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Are you ready for the easiest sourdough discard bread recipe you’ll ever make? Baking true sourdough bread is certainly rewarding, but with our busy lives, we don’t always have time for a 2 to 3 day process, right? So I’ve created the easiest sourdough discard bread you’ll ever make – seriously it’s so so simple with very minimal prep! This recipe is perfect if you’re still building your sourdough starter, but you really want to bake sourdough bread. This is why this recipe has become one of the most popular sourdough discard recipes on The Pantry Mama site!
Why You’ll Love This Recipe!
Super Quick Discard Recipe – You can make this easy sourdough discard bread in under 2 hours if your house warm enough. It does use a little commercial yeast – but you will still get some of the sourdough tang from your discard.
No Kneading, No Stretch and Folds – this recipe is completely hands off and requires no fancy equipment!
An Easy Way To Use An Immature Sourdough Starter – This easy sourdough discard bread will also work for you if your starter is not quite ready to start baking true sourdough bread, just like this sourdough discard sandwich bread. The commercial yeast will create the rise that is lacking in your sourdough starter. If you’re having trouble with your sourdough starter, check out these tips to boost your sourdough starter.
Ingredients
- Bread Flour – I recommend using bread flour for this recipe as it makes the dough less sticky. If you want to use all purpose flour, I recommend using a little less water, or you’ll end up with a big, sticky mess! You could supplement some of the 450g of flour with rye, spelt or even whole wheat flour for a more complex flavor profile.
- Water
- Salt
- Instant Yeast – I prefer to use instant yeast because it doesn’t need to be bloomed in water, but you can use active dry yeast if you prefer. Just add it when you add the water to this recipe.
- Sourdough Discard – This recipe uses sourdough discard, which is basically unfed sourdough starter. As always, you can use active sourdough starter if you prefer. You can then choose whether you add the yeast to speed things up or not.
Make This Sourdough Discard Bread In Under 2 Hours!
To make this easy crusty sourdough discard bread, start by adding the flour, warm water, instant yeast, salt, and sourdough discard to a large mixing bowl. Use a wooden spoon or spatula to gently mix everything together until a shaggy dough forms. You don’t need to knead it or make it perfectly smooth, just make sure all the flour is moistened.
Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and put it in a warm place for 1 to 2 hours and let the dough rise until it’s doubled. The exact time will depend on the room temperature of your kitchen. While the dough is rising, place a Dutch oven into your oven and preheat it to 220°C/430°F about 45 minutes before you plan to bake.
Kate’s RECIPE Tip
Bake It Later
If you don’t want to bake your bread immediately once it’s risen, you can pop it in the refrigerator for up to 24 hours. Just put the whole bowl in the fridge, covered with some plastic wrap to stop it drying out. This is a great idea if you want to have it freshly baked for dinner for example or when you first wake up.
When you want to bake it, let it sit out on the kitchen counter for around 30 minutes before you shape it and bake it (so preheat the oven when you take it out of the fridge).
Once the dough has doubled, lay a sheet of parchment paper on your counter and sprinkle it with a little rice flour or fine semolina to prevent sticking. Gently scoop or pour the dough onto the paper. If the dough is manageable, lightly shape it into a rough round by folding the edges over themselves. If it’s very wet, simply guide it into a loose shape without worrying too much, rustic works perfectly here. Score the top if you like, or leave it to naturally split in the oven.
Carefully lift the dough using the parchment paper and place it into the hot Dutch oven (we don’t actually need any further proofing once the dough is shaped).
Bake with the lid on for 30 minutes at 220°C/430°F, then remove the lid and bake for another 10 minutes at 200°C/390°F until golden brown. Allow the bread to cool on a cooling rack for at least an hour before slicing for the best texture. And now, just add butter!
I’ve included step-by-step instructions in the recipe card at the end of this post.
Kate’s Pro Tip
Bake in a Dutch Oven
To get the best results for your sourdough discard bread, bake it in a Dutch Oven. It keeps the steam inside the pot and enables your bread to get the rise before the crust starts to harden. Keep the lid on your Dutch Oven for the first 30 minutes of your bake, then take it off for the last 10 minutes to give it some crunch and colour. Just like baking true sourdough, the Dutch Oven really is a game changer.
