Name: Sourdough Discard Sandwich Bread - Easy Recipe
Prep time: 240 min
Cook time: 30 min
Total time: 270 min
Ingredients: 1 cup sourdough discard; 2 1/2 cups milk or buttermilk (any kind of milk - warm is best if your house is cool); 2 tbsp fat (butter, oil, melted coconut oil or beef tallow (warm is best if your house is cool), or 1 egg); 2 tbsp sweetener (honey or sugar); 2 tbsp yeast (active or instant); 2 tsp salt; 6-7 cups all purpose or bread flour

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This sourdough discard sandwich bread has a fluffy texture, a soft crust and makes the perfect sandwiches! Whenever possible, I try to make long fermented sourdough sandwich bread because of the health benefits. But when I’m in a hurry, and just need some sandwich loaves made really quickly, I make this sourdough discard version of my favorite sandwich bread recipe.

Because this recipe is made with sourdough discard, you have to add some conventional yeast to the dough in order to get the bread to raise. Quick sourdough bread made with yeast isn’t as healthy as long fermented sourdough bread, but it’s still better for you than regular bread from the store because at least some of the flour in the recipe is fermented in the sourdough starter. I think you’ll love this quick sourdough sandwich bread recipe especially in the summertime when it’s sandwich season.

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

Simple and Easy – I like to make this recipe because it is so simple. There is no stretching and folding or difficult steps to follow. I just put it into my Bosch mixer, mix it up, and then let it rise a couple times and bake. The entire process takes about half a day from start to finish, but it takes less than 10 minutes of active time, as most of the time it is just raising or baking. The timing of this is also flexible and can be adjusted to almost any schedule.
Quick – when I need sandwich bread quickly, this sourdough discard sandwich loaf is my go-to recipe. Although it’s not as healthy as my long-fermented sandwich loaf, it works great when we need sandwich bread right away because it takes less time to make.
No Scale Needed – this recipe can easily be made without a scale as everything is measured in cups, although I have added in the option for you to convert this to grams in the recipe card below.
Taste and Texture – The taste and texture of this sourdough sandwich bread will be unlike any other sandwich bread you will make. It has a super soft crumb, and will stay soft and moist for several days.

Ingredients

Flour – for best results I recommend using all or mostly white flour in this sourdough sandwich bread as it will make a softer and more beautiful dough. Bleached or unbleached all-purpose flour or bread flour works the best. Unbleached flour is obviously healthier for you and bread flour will make a more beautiful loaf than just all-purpose flour because it has a higher protein content, but any of these flours will work. If you use whole grain or whole wheat flour, I suggest using at least half all-purpose or bread flour when making your bread for best results. A loaf made with 100% whole grain flour will be more dense than you will like for sandwiches.

I like to get my high protein bread flour in bulk from Azure Standard. You can check it out here.
Milk – you can use any kind of milk in this recipe. I like to use raw milk or buttermilk from my Jersey cows, but you can use any kind of milk that you like. The milk helps to give the bread a softer texture.
Fat – here’s where the recipe starts to get flexible. You can add almost any kind of fat that you have in your kitchen. Butter, coconut oil or beef tallow are some of my favorites, or if I have extra eggs around I will often just add an egg in place of the fat.
Sweetener – you can use honey, sugar, or anything similar in this recipe. I like to make it with a small amount of sweetener, but you can certainly increase the amount of sweetener if you’d like the bread to be more sweet. My family likes this recipe when I make it with the same amount of sweetener as my Amish white bread recipe, which has 2/3 cups of sugar for a 2 loaf batch of bread. Yes, that’s a lot of sugar, but it makes a really yummy sweet bread, and is still much better for you than store-bought bread.
Sourdough Discard – I try to keep my sourdough jar in my refrigerator fairly full of sourdough at all times so I can easily make any kind of discard recipe including this sandwich bread. I have a full tutorial on how I care for my sourdough starter here.
Salt – I like to use redmond real salt, but you can use whatever salt you have on hand. Salt is what gives the bread it’s flavor, and it’s really important not to leave it out.
Yeast – because we’re using sourdough discard in this recipe, which I keep in my refrigerator, we are adding some commercial yeast to the recipe to get it to rise quickly. Without the