No-knead bread loaves

Everything bagel bread

Like so many before me, lockdown has inspired me to make yeast bread for the first time. As usual, I wasn't satisfied to pick any old basic recipe. I wanted to find the best and easiest possible one. So, I started with the no-knead bread recipe that has been going around the internet for more than 10 years. As the name suggests, you don't have to exert yourself to make this bread. You just stir in the four basic bread ingredients (flour, yeast, salt, water), and let the dough slowly ferment and rise overnight. Instead of manually developing the gluten which will ultimately provide substance to the bread, letting it sit passively will accomplish the same thing! The slow fermentation also develops more complex, slightly sourdough-like flavors.

Italian herb and cheese bread

The classic no-knead recipe involves cooking the bread in a heavy cast iron dutch oven, which produces a round boule with a crunchy crust. The boule is beautiful, but I'm out here trying to make sandwiches during quarantine, so I make mine in a loaf pan. Unlike a lot of baking, this bread recipe doesn't require a lot of precision and is quite flexible. We've made a lot of variations, including Italian herb and cheese bread and everything bagel bread! Grab your favorite herbs and seasonings and give it a try!

Basic no-knead bread loaf
3.5 cups flour (I like a combo of half white, half wheat)
.5 teaspoon instant yeast
1.5 t salt
2 cups water

Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl. Add water and stir until combined; dough will be shaggy and sticky, moist enough to not be a tough ball. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 8-24 hours at room temperature. I usually mix up the dough in the evening and bake it for lunch or dinner the next day. Dough will double or triple in size during that time.

Two hours before you're ready to bake it, punch down the dough by stirring it in the bowl a couple times. This redistributes the yeast and helps the bread rise more evenly.  I don't bother rolling it out and dirtying more dishes. Just dump the dough into a greased loaf pan and spread out a bit. Cover loosely with your plastic wrap. It's fine if it doesn't spread out much, because as you let it proof for the next 2 hours, it will spread and rise to double in size.

As you approach the end of the two-hour proofing, preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Move a rack to the middle-bottom of the oven. Once preheated, remove plastic wrap and place loaf in oven. Immediately reduce the temperature to 425. The initial burst of heat activates the yeast and lets the bread shoot up before it crusts over. Bake 40 minutes, until bread sounds hollow when tapped. Remove bread from pan and cool on rack.


Here are some variations we've done:

Italian herbs and cheese bread (my husband created this one. It tastes like the bread from Subway, which is a high achievement to him.)
3.5 cups white flour
1.5 t salt
.5 t yeast
2 1/2 t Italian seasoning
1 t garlic powder
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
2 cups water

Everything bagel bread
3.5 cups flour
.5 teaspoon instant yeast
1 t salt
2 T Trader Joe's Everything Bagel seasoning (only do 1 t salt)
2 cups water

Herbes de Provence bread
3.5 cups flour
.5 teaspoon instant yeast
1.5 t salt
2 t herbes de Provence
2 cups water

Outback bread (another invention by my husband. It tastes like the sweet brown bread at the chain restaurant.)
3.5 cups whole wheat flour
.5 teaspoon instant yeast
1 t salt
.5 cup molasses
1 1/4 cups water

Faux sourdough bread (adding yogurt with live cultures to the ferment adds many of the same microbes as you would find in a sourdough starter, and it makes an extra flavorful loaf)
3.5 cups wheat flour
.5 teaspoon instant yeast
1.5 t salt
1 cup plain or Greek yogurt, any amount of fat
1 1/2 cup water