Homemade Bread (No-Knead)

With our easy homemade bread recipe, you can have a delicious loaf of crusty artisan bread with 5 minutes of hands-on time and without making your hands dirty!

The recipe is based on our readers’ favorite no-knead focaccia and schiacciata recipes.

It’s well-tested, works with all flours, and produces one of the best homemade breads.

Making homemade bread is my passion; I have been baking a weekly loaf for years. I know, I should get a life 😅. Oh, well!

While I love spending hours making our signature sourdough loaf (recipe coming soon), I think there’s a place for a simpler homemade bread recipe.

One that doesn’t require hours of stretching and folding and that anyone without any bread experience can bake successfully. Enters our homemade Italian bread 👇.

You’ll love this recipe because it’s so easy. I promise you won’t even get your hands dirty.

You can expect an Italian-style, artisan white bread loaf with a crunchy, flavorful crust and a soft, fluffy, and compact crumb.

It’s perfect for dipping in hummus, making bruschetta, avocado toast, and PB & J sandwiches.

When it gets stale, give it new life by turning it into crunchy crostini—excellent with olive tapenade—and homemade croutons for easy soups, tasty salads, or Panzanella.

Similar recipes: flatbread pizza, pita bread, Italian piadina bread, naan bread, and quick pizza dough.

Quantities are in the recipe box at the bottom of the page.

Flour

You can make this homemade bread recipe with any plain/all-purpose flour or bread flour.

We tested several brands, from the cheapest supermarket brands to more expensive flour mills, and this recipe is designed to work with all.

However, choose bread flour with at least 11.5% protein content for best results. The label will tell you this.

If you live in the USA and Canada, that’s not a problem, as local flours generally have more protein than European flour.

As a rule of thumb, flour with a high protein content of 13% or more can withstand longer proofing time in the fridge (12 to 36 hours).

A flour with a lower protein content of around 11% is unsuitable for long proofing time.

A flour with less than 11% protein is not recommended for making bread.

Yeast

The most common types of yeast you’ll encounter when baking at home are fresh, active, and instant dry yeast.

They are all made of the same thing—Saccharomyces cerevisiae or brewer’s yeast—but they work slightly differently due to the different production processes.

For an amateur baker, instant dry yeast is the easiest and most reliable. It comes in the form of a fine granular dust.

We recommend Caputo dry yeast, Red Star Saf Instant, and Dr. Oetker Instant yeast. Of course, there are many other excellent brands. Pick one you trust.

You can substitute fresh yeast for dry yeast. In this case, you’ll need three times more fresh yeast than dry yeast.

Water & salt

You’ll also need salt and any water that’s good for drinking.

Equipment

MIXING BOWL: You’ll need a large mixing bowl to allow the dough to double in size. We recommend glass, ceramic, or plastic bowls.

SPOON: You’ll need a wooden spoon to mix the dough and a regular spoon to fold the dough.

DUTCH OVEN: When making bread at home, it is best to bake it in a Dutch oven or in a pot that can go in the oven for the first 20 minutes.

Baking in a closed Dutch oven creates the perfect conditions for the bread to rise. The steam from the dough is trapped in the Dutch oven, creating a moist environment.

This moisture prevents the bread crust from setting too quickly, which is good.

Why? A crust that forms quickly (if you bake without a Dutch oven) stops the bread from rising to its fullest size. A crust that forms slowly (if you bake in a Dutch oven) allows the bread to rise to its fullest size.

If you don’t have a Dutch oven, you can use any metal pot or casserole with a lid that can go in the oven.

PROOFING BASKET: You can purchase a proofing basket online or use a colander or sift lined with a clean kitchen cloth.

You could also use a clean bowl lined with a kitchen cloth as a last resort. However, I recommend the colander or sift because it lets the dough breathe.

It’s important to dust the cloth with enough flour so the dough doesn’t stick. The best flour for this is rice flour.

1. Mix the no-knead dough

To a large mixing bowl, add lukewarm water, sugar, salt, and yeast.

Whisk until the yeast is dissolved.

Tip: If it doesn’t dissolve, it might be inactive. I recommend starting over with new yeast.

Add the flour and stir with a wooden spoon until a shaggy dough forms. The water should absorb all the flour.

Tip: A shaggy dough is one without dry spots of flour. It should be lumpy, cohesive, and well mixed, but not smooth.

2. First proofing

Turn your oven on for 30 seconds, then turn it off. We use the oven as a proofing chamber.

Cover the bowl with a lid or plastic wrap and let it proof in the lightly warmed oven for 1.5 to 2 hours or until it doubles in volume.

Tip: Especially in winter, when room temperature is below 77°F or 25°C, it is best to let your dough proof in a lightly warmed oven to create the perfect conditions for the yeast to thrive (warm, moist, draft-free environment).

3. Folding the dough

Dust your proofing basket with flour. I recommend using rice flour as it’s less sticky than regular flour.

If you don’t have a proofing basket, use a sift lined with a clean kitchen cloth.

Fold the proofed dough in the bowl with a spoon over itself 20 times (it takes 30 seconds), moving from the outside to the center of the dough.

Tip: The dough is initially sticky but gets less sticky as you fold it. This step is essential to giving the bread structure so that it holds the air and rises as it bakes.

4. Final proof

After folding, transfer the dough onto the floured proofing basket, folded side facing up.

You can pinch the dough four or five times to seal the top and tighten its structure.

Put the basket in a plastic bag (I use a large freezer bag) and let it proof again.

QUICK PROOFING: 45 to 60 minutes at room temperature or in a slightly warm oven. The dough should grow by about 50%, not double in volume.

SLOW PROOFING: 8 to 16 hours in the fridge.

5. Baking the bread

Put the Dutch oven with the lid on inside the oven on the lowest rack.

Preheat the oven to 450°F or 230°C with the Dutch oven inside. Let it preheat for 20 minutes.

Remove your bread basket from the plastic bread and place a sheet of parchment paper over the dough.

Gently turn the basket onto your worktop so the dough falls onto the parchment paper.

With scissors, cut a small hole at the center of the bread. Also, cut off excess baking paper.

Now, carefully remove the Dutch oven from the oven and put it on a coaster on your worktop or stovetop.

Open the lid (HOT), pull up the loaf by the paper, and gently lower it into the HOT Dutch oven.

Close the lid and put the Dutch oven back into the oven.

Note: Be careful when handling the Dutch oven because it’s scorching hot.

Bake with the lid at 450°F or 230°C for 25 minutes.

Tip: The bread should almost look like steamed at this point.

Remove the lid and bake uncovered for 25 more minutes at 400°F or 200°C.

Take the loaf from the Dutch oven and let it cool down on a cooling rack.

Note: The bread should be ready after 50 minutes. The crust should be golden brown.

The internal temperature should reach 210°F or 99°C. You can check the internal temperature with a kitchen thermometer. If you knock on the bottom, the bread should make a hollow sound.

Room temperature: Let the bread cool down, then store it in a plastic bag for up to 4 days. The plastic helps the bread stay moist but softens the crust. We recommend reheating the bread slices from the second day onward.

Freezer: Let the bread cool completely, then freeze it in a freezer-friendly bag. You can freeze it whole, cut it in half, or slice it. It keeps for 3 months.

Thaw and reheat: Thaw bread at room temperature. Reheat in the oven, toaster, or air fryer.