Honey Oat Sourdough Bread Recipe

This fragrant and hearty honey oat sourdough bread will become a fast family favorite. It’s one of those sourdough recipes everyone comes back to. Whether you shape it as a batard or boule, it’s sure to be requested again and again. It’s extremely versatile. I love that it combines some extra nutrients with the oats, giving it even more brownie points!

Why You’ll Love This Recipe!

• Rich Flavor with a Hearty Texture – The addition of honey and rolled oats creates a beautifully balanced loaf with subtle sweetness, nutty depth, and a satisfyingly wholesome bite. It’s the perfect vehicle for homemade butter! 
• Beginner Friendly – This sourdough inclusion loaf is perfect for a beginner. The dough is an absolute dream to shape, it’s one of my favorites!
• Flexible to Fit Any Schedule – With a cold fermentation window of 5 to 36 hours, this recipe adapts effortlessly to busy lifestyles. Whether you’re baking the next morning or a day later, the extended proof enhances flavor while giving you complete control over your timing.

Ingredients

• Sourdough Starter – You’ll need to use active sourdough starter to create this delicious loaf. I recommend active starter that has been fed in the last 12 hours and is at peak. This will ensure you get the best dough rise! You can increase the amount of starter if you wish with no affect on the other ingredient measurements. You can read more about the effects of increasing the starter amount here.
• Bread Flour – I recommend using high protein bread flour for this recipe, however you can use up to half whole-wheat flour if you want to. This will give you a more nutty flavor to your loaf.
• Rolled Oats – Use traditional rolled oats, not quick oats or steel cut oats.
• Honey – Use whatever honey you like to eat. Check out this full guide to adding honey to sourdough for the best results. If you enjoy adding honey to sourdough bread, jalapeño cheddar sourdough also includes honey.
• Water
• Salt

How To Make Sourdough Honey Oat Bread

Start by adding the active starter, water and honey to a large mixing bowl and stirring until the starter and honey are dissolved into the water.  Once they’re well combined, add the bread flour and salt and stir together to form a shaggy dough. I never use a Danish dough whisk because I find them ineffective and so hard to clean! I recommend using a silicone jar spatula or even a dough scraper to mix the dough together.

After resting for around an hour, the dough is gently strengthened by stretching and folding it into a smooth ball, followed by another short rest.

During the stretch and fold phase, you need to incorporate the rolled oats, ideally during the second or third set, allowing them to distribute evenly without weighing down the dough.

Over the course of four sets of folds, spaced 15 to 30 minutes apart, the dough will develop gluten and elasticity.

Once you’ve finished stretch and folds, cover the bread dough and let it bulk ferment at room temperature until it’s double. This dough is literally like a giant marshmallow at the end of bulk fermentation.

Once the fermenting process is done, you’ll need to shape the dough (I prefer a batard in this case). There are two ways you can add rolled oats to the top of the dough. I like to roll the shaped dough into a pile of rolled oats on the counter. But if you don’t want to do this, you can sprinkle the rolled oats onto the bottom of your banneton before placing the dough on top, seam side up.

This second technique is how I started doing it when I first wrote this recipe, but now I like to roll the whole loaf in rolled oats and this is easier to do on the counter. In the photo below, I’ve rolled the top of the loaf in oats and placed it seam side down in the banneton, placing more oats on top (so you can’t really see the seam).

Once you’ve cold fermented the loaf in the fridge, you’ll need to transfer the cold dough into a preheated Dutch oven at 230°C (450°F) to encourage maximum oven spring.

A simple score allows the loaf to expand naturally, while baking with the lid on traps steam for a crisp crust and open crumb. The lid is removed toward the end of the bake to achieve a rich golden finish at 210°C (410°F). Once baked, let the bread cool completely on a wire rack to allow the crumb to set, rewarding your patience with a beautifully textured loaf studded with nutty oats and rich sourdough flavor.

Baker’s Timeline

TIME	PROCESS
9 am	Premix and autolyse for around an hour, forming up the dough and leaving to rest for another 30 minutes before stretch and folds.
11 am	1st stretch and fold
11.30 am	2nd stretch and fold – add half the oats (you can of course add all the oats at once if you prefer).
12 pm	3rd stretch and fold – add other half of the oats.
12.30 pm	4th stretch and fold
1 pm	Bulk fermentation at room temperature remembering that the honey will speed up fermentation.
6 pm	Shape dough into a batard, roll the loaf into rolled oats and place into banneton and then into fridge for cold fermentation.
9 am	Wake and bake! The next morning, you can get up, make a coffee and bake your honey oat sourdough loaf!

Recipe Variations for Honey Oat Sourdough Bread

There are a few recipe variations for Honey Oat Sourdough Bread that you may enjoy. Why not experiment and see if you like them! You might also enjoy this sourdough maple oat sandwich loaf too!

I’ve kept the flour modifications at 100g because this will not affect the amount of water you use, nor the oven spring you are able to achieve.

• Honey Oat with Rye – Replace 100g of the Bread Flour with 100g of rye flour for a different flavor.
• Honey Oat with Wheat – Replace 100g of the Bread Flour with 100g of freshly milled wheat berries for a real hearty country sourdough taste.
• Honey Oat Sesame – Add some sesame seeds to the rolled oats when you add them to your banneton for a different flavor twist.
• Honey Muesli Loaf – you could really add some goodness to your bread and replace the rolled oats in the sourdough with your favorite toasted muesli for a delicious breakfast loaf. You could still top your loaf with plain rolled oats.

How To Store and Freeze

This loaf is absolute perfection to eat fresh, at least within 24 hours of baking. I like to store the leftovers from this loaf under a glass cloche for up to 3 days. It’s best to eat toasted if you’re eating it past 24 hours. You can freeze this honey oat sourdough loaf successfully by following these instructions for freezing sourdough bread.

Other Sourdough Recipes Using Honey

Hot Honey Sourdough Bread Recipe

Sourdough Honey Oat Cookies

Easy Pumpkin Sourdough Bread

Sourdough Anzac Biscuits

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