My favorite no-knead sourdough bread recipe is easy to make, perfectly crusty and golden on the outside, and soft and chewy on the inside.
This recipe makes sourdough bread crisp yet chewy, the perfect canvas for your favorite sandwich.
The no-fuss process makes it easy to bake a few loaves each week with marvelous results.
Unlike traditional sourdough bread, which requires extensive kneading, this bread is about as hands-off as you can get.
The results are an amazingly flavorful, perfectly crusty on the outside, tender on the inside loaf of whole wheat sourdough bread the entire family will love.
After a short start-up period, you will be baking fresh bread every week with almost no changes to your current schedule.
This recipe requires about 10 minutes of work, spread out over a couple of days.
Easy
- You can make an oven full of bread with less than 10 minutes of work.
- The long and flexible rise time allows you to fit baking into the few spare moments of your busy day.
Inexpensive
- You can make four loaves of bread for less than $5.
- No special equipment is required, just a bowl to mix the dough and glass baking pans.
- Bread machines and expensive ingredients are not needed.
100% Whole Wheat No Knead Sourdough Bread - or not
Make this bread as 100% as you like.
If you like your bread light and flavorful, not heavy and dense, mix 20% whole wheat flour with 80% bread flour.
Combining organic bread flour and whole-grain flour will make it easier to work with than 100% whole-grain flour.
Salt gives the bread flavor and improves its structure. Minimally processed fine sea salt will produce the best results.
Avoid using iodized salt, as some people experience a metallic taste when they use it.
Related topic:
- How to Revive a Sourdough Starter
- How to Strengthen a Sourdough Starter
- What Makes Sourdough Sour
- 3 Amazing Rosemary Sourdough Recipes
No-knead Sourdough Bread Recipe
Sourdough Bread Ingredients (for four loaves)
- 5 pounds of whole wheat flour
- ¼ cup sourdough starter
- 2 Tablespoons Fine Sea Salt
- 9 cups water
Equipment
- 4 Glass baking pans
- Large bowl for mixing dough
- Small bowl for waking starter
- Towel to cover the dough
- Wooden spoon for stirring dough
Last update on 2024-09-30 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
How to Make No-Knead Sourdough Bread
Here are the basic steps for how to make overnight no-knead sourdough bread (full instructions in the recipe below):
Feed the starter
- Between 4 and 12 hours before you make bread (e.g., the night before)
- Add a little water and flour to the sourdough starter. About ¼ water and ⅜ cup flour, although this ratio is not critical.
- Mix thoroughly, and then add flour until it starts to thicken.
- Set the starter on the counter. The starter will be waking up now. Do not return the stater to the fridge until 12 hours after it has been fed so that it can become fully awake.
- Wait 4-12 hours before proceeding with step two.
- Examine the starter to see if it is active. It should be bubbly, and perhaps it will have grown in size. The thicker the starter is, the more it will grow in size.
Here is my easy sourdough starter recipe.
Mixing the dough
- Add the following ingredients to a large bowl. ¼ cup starter, 9 cups water, 2 Tablespoons of salt
- Mix in the flour at a ½ cup at a time until you've added all 5 lbs of flour.
- Stir with a wooden spoon. There are usually between 14 to 14 ¾ cups of flour in a 5-lb bag. It is more repeatable to measure your flour by weight than by volume.
- The flour should be a sticky and relatively fluid dough. You do not need to knead the dough. Just fold it over 2 -3 times and form a ball in the bowl. Wet your hands before working with the dough to keep it from sticking to them.
- Put a towel over the bowl and set it aside.
- Let the bread ferment and rise for 10 to 18 hours. A longer ferment will lead to more sour bread.
Preheat the oven
- At this point, the bread should have risen significantly. But even if it has not, do not despair. It will often grow in the oven even when it has not increased much beforehand.
- Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. If you have glass baking pans, put them in the oven. It is not necessary to grease them. If using a metal pan, no action is required.
Second rise
- Wipe your counter clean and wet it with water. Because this is a no-knead recipe, the dough will be wet, so it is better to handle the dough with water than with flour, as most recipes do.
- Pour the dough onto the counter. Use your hands or a spatula (both wetted with water) to scrape the extra dough onto the counter.
- Fold the dough over 2- 3 times to give it a nice round shape. Wet your hands some more, and divide the loaf into separate loaves.
- Let the bread rise while the oven is coming up to temperature. Wait until 10 minutes after the oven has reached 450 deg F so that the glass bread pans have time to come up to temperature.
- If you use metal baking pans, grease them and wait until the oven reaches 450 deg F.
Baking the no-knead sourdough bread
- Wait for the oven to come up to the temperature.
- Place the dough in the pans.
- If using glass pans, take them out of the oven using gloves. Form the loaves by folding them 2 -3 times and dropping them into the pans. It is not necessary to grease the pan because the heat instantly sears the outside of the loaf.
- If using metal pans, the bread should already be in the pan.
