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When nothing but homemade bread will do, try these easy Soft Yeast Dinner Rolls. They are perfect at your holiday table, on the side of Sunday Supper, piled with any kind of meat, or served simply with a bowl of soup.
I made these rolls every week for a few months in culinary school, to go with our dinner service. The customers simply couldn’t get enough of them. Small, soft, yeasty, and golden brown, they are everything you want in a dinner roll. Serve them with softened, salted butter, and it’s hard to stop eating them.
And no matter how busy I am, there are some times when I feel compelled to just slow down and make fresh bread. The changing of the seasons (summer to fall, or winter to spring), holidays, and rainy days are the time when the urge hits me the hardest.
But since it’s so hard to slow down, I love that you can freeze these rolls for later. That means you can bake them when you have time and save them for the precious days when you need them the most.
Table of Contents
Recipe ingredients
At a Glance: Here is a quick snapshot of what ingredients are in this recipe.
Please see the recipe card below for specific quantities.
Ingredient notes
- Active dry yeast: Sold in little packets or jars at the store in the baking aisle. If you already have some, make sure it’s active and hasn’t expired. If you buy the jar, store it indefinitely in the freezer after opening.
Step-by-step instructions
- Soften (bloom) the yeast in warm water for 5 minutes.
- In a bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the dough hook attachment, combine flour, salt, sugar, dry milk powder, butter, and egg. With the motor running on low, slowly drizzle in the yeast mixture.
- Increase the mixer speed to medium and mix until shiny and smooth, about 10 minutes.
- Turn out the dough onto a dry surface and shape into a ball. Place into a lightly greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let rise in a warm place (80 to 85 degrees, see notes) until doubled in size, about 1 hour.
- Punch down the dough and allow to rest a few minutes for the gluten to relax. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Turn out the dough onto a dry surface. Using a bench scraper, divide the dough into 4 equal portions and then divide those into 8 equal portions (about 1 ¼ oz each).
- Shape each portion into a round ball by pushing and turning the palm of your hand in a circular motion against the countertop and place 2 inches apart on prepared baking sheets.
- Cover the shaped rolls with a clean kitchen towel and place the baking sheets on top of the oven. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and proof the shaped rolls until doubled in size, about 30 minutes. Gently brush the tops with egg wash.
- Bake until golden brown, about 18-20 minutes, rotating the baking sheets halfway through. Serve warm or allow to cool, place in zipper-top plastic bags, and freeze for another night.
Recipe tips and variations
- Yield: This recipe makes 32 delicious, buttery dinner rolls.
- Storage: Store cooled rolls in an airtight container for 3 to 4 days at room temperature, or store in the refrigerator for up to a week.
- Freezer: Place on a baking sheet or plate and put in the freezer until frozen solid. Transfer the individually-frozen rolls to a freezer-safe plastic bag, then bag again (I like the double-bag method for best results). Freeze for up to one month. Thaw for 30 minutes at room temperature.
- Blooming yeast: In this recipe, you add yeast to 1-½ cups lukewarm water (110-115 degrees). At the end of 5-10 minutes, the yeast should look foamy. If it does not, the yeast isn’t alive and should be discarded. Yeast activates at 40 degrees and dies at 140 degrees.
- Proofing the dough: Turn your oven on to the lowest temperature it will go, usually 200 degrees. Once it reaches 110 degrees, turn the oven off. Place the dough in the oven and close the door. Opening the oven door will lower the heat a bit, and that’s okay (you’re aiming for 75 to 85 degrees).
Recipe FAQs
Active dry yeast lies dormant and needs a warm liquid to become “activated.” For best results, use lukewarm water (temperature of 110 to 115 degrees Fahrenheit) and give the yeast 5 to 10 minutes. Adding a little bit of sugar (especially if it’s already in your recipe) feeds the yeast and it will bloom faster.
In a 1-cup liquid measuring cup, dissolve 1 teaspoon sugar in ½ cup warm water (between 110 and 115 degrees). Stir in 2 ¼ teaspoons (or 1 packet) yeast. After 10 minutes, the yeast should have risen to or above the 1-cup marker on the measuring cup.
Your yeast should be bubbling and foamy within 5-10 minutes of activation. If it looks like nothing is happening, the yeast may be expired. Discard and try again with a fresh batch.
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Soft Yeast Dinner Rolls
Ingredients
- 4 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast (2 packets, see note 1)
- 1 1/2 cups warm water 110-115 degrees
- 5 1/2 cups bread flour
- 1 tablespoon salt
- 1/4 cup granulated sugar
- 1 tablespoon dry milk powder
- 4 tablespoons butter softened (½ stick)
- 1 large egg
- egg wash (1 whole egg + 1 tablespoon water whisked together)
Instructions
- Soften (bloom) the yeast in warm water for 5 minutes. In a bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the dough hook attachment, combine flour, salt, sugar, dry milk powder, butter, and egg. With the motor running on low, slowly drizzle in the yeast mixture.
- Increase the mixer speed to medium and mix until shiny and smooth, about 10 minutes. Turn out the dough onto a dry surface and shape into a ball. Place into a lightly greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let rise in a warm place (80 to 85 degrees, see notes) until doubled in size, about 1 hour.
- Punch down the dough and allow to rest a few minutes for the gluten to relax. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Turn out the dough onto a dry surface. Using a bench scraper, divide the dough into 4 equal portions and then divide those into 8 equal portions (about 1 ¼ oz each). Shape each portion into a round ball by pushing and turning the palm of your hand in a circular motion against the countertop and place 2 inches apart on prepared baking sheets.
- Cover the shaped rolls with a clean kitchen towel and place the baking sheets on top of the oven. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and proof the shaped rolls until doubled in size, about 30 minutes.
- Gently brush the tops with egg wash. Bake until golden brown, about 18-20 minutes, rotating the baking sheets halfway through. Serve warm or allow to cool, place in zipper-top plastic bags, and freeze for another night.
Notes
- Active dry yeast: Sold in little packets or jars at the store in the baking aisle. If you already have some, make sure it’s active and hasn’t expired. If you buy the jar, store it indefinitely in the freezer after opening.
- Yield: This recipe makes 32 delicious, buttery dinner rolls.
- Storage: Store cooled rolls in an airtight container for 3 to 4 days at room temperature, or store in the refrigerator for up to a week.
- Freezer: Place on a baking sheet or plate and put in the freezer until frozen solid. Transfer the individually-frozen rolls to a freezer-safe plastic bag, then bag again (I like the double-bag method for best results). Freeze for up to one month. Thaw for 30 minutes at room temperature.
Nutrition
Meggan Hill is a classically-trained chef and professional writer. Her meticulously-tested recipes and detailed tutorials bring confidence and success to home cooks everywhere. Meggan has been featured on NPR, HuffPost, FoxNews, LA Times, and more.
I have always had bad results with making yeast bread. It rises to much or not at all, to sweet or not enough sweetness (I know its me). But I have {at 70 years old) decided to try again. Since I cook gourmet with no problem, I needed instructions like your post to help me. I look forward to letting you know how it turns out.
Hi Meggan, these rolls look delicious and I like that they are relatively simple to make. I’m curious though what the purpose of the dried milk powder is. Can it be left out without substantially changing the rolls? I don’t keep dried milk in my pantry and am hesitant to buy it when only one tablespoon is needed. Thanks and Merry Christmas!
By the name and picture of your rolls, I must have done something wrong. Mine were hard as rock straight from the oven. Admittedly, I did put them in muffin cups. I baked them as instructed for only 15 of the 18-20 minutes instructions. But, I baked them in my daughters fancy oven. (Was it calibrated correctly?) I sifted the flour before measuring, so it wasn’t too much flour. So has anyone else had this problem or is it just me, a retired Home Economics Teacher?
Hi Marie, this is our dinner roll recipe from culinary school and we made it for so many dinner services (thousands and thousands of these rolls). But you have some experience cooking so I don’t walk to chalk it off to your mistakes. I think it’s probably a case of, recipes that get baked in muffin tins are different than this one. I looked at a few like that and they have different ingredients and ratios. And, the baking time is shorter (the most popular recipe recommends 9-12 minutes baking time). So, I think if I were going to be baking my recipe in a muffin tin, for which it has never been tested, I would be very cautious and attentive. As I’m sure you know, baking is a science, not an art, and you cannot just make random changes (like changing the vessel in which a recipe is made) and accurately predict what might happen on the first attempt. So, I think they were probably baked too long for starters, and for another the recipe might just be totally wrong for a muffin tin (could be a difference in hydration or just the combination of ingredients). I’m really sorry you had troubles. If we get a chance to spend some time with this recipe, we can try to see how it would be modified to work in a muffin tin. Thank you. -Meggan
Hello, I can’t wait to try these rolls. Can you use rapid rise yeast to skip the blooming process?
Hi Leann, thank you for the question! I haven’t tested it with rapid-rise yeast. It might work, but I am hesitant to say it will. Baking is a science and they may turn out terribly. Sorry about that! – Meggan