Want To Give Your Sourdough Discard Loaf A Flavor Boost?
You can add lots of different flavor combinations to this sourdough discard loaf. It’s up to you whether you go sweet or savory. It’s best to add the inclusions to the dough when you first mix it, that way you can leave it alone to rise rather than have to disturb it to add in the flavors. Some of my favorite inclusions for this sourdough discard loaf are:
- Jalapeño Cheddar
- Bacon & Cheddar Cheese
- Olives (you can use whatever olives you love)
- Chocolate chips and orange zest
- Cranberries and walnuts
- Cinnamon and Raisins
How To Store and Freeze
This loaf is is designed to be a quick bake and made to eat the same day you bake it. It can be stored in a ziplock bag at room temperature for up to 3 days after baking, however it’s definitely better eaten the day of baking. Storing it in a ziplock bag will keep the loaf interior soft, but it will also give you a soft crust (which you can refresh in the oven). Otherwise, it’s perfect for making toast with!
This loaf can be frozen. I recommend freezing as a whole loaf in a large zipock bag for up to 3 months. When you want to use it, remove it from the freezer and allow it to thaw at room temperature.
Frequently Asked Questions
I recommend using a Dutch oven for this loaf because it traps the steam around the loaf, giving it time to bloom in the oven, giving it maximum oven spring and a gorgeous, crusty exterior – without it being rock hard. You can open bake, however, I recommend spraying the loaf with water before placing into the oven.
No you don’t need to. Because this bread has instant yeast added you can place the shaped dough straight into a hot oven. If you really can’t bake it straight away, you can place it into a well floured banneton if you want to, but I recommend keeping it in the fridge and baking it within 12 hours.
I don’t recommend making this loaf in a stand mixer. The dough is really sticky and can be really hard to clean from the dough hook attachment. Plus, there’s such minimal mixing and kneading for this recipe, it’s really not worth messing up your stand mixer for!
Easy Sourdough Discard Bread
Equipment
- Mixing Bowl
- Digital Scales
- Dutch Oven
Ingredients
- 450 g Bread Flour
- 360 g Water, (warm)
- 10 g Salt
- 7 g Instant Yeast
- 100 g Sourdough Discard, (unfed sourdough starter)
Instructions
- Take a clean ceramic or glass bowl and add your flour, warm water, instant yeast, salt and sourdough discard.
- Use a wooden chopstick or end of a wooden spoon to gently bring all the ingredients together into a shaggy dough. You don't need to it be fully smooth, just ensure that all of the flour is wet.
- Cover the bowl in cling film and set it somewhere warm for 1 – 2 hours. It really depends on the temperature of your house with this one. If your house is warm, 1 hour will be plenty. In the depths of winter or with air con, you may need more than 2 hours. You just want it to double in size, no more or it won't rise in the oven.
- Around 45 minutes before you want to put your bread into the oven, you'll need to put a dutch oven into the oven and preheat it to around 220ºC/430ºF.
- Once your dough has doubled in size, grab a piece of parchment paper and lay it out on your counter. Sprinkle on a few tablespoons of rice flour or fine semolina flour (this is just so that the dough doesn't stick to your hands).NOTE – If you are wanting to put your bread in the refrigerator to bake another time (usually within 24 hours) then just pop the cling film over the bowl of doubled dough and put in the fridge. You don't need to do anything to the dough before it goes in.
- Scoop your dough out with your hands – if it's particularly wet it's perfectly fine to pour it onto the paper.If it's not too wet, use the flour and your finger tips to gently bring it into a round shape – you will need to pull each side over each other to do this. If your dough is too wet – don't fret, just try and bring it into some kind of shape without getting too messy.
- Score your dough if you're able to – otherwise just leave it and it will open up naturally in the oven.
- Carefully take your dutch oven out of the oven and remove the lid. Use the parchment or baking paper as a handle to gently place your discard bread inside the pot and put the lid back on.
- Bake in the oven, with the lid on for 30 minutes at 220ºC/430ºF. Then remove the lid of the pot and bake for a further 10 minutes at 200ºC/390ºF. Remove the bread from the oven and allow to cool on a wire rack.
- Try to let it cool for at least an hour before cutting it. It will still taste great if you cut it hot, but it's so much easier to cut if you let it cool!
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Like this? Rate and comment below!
I’ve made this recipe few times now and the results have been great every time – I was just wondering if it could be baked in a leaf tin?
Yes you can add it to a loaf pan 🙂
I just got back into sourdough and bread making. I was looking for some way to use my discard and found this recipe. I love it. Not super sour but it’s so good. Could I omit the yeast and use my active starter? This is also the first loaf I used my long forgotten pampered chef stone Dutch oven. OMG. I think you said it was a game changer, it really is. I made focaccia last night and it was very good and I made I think it is your simple bread recipe and it didn’t rise and it was a rock. No Dutch oven, only a loaf pan. learned my lesson. 🙂
Does the parchment paper go into the dutch oven, along with the loaf?
Looking forward to trying your recipe, I usually do 6g yeast, 200g discard, 400 flour, and 270 water w/ 25g honey. Also a few stretch and folds in the first hour and a half, after an hr rest. Curious to see results, thanks again.
So easy and so good!! I feel like it’s totally fool proof. I “messed up” several stops on the way – added a little too much starter, added a little too much flour, over proofed, used cold water by mistake, etc. – and it still came out amazing. So chewy and flavorful!
Would leaving it in the fridge for 24 hours give it more of the active sourdough health benefits?
All I can say is WOW!! I had so much discard on hand and was overwhelmed with other recipes. Your recipe was super simple and QUICK! After removing it from the Dutch oven, I brushed some butter on top. I will be making this again and sharing the recipe!
Made this recipe multiple times! Great was to use your discard.
so I made this bread yesterday. It turned out fluffy and delicious. I changes the conversion to cups as in 2 cups flour, 1.4 cup water, 1.2 tsp salt, 2.5 tsp yeast, half cup discard starter. I amixed green olives and parmasean cheese in it . it tasted so delicious. However, the dough was a bit liquidy so was unable to hoop it. How do I fix it?
Bread pretty good if you realize as you take it out of oven, you didn’t add the sourdough!!! 🤦♀️
Oh no Susan! At least it was still pretty good. 🙂
I made this on a whim to have with fresh chanterelle mushroom soup and it turned out amazing!!! Thanks for sharing this recipe I’ll definitely use it again.
Hello. I made your Easy Sourdough Discard Bread. I followed your instructions and then put the dough in the fridge in one bowl covered. the next morning I took out the dough and let it warm up for about 45 minutes. I then separated the dough into 2 loaves .I let that sit for about 30 min., then proceeded to bake. The loaves did not rise up. Should I have separated the bread into 2 loaves and covered them and put in the fridge? Also if I wanted to make the dough at night and bake in the morning how would you proceed with the preheating of cast iron dutch oven? thank you leland. PS. Made your Discard Crackers used grated Parmesan and cracked pepperoni sesame seeds on one batch and farm,cracked pepper and fresh rosemary on the other, very good. we ate too many the first day. thank you for your Recipes
Yay, I successfully made this discard bread, tasted scrumptious. I am going to make it again tomorrow as I will have instant yeast and not just plain yeast. Thanks for the recipe.
At first i was like i am not sure why yeast is in there . Doing research discard is more about flavor than rise. A few things i did do that wasn’t listen i did 2 stretch and folds 30 min apart to help establish gluten and to be more manageable. I don’t have an option for 430f degrees, so i just did 425f degree i baked closed lid for 45 min and baked uncovered for 15 til golden brown. I waited an hour to slice in , still had the sourdough flavor not to sour perfect combination. it was soft not gummy . loved it . and the spring on it was beyond beautiful. I did pop it in my freezer for 15 min before scoring my loaf .
Hello, wondering if you do store in the fridge, what is the process after. Do we fold and stretch? Or just plop it out on some flour on a counter and try to shape and then bake ? Do I need to leave it out to get to room temp or wait for it to rise if it does rise ?
No need for stretch and folds. Let it come to room temperature before baking (about 30 mins or so).
This recipe is my favorite bread recipe! It’s awsome! I have a question about the Calorie count, that can’t be 1647k as in 1,647,000 calories? Is the added k a mistake?
Hi Sarah, Though it seems deceiving, kilocalories and calories are the same thing, and used interchangeably. It’s 1,647 kcal or 1,647 calories. 🙂
Made this last night in my cast iron and it is SOOOOOO delicious. Had it with homemade chicken/rice soup. Pairs so good together and I definitely plan on making it again!!!
If I want to add jalapeños & cheddar, at what step do I add those in?
For jalapeno cheddar bread, I recommend this recipe.
Made this today. Followed the recipe and it turned out techange.
A nice tender crumb.
I’m at 7000 feet and made no changes for the first try, but will add another gram or two of salt as high altitude just needs that for flavor.
Next time I will put in the fridge to see how the flavors change.
I love this recipe – I’ve been baking this bread at least once a week since I started growing my starter, and it’s one of the best. Thank you 🤩
I love this recipe I always do and is so practical! I have a question, can i cut in two loafs ? If yes, for how long? The same time?
So glad you love the recipe. Yes you can split into two loaves, just bake for the same amount of time 🙂
I used all purpose flour. I didn’t have the pockets of air in my bread it was more dense. First time, so I don’t know if that’s normal. It also looked doughy on the outside once done, not browned. Any suggestions what I could have done differently?
My dough came out impossibly sticky – could it be over proofed?
First off great bread recipe! Do you think you could split this into 2 smaller loaves? & What the cook time would be? Thank you
This recipe works! I thought it looked too simple to make nice bread but we like the finished product a lot. I think it might need a bit more of a rise in my kitchen (revision for next time I try it). I plan to try a rye version next.
It seemed like a great idea to add yeast, so I gave this one a try yesterday. Another failure. Heavy, dense loaf. Not well browned. I have been baking sourdough for close to a year and my loaves in Michigan were quite nice; big and fluffy with a nice crust. Then we came back to Florida for Winter Season and I haven’t had a successful loaf since. I’ve been working on my starter since the last week of November – so that’s coming up to a month and still not a single loaf has been IMHO worth eating. I’m trying the ‘cold from the fridge’ method this morning so we’ll see if that gets better results.
Really good and SO EASY! Definitely making again!
As a long time sourdough baker, I’m always searching for great ways to use my discard. Lately, I’ve been feeding my starter daily, so I need recipes that can use a lot of discard that are not “junk” foods. This recipe uses a good amount of starter. I made my first batch today, and after waiting 3 hours for the boule to cool, I couldn’t wait to slice into it. I got a nicely browned crispy crust with a uniform soft closely spaced crumb… very light in texture, but chewy. It baked evenly with no big pockets. We just sampled it and it was delicious. These are the changes I made. I used 100% whole white hard wheat milled in my kitchen immediately before starting the bake. Since I was using 100% freshly milled whole wheat, I decided to add only the water to the flour first, mixing thoroughly by hand and then allowed it to sit, covered, for an hour. Then I added the remaining ingredients, gently squeezing and folding the salt, yeast, and discard into the hydrated flour. At the 30 minute mark, I did a round of gentle stretches to develop the gluten, dipping my hands in water to avoid sticking. When the dough had doubled, I used a plastic bench scraper to move the dough out of the bowl and then formed it into a tight, well formed boule while rotating the dough mass and simultaneously dragging the boule across my silicone mat to create a taut boule. I scored it with my lame easily. When I removed the lid at 30 minutes, I was very surprised at the great oven spring as well as the nice ear. I allowed it to bake uncovered for another 20 minutes. I’ll definitely be making this recipe again with other combinations of freshly milled whole wheat berries. Thanks for a great recipe!
Oh my goodness, this recipe is fantastic! This is not a season for making regular sourdough bread, so I really appreciate this EASY hybrid option (that’s still so superior to store-bought bread). This is a very relaxed, forgiving recipe. My dough came together kind of messily after rising, I was in a rush, and I didn’t score it…and I got a wonderful load of bread that my whole family raved about! A new staple for us, for sure. I have another batch in the fridge right now to bake in the morning. Thank you!
I made this yesterday and it is truly THE BEST bread I’ve ever baked! Just so perfect! I did up the salt from 10g to 15g per suggestion from a reviewer.
Question. Has anyone tried making this with more starter than called for? I’m willing to try. I will do the math to get the weight the same as this recipe. Don’t get me wrong, this is seriously delicious and the texture just so perfect, but I’m wanting even more tartness and to use more of ALL this discard I’ve saved!