Super soft and fluffy whole wheat sourdough dinner rolls made with 100% whole grains. My sourdough dinner roll recipe will amaze you with its extra-soft texture and sweet flavor. They are made entirely with freshly milled flour and are so delicious!
These are the rise-high pull-apart dinner rolls you’ll want on your Sourdough bread rotation and your Thanksgiving table! I love these sourdough dinner rolls made with no yeast! You won’t believe how quickly they come together and that they are baked on the same day (not sour)!
Whole Wheat Sourdough Dinner Rolls
We usually keep a whole wheat loaf of bread or a bread roll for sandwiches in our woven bread basket on our dining table. Bread is an essential part of our Ukrainian meals or midday snacks at our farmhouse, so I make a variety on my sourdough baking day once a week.
Some of my favorite sourdough bread recipes are these Crusty Sourdough Rolls or this Whole Wheat Sourdough Sandwich Bread (repeated often)!
I’m so excited to share this recipe for soft sourdough dinner rolls! Many people claim whole wheat is dense, but I’m here to prove that you can make delicious, whole wheat sourdough dinner rolls that are just as pillowy soft as white flour yeasted dinner rolls!
How do you make dinner rolls without yeast? The trick is lots of bubbly and active Starter! That’s right. I’ll add more Sourdough Starter to this recipe to get things going fast, so basically, they’re same-day sourdough dinner rolls made without white flour.
Dinner rolls with sourdough starter are good for your gut, and you know what’s in your leavened bread when you use homemade wild yeast to ferment it. I love baking sourdough bread using 100% freshly milled flour for health, slowly replacing my all-time favorite bread recipes.
What To Do with Leftover Dinner Rolls Made with Sourdough?
The taste is similar to Hawaiian or brioche bread but not as sweet, and it’s much fluffier and lighter in texture with a hint of tang! They would be delicious as mini chicken nugget sandwiches or sliders, although a classic dinner roll with butter is just as delightful! Eat them for breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, sandwiches, you name it!
- Make garlic bread by brushing melted butter and crushed garlic over the tops. This works great with stale bread; you can revive the texture by reheating it in the oven. Cover the dish to create steam and not dry them out.
- Slice sourdough dinner rolls across the middle and fill them with sandwich toppings. We like these Breakfast Sliders and Cheeseburger Sliders! Again, leftovers are great for reheating in the oven with sandwich fillings!
- Serve them a side dish accompanied with soft butter and sweet jam.
- Ham and Cheese Sliders are always a hit too!
- Add some BBQ sauce and make pulled BBQ chicken sandwiches if you have leftover Rotisserie Chicken meat.
How To Shape Dinner Rolls Made From Freshly Milled Flour:
Sourdough whole wheat dinner rolls will be slightly sticky to the touch when shaping. Tackier dough is key for the fluffiest results! I usually divide my dough in half after the bulk fermentation of 5 hours and aim to cut around eight pieces for each half. Then, I form balls from each piece and pinch off any excess dough to make even-sized balls. If using a pastry mat, you won’t need to dust the surface with flour; it’s non-stick!
Ingredients Needed:
- Sourdough Starter- start with an active and bubbly starter. I don’t recommend Sourdough Discard if you plan to bake dinner rolls on the same day.
- Freshly milled flour is whole grains ground up using a grain mill. Making whole wheat flour at home is really quick and easy if you own an electric grain mill. I used all hard white wheat berries for this recipe. It gives the dinner rolls a light golden color, similar to white flour.
- Liquid such as water, honey (adds sweetness), and oil all contribute to the fluffiness of these rolls.
- Eggs bind, enrich, and make a beautifully golden-colored dough. They also help the bread rise and make soft and fluffy bread. Without them, the dinner rolls won’t be as golden or have that pull-apart effect, as eggs strengthen the gluten strands, creating those strands you see in tall dinner rolls.
- Salt- I used good quality sea salt.
How To Make Sourdough Dinner Rolls Using Whole Grains:
This dough can be mixed in the morning and baked fresh for dinner the same day. It is really easy to make dinner rolls from scratch using this recipe! I use my stand mixer and let the hook attachment do all the kneading. Whole Wheat takes longer to bring out the gluten, so a longer kneading time is needed for fluffy rolls.
- Combine all the ingredients in a stand mixer’s bowl except for the salt. Let it sit for 30 minutes, then add the salt and knead for 15 minutes. (This is called Autolyse and helps hydrate the wheat dough so that it is more workable).
- Cover the dough with beeswax wrap (or plastic wrap) and let it rise (bulk-ferment) for 5 hours in a warm spot.
- Transfer the dough to a silicone mat (so you don’t have to flour the surface) and divide it into 17 or 18 balls.
- Place rolls on a butter-greased 13×9 baking dish and let it rise for 1-2 hours.
- Brush with egg wash (1 beaten egg mixed with one tablespoon of water).
- Bake at 350°F for 20 minutes.
My Sourdough Baking Schedule As A Busy Mom:
I work with a very active starter. At about 7 a.m., I pull my sourdough starter from the fridge and feed it with my usual flour and water. By noon, it is usually doubled and ready to use, so I make my dough and let it bulk ferment until evening (about 5 or 6 p.m.) Once shaped, I let it rise for an additional hour or two and then bake. To have these on the same day for dinner, try to get a jump start and feed it around 6 a.m.
Can You Freeze Dinner Rolls?
For make-ahead dinner rolls, it is best to long-ferment and make these into overnight sourdough dinner rolls. However, they do freeze well after baking. To keep fresh dinner rolls on hand at any given time, cool them in the pan and double-wrap the pan with aluminum foil. Then freeze, and all you have to do is reheat them in the oven, covered until they steam and get fluffy again.
How to Warm Up Dinner Rolls? To keep dinner rolls warm without drying them out, it is best to reheat them covered at a moderate temperature. Cover the dinner rolls with foil and bake at 325° for 8-12 minutes until hot. Place pan on the upper rack so the bottoms don’t get too brown.
How To Store Dinner Rolls:
If you are not planning to use up dinner rolls on the same day that you bake them, I recommend that you cool and freeze them to keep them fresh. However, if you bake them late, let them cool overnight on a cooling rack covered with a tea towel, use them up the next day, or freeze them. Keep them in a jumbo freezer bag at room temperature for up to 2 days if you don’t want to freeze them. I like the ease of keeping them all in the pan they baked in, even if I freeze them.
Q&A
What is the Best Temperature to Bake Dinner Rolls?
Homemade sourdough dinner rolls are best baked at 350°F so the bottoms or tops don’t get too brown. To make the best dinner rolls, bake until golden brown, and don’t overbake or dry them out by baking them at a high oven temperature. Twenty minutes is a good baking time. However, dinner rolls are done when the internal temperature reaches 190°F.
Can you Make Dinner Rolls without Yeast?
You will need a good amount of starter to make fluffy dinner rolls using only a starter. I use almost 2 cups of starter for this recipe and can bake them the same day as they rise quickly.
Do Sourdough Dinner Rolls Taste Sour?
These dinner rolls are not too sour and have the slightest tang because I start everything from start to finish on the same day. However, they will be more sour if you leave them overnight in the fridge to be long-fermented.
Can I Use Einkorn or Other Grains?
Hard wheat varieties are best for making yeast-like doughs. Since we are omitting the commercial yeast for the sourdough starter here, it is best to use hard red or hard white wheat berries for making dinner rolls. If you wish to use a grain with a lower protein content (lower gluten), then use soft wheat, Spelt, or Einkorn grains in part. I would do 3 parts hard wheat to 1 part of lower-gluten grain.
Tips For Making Whole Wheat Sourdough Dinner Rolls:
- This dough is ready to shape when it has risen by about 50%, so adjust the rising time according to the temperature of your kitchen.
- Place dinner rolls seam down onto a baking dish for smooth tops.
- If you want to make the dough and bake it later, shape the rolls, cover the dish with plastic wrap, and keep it in the fridge for up to 36 hours. When ready to bake, take them out and allow them to rise at room temperature until puffy, and proceed with baking.
- If your kitchen temperature is warmer, you can reduce the rising time. Try to find a warm spot on the stove or under a sunny window to speed things up.
- Avoid over-fermenting the dough; if they over-proof, the dough will release too much lactic acid and be too sour.
- Bake in a glass baking dish for the fluffiest rolls and a pretty presentation as you can see the tall dinner rolls through the glass. Be sure to butter the pan because they can stick to glass more than a metal pan.
- To freeze unbaked sourdough rolls, turn these into a sourdough discard rolls recipe by decreasing the starter to 1 cup and adding a packet of commercial yeast. This ensures your dinner rolls will rise after the freezer with the addition of yeast. After the first rise, form the dough into balls and allow the dough to rise for 1 hour. Then freeze.
- Use warm water; you don’t want to ruin your starter by adding something too hot.
- For richer dough, add melted butter for the fat and whole milk for the water.
- Use a hard wheat variety when choosing whole grains; they have a higher gluten, strengthening the dough’s structure.
- This recipe for sourdough dinner rolls is easy for a beginner. For small rolls, dough balls should weigh around 2 oz each.
- Brush the tops with butter for that extra sheen!
Whole Wheat Sourdough Dinner Rolls
Equipment
- 1 Stand Mixer (with a dough hook attachment)
- 1 9x13 glass baking dish
Ingredients
Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup warm water
- 1 1/2 cups active sourdough starter (258 grams)
- 458 grams hard white wheat (freshly milled in a grain mill)
- 1/4 cup honey
- 2 eggs
- 1 tsp salt
Egg wash:
- 1 egg
- 1 Tbsp water
Instructions
Directions:
Combine all ingredients, except salt, using your hands in a stand mixer's bowl. Let sit for 30 minutes.- Add the salt and knead for 15 minutes over low speed.
- Cover the dough and rise for 5 hours.
- Transfer the dough to a Silicone pastry mat and divide it into 21 balls, using a bench scraper.
- Place dough balls onto a buttered 9x13 baking dish and let them rise for 1-2 hours. Cover the dish with a tea towel or plastic wrap.
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Brush the rolls with the egg wash.
- Bake the dinner rolls for 20 minutes until golden brown.
Notes
- To make freshly milled flour, weigh the grains using a kitchen scale and run them through an electric grain mill.
Nutrition per serving
