for about 1-2 hours or until it doubles in size.
  4. Punch down the risen dough and on a lightly floured surface divide it into equal pieces. Shape each piece into a ball and place them in a greased baking dish or muffin tin.
  5. Cover the dough balls with plastic wrap and let them rise for a second time until they puff up and fill the baking dish. This step ensures that your rolls are light, airy, and perfectly fluffy.
  6. Preheat your oven to 350F. Uncover the rolls and bake them until they turn a beautiful golden brown on top.
  7. Once out of the oven, brush the warm rolls with a little butter and sprinkle with sea salt. Allow them to cool on a wire rack.
  8. Enjoy your buttery rolls with soup, for mini sandwiches, or as a side for your holiday meal!

Old Fashioned Dinner Rolls Recipe - The Baker Chick (5)

Make-Ahead Options:

These old-fashioned dinner rolls are perfect for make-ahead preparations. After shaping the rolls, cover the baking dish with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight. The next day, let them come to room temperature and go through the second rise before baking.

Old Fashioned Dinner Rolls Recipe - The Baker Chick (6)

Storage:

Store any leftover rolls in an airtight container or wrap them in aluminum foil. They can be reheated in the oven or microwave, making them a convenient and delicious addition to your meals.

Interested in more homemade bread recipes?

My famous Brown Butter Cinnamon Rolls are always a crowd pleaser!

Pumpkin Parkerhouse Rolls are another amazing holiday bread option!

Old Fashioned Dinner Rolls Recipe - The Baker Chick (7)

Yield: 24-30 rolls

Ingredients

  • 1 1/2 cups milk
  • 1 stick unsalted butter, cut into pieces, plus more for brushing
  • 1/4-1/2 cup sugar*
  • 1 package active dry yeast
  • 1/2 cup warm water
  • 3 large eggs, lightly beaten
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
  • 6-8 cups all-purpose flour
  • Sea Salt for sprinkling

Instructions

  1. Place milk in a small saucepan and bring to a simmer. Remove from the heat, stir in the butter and sugar stir until sugar is dissolved. Let cool to luke warm.
  2. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook, combine the yeast, warm water, milk mixture, eggs, salt and half the flour.
  3. Mix for a few minutes until combined, scraping the bowl down with your spatula if needed. Add the remaining flour, 1/2 cup at a time until dough comes together and forms a soft, loose ball. (The dough will be very soft but shouldn't be too sticky. I used 7 cups total flour.)
  4. Turn the dough onto a floured surface and knead by hand for about 5 minutes, adding a bit more flour if the dough is still very sticky, until smooth.
  5. Place dough in a greased bowl, cover with a clean towel, and proof in a warm place for 60-70 minutes, or until doubled.
  6. Turn proofed dough onto your floured surface, punch it down a bit, and roll or spread the dough into a rectangle. Shape into rolls and place them on a parchment lined baking sheet. **
  7. Cover again and let rise for another 20-30 minutes.
  8. Preheat oven to 350 F. Bake for 20 minutes or until golden.
  9. Brush with melted butter and sprinkle with sea salt.

Notes

*The original recipe calls for 1/2 cup of sugar, which definitely gives the rolls a little bit of a sweet taste. I didn't mind it, but will cut it down to 1/4 cup next time just to make it a bit more subtle.

** If I had wanted these to be perfectly the same size, I would have measured each one to weigh 1.5 oz on my kitchen scale. I eyeballed it though and was fine with them being a bit more rustic. To shape them into round rolls, I cut off the portion of dough, turned all the edges under and pinched them together to form a ball.

Recipe adapted from The Food Network

Did you make this recipe?

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Old Fashioned Dinner Rolls Recipe - The Baker Chick (2024)

FAQs

Why are my dinner rolls hard? ›

Too much flour, or not the right kind, could be to blame. Dough made only from flour with a high or even average amount of protein (like bread flour or all-purpose flour) can become tough from overmixing. Protein gives bread structure in the form of gluten—the more you mix and move the dough, the more gluten you get.

How to make store-bought rolls taste like homemade? ›

3 Tiny Steps to Make Store-Bought Dinner Rolls Taste Amazing
  1. Brush with melted butter. Before warming the store-bought rolls in the oven, brush them generously with melted butter. ...
  2. Sprinkle with fresh herbs. ...
  3. Finish with flaky salt.
May 1, 2019

How do you roll dough perfectly round? ›

The Best Way to Roll Dough into a Circle (Not an Amoeba)
  1. Start with smooth-edged round.
  2. Roll back and forth over entire disk until disk becomes small oval. Turn oval 90 degrees.
  3. Roll back and forth again until oval becomes more circular. Continue turning and rolling until circle of desired size is achieved.

What type of pan is best for baking rolls? ›

This trick helps create better-looking rolls. We have three reasons for baking rolls such as our Oatmeal Dinner Rolls or our Fluffy Dinner Rolls in the confined space of a cake pan versus individually on a baking sheet.

What happens if you add too much flour to dinner rolls? ›

Avoid adding too much extra flour to the dough.

Your instinct might be to add extra flour; however, any extra flour will create a denser, tougher roll instead of the light, fluffy, soft dinner roll we want.

What ingredient makes bread soft? ›

Milk powder.

Instant milk powder makes bread dough super soft and fluffy and also helps to give it a good rise. It also contributes to the dough staying nice and soft after baking for a little longer than a recipe that does not use milk powder.

Why are my bread rolls not light and fluffy? ›

Why are my dinner rolls not fluffy? If your dinner rolls aren't fluffy it could be because of one of two reasons. Either, you added too much flour or you possibly used all bread flour. Alternately, not giving your dinner rolls enough time to proof and get puffy before baking could yield dense rolls.

What makes rolls taste good? ›

Buttered rolls are the go-to for a reason: Butter tastes good, but other fats taste good, too, and it would be a mistake not to give them a chance. Melted duck fat, chicken schmaltz, and bacon grease can be used to infuse your bread with smokey, savory flavor.

Why do my rolls taste yeasty? ›

If the area is too warm, bread will rise too fast and begin cooking before the yeast has finished acting. This will impart a "yeasty" taste to the dough that will be transferred to the finished baked loaf. Using old ingredients (rancid nuts, "old" shortening) will cause yeast breads to taste old or have an "off" taste.

Can you over mix roll dough? ›

If mixed too long the dough can become loose and sticky. The water that was absorbed by the flour gets released back into the dough and the gluten structure breaks down. After this there is no way to fix it. It will be a loose, soggy, and sticky mass unable to hold in fermentation gasses.

How do you know when rolls are done? ›

Use a thermometer (I like the Thermapen) to assess the doneness of pan breads, freeform loaves, and soft rolls. A temperature of 190°F at the center will yield bread that's fully baked (soft and moist) but not over-baked (tough and dry).

How long should dough rest between folds? ›

Baker's Tip: As a general rule of thumb, the sets for high hydration doughs (wet dough) can be spaced closer together because the dough is slack; about 15-30 minutes apart. For low hydration doughs (dry, stiffer dough), the gluten will need more time to relax, about 30 minutes to 1 hr.

How big should dough balls be for rolls? ›

If I am being really precise, I use my kitchen scale to make sure that each piece of dough is about the same size – for an average size dinner roll, I use pieces of dough that weigh about 2 ounces each.

Should rolls touch when baking? ›

Arrange the Dough For Baking

Arrange the rolls closer to each other, with enough room for them to expand into each other as they rise and bake. More traditional dinner rolls might be arranged on a baking sheet with lots of space in between so you get little orbs of golden brown goodness that don't touch.

References

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