- Cut a line down the top of the loaf with a knife so it can expand more easily while baking.
- Place the bread pans in the oven.
- Bake for 30 minutes, and then lower the temperature to 350 degrees.
- Bake for another 30 minutes, then turn off the oven and remove the bread.
- Remove the bread from the pan.
- Usually, the bread will fall out of the pans when you flip the pan over.
- If they stick a little bit, give the pan a shake.
- If the loaves do not come out, use a flexible plastic spatula to break the bread free from the load.
- Set the bread on the racks to cool.
- The loaves will still be slightly wet, so do not lay them flat on the counter, or their bottoms will become soggy.
Related Topic: Wondering which is the best long slot toaster for your fresh baked sourdough bread? Not all long toasters are the same so go through my list to pick the best one according to your needs.
No-Knead Sourdough Bread
Are you looking for an easy, not-fuss sourdough bread recipe? Try our simple, easy-to-follow Whole Wheat No-knead Sourdough Bread recipe.
The results are an amazingly flavorful, perfectly crusty on the outside, tender on the inside loaf of whole wheat sourdough bread the entire family will love.
Ingredients
- Five pounds of whole wheat flour
- ¼ cup sourdough starter
- 2 Tablespoons fine sea salt
- 9 cups water
Instructions
Feed the starter
- Between 4 and 12 hours before you make bread (e.g., the night before)
- Add a little water and flour to the sourdough starter. About ¼ water and ⅜ cup flour, although this ratio does not have to be exact.
- Mix thoroughly, and then add flour until it starts to thicken.
- Set the starter on the counter. The starter will be waking up now.
- Do not return the stater to the fridge until 12 hours after it has been fed so that it can fully awake.
- Wait 4-12 hours before proceeding with step two.
- Examine the starter to see if it is active. It should be bubbly, and perhaps it will have grown in size. The thicker the starter is, the more it will grow in size.
Mixing the Dough
- Add the following ingredients to a large bowl. ¼ cup starter, 9 cups water, and 2 Tablespoons of salt
- Mix in the flour at a ½ cup at a time until you've added all 5 lbs of flour.
- Stir with a wooden spoon. There are usually between 14 to 14 ¾ cups of flour in a 5-lb bag.
- The flour should be a sticky and relatively fluid dough. You do not need to knead the dough. Just fold it over 2 -3 times and form a ball in the bowl. Wet your hands before working with the dough to keep it from sticking to them.
- Put a towel over the bowl and set it aside.
- Let the bread ferment and rise for 10 to 18 hours. A longer ferment will lead to more sour bread.
Preheat the oven, and the second rise
- At this point, the bread should have risen significantly. But even if it has not, do not despair. It will often grow in the oven even when it has not increased much beforehand.
- Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. If you have glass baking pans, put them in the oven. It is not necessary to grease them. If metal… no action is required.
- Wipe your counter clean and wet it with water. Because this is a no-knead recipe, the dough will be wet, so it is better to handle the dough with water than with flour, as most recipes do.
- Pour the dough onto the counter. Use your hands or a spatula (both wetted with water) to scrape the extra dough out onto the counter.
- Fold the lump over 2- 3 times to give it a nice round shape. Wet your hands some more, and divide the loaf into separate loaves.
- Let the bread rise while the oven is coming up to temperature. Wait until 10 minutes after the oven has reached 450 deg F so that the glass bread pans have time to come up to temperature.
- If you use metal baking pans, grease them and wait until the oven reaches 450 deg F.
Baking the No-knead Sourdough Bread
- Wait for the oven to come up to the temperature.
- Place the dough in the pans.
- If using glass pans, take them out of the oven using gloves. Form the loaves by folding them 2 -3 times and dropping them into the pans. It is not necessary to grease the pan because the heat instantly sears the outside of the loaf.
- If using metal pans, the bread should already be in the pan.
- Cut a line down the top of the loaf with a knife so it can expand more easily while baking.
- Place the bread pans in the oven.
- Bake for 30 minutes, and then lower the temperature to 350 degrees.
- Bake for another 30 minutes, then turn off the oven and remove the bread.
- Remove the bread from the pan.
- Usually, the bread will fall out of the pans when you flip the pan over. If they stick a little bit, give the pan a shake. If the loaves do not come out, use a flexible plastic spatula to break the bread free from the load.
- Set the bread on the racks to cool.
- The loaves will still be slightly wet, so do not lay them flat on the counter, or their bottoms will become soggy.
Notes
Make this bread as 100% as you like.
If you like your bread light and flavorful, not heavy and dense, mix 20% whole wheat flour with 80% bread flour.
Combining organic bread flour and whole-grain flour will make it easier to work with than 100% whole-grain flour.
Salt gives the bread flavor and improves its structure. Minimally processed fine sea salt will produce the best results.
Avoid using iodized salt, as some people experience a metallic taste when they use it.
More favorite sourdough recipes: