Soft Sourdough Breadsticks

These soft sourdough breadsticks are fluffy, buttery, and brushed with garlic butter, then finished with parmesan and herbs. Perfect for serving warm with dinner or as an easy snack.

Course Appetizer

Cuisine American

Keyword Sourdough Recipes

Prep Time 1

Cook Time 22

Fermentation Time 8

Total Time 9 22

Servings Breadsticks

Calories 178kcal

Author Kate Freebairn

Equipment

Stand Mixer (it's so easy to knead this in a stand mixer, but as always you can easily knead this by hand too).

Ingredients

Dough

100 g Sourdough Starter (fed and bubbly, see notes for using discard)
140 g Water
20 g Honey
20 g Olive Oil
270 g Bread Flour
7 g Salt

Toppings

50 g Butter (melted)
3 g Powdered Garlic
30 g Parmesan Cheese (finely grated)
1 tsp Italian Herbs (just a sprinkle)
1 tsp Flaky Sea Salt (just a sprinkle)

Instructions

Add the sourdough starter, water, honey and olive oil to a medium sized mixing bowl or the bowl of your stand mixer and give it a good stir to combine the ingredients.
Now add the bread flour and salt on top of the liquid ingredients. If you are using a stand mixer, use the dough hook attachment to knead the dough until it's soft and supple (around 2 to 3 minutes on speed 1-2). If kneading by hand, use your hands to bring the ingredients together into a rough dough in the bowl and then tip out onto a clean surface and knead by hand until the dough is soft and supple. This takes around 5 minutes by hand (unless you're doing a double batch, it may take a bit longer).
Once the dough is kneaded, place it into a bowl and let it bulk ferment until the dough has risen around 50% in the bowl. This will take a good few hours as the dough is enriched. Placing it somewhere warm always helps to speed this along.
Once the dough has risen, you need to divide it into 10 equally weighted pieces. I have made these around 55g each. Take each piece of dough and pinch it into a ball. Let these balls of dough sit for around 10 minutes so the gluten can relax.
Now shape your breadsticks. Pull the balls of dough into a rough rectangle with the long edge closest to you. Then fold the bottom edge over and push down and then over again and pull the dough towards you to tension it. If they aren't as long as you want them to be, let the dough relax again and then gently roll them on the counter until they are as long as you want them. I've made mine around 8" in length.
Place the soft sourdough breadsticks on a parchment lined baking sheet and cover with a damp dish towel and allow them to proof. You want them to get really soft and puffy before you bake them, so don't skip this step!
When you're ready to bake, preheat your oven to 175ºC / 350ºF. Once it's at temperature, lightly spray the soft sourdough breadsticks with water and bake for around 22 minutes. Keep an eye on these, you don't want them to get too brown, you want them to stay pale and soft.
While they're baking, prepare the topping. Melt the butter and add the garlic powder into this. Set aside with the parmesan, flaky salt and Italian herbs.
Once baked, remove them from the oven, and while they're still on the tray, brush with the garlic butter, sprinkle with a little flaky salt and Italian herbs and sprinkle over some finely grated Parmesan cheese (I like to use a zester and sprinkle it straight over the top).
Serve warm!

Notes

Sourdough Starter - I prefer to use active sourdough starter to make these soft sourdough breadsticks, but if you would prefer to use discard, swap out the 100g of sourdough starter for sourdough discard and add a pinch of instant yeast to help things along.

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