Hands Down the Easiest Bread You Will Ever Make
It is quite simply, the easiest, and possibly the most delicious, bread in the world and it requires zero bread making skills. This takes literally 90 seconds to prepare. It only requires 3 ingredients, 1 bowl and a wooden spoon. There is no kneading. You literally dump 3 ingredients in a bowl and the next day have an insanely gorgeous artisan bread loaf with a crazy crackly crust and tender chewy insides and you will just sit there staring at it telling everyone in a 50-foot radius, “I MADE THAT.”
Equipment needed for No-Knead Bread
The one special thing you will need for this recipe is a heavy enamel coated Dutch oven. If you don’t have one of these, you can try it in any heavy oven-safe pot with a lid you can find, but I’m telling you right now a heavy Dutch oven is a great investment. It’s a workhorse in the kitchen and you’ll get so much use out of it. It’s the perfect pot for braising Pot Roast, making dishes like my Oven Braised Chicken, Honey Balsamic Drumsticks, cooking soups on the stovetop and more.
How to make No-Knead Dough
So let me show you in just a few steps how we’re making this bread. It starts with all purpose flour, warm water and yeast. Okay and a little salt, so I guess technically 4 ingredients.
You will stir these ingredients with a spoon to mix them up and that’s it! Done. I do want to say something about the flour, here. I think this recipe does count on people over measuring their flour. When I actual weigh my flour to get an exact weight for the 3 cups, this dough is extremely wet and loose. Like, I can’t form it into a ball, it’s more of a thick liquid. And the bread turns out amazing and soft and beautiful. When I scoop my flour with the measuring cup (something we are constantly telling you not to do,) the dough is still on the wet-sticky side, but it looks more like most people’s photos of this dough, and you can actually form it into a ball. And it turns out delicious. So what I’m saying is, this dough is extremely flexible. Try it a few times and see what you like, but don’t ever get worried it’s not going to work because it always works! Just don’t add tons more flour because you think it should be the consistency of playdough. Because it shouldn’t. Overall your dough should be quite loose and sticky, but feel free to just dunk your measuring cup in your flour bag and haphazardly scoop. This is one instance where that totally works!
Let the Dough Rest
Once that’s all mixed up, just cover with plastic, leave on your counter, and come back and visit it tomorrow. It needs to sit for anywhere from 8-18 hours. I always just mix up the dough the day before, but technically you could do it early in the morning and have it for dinner as well. Just know the longer it sits, the better the texture will be so I recommend at least 12 hours.
At this point you’ll just scrape it all out onto a generously floured surface- I put it directly onto a piece of parchment paper. Remember your dough will be REALLY sticky so sprinkle flour all over it where you’ll be touching it and handle it gently so it doesn’t get all over you. Fold it on top of itself a couple times (remember no kneading) and form it into a round-ish shape. Let it sit for 30 minutes. During that 30 minutes you will place your empty, covered dutch oven in your oven preheated to a screaming hot 450 degrees. We’re creating our own little bread oven here.
Baking No-Knead Bread
When it’s preheated you will CAREFULLY (can’t stress that enough) remove your crazy hot pan from the oven, transfer your bread into it, and place the lid on. DON’T FORGET YOUR LID IS PIPING HOT. I always keep a towel over the handle while it’s on my counter just to be safe. Pop that pot back into the oven to bake. You can see I just lift my whole parchment paper that my bread was sitting on and put it into the pot.
about 40 minutes later your house will smell like a straight-up European bakery.
This bread has a super crispy crust and a chewy soft inside. It’s the kind of bread you rip off in chunks and slather with butter while it’s still warm, or dunk in a bowl of soup, or dip in olive oil. It’s amazing.
It’s so crazy easy you can literally make it every day. This fact is both useful and dangerous.
This is one of my favorite things to gift new neighbors or a friend who needs dinner. Pair it with a pot of soup, or a bottle of nice olive oil for a sweet gift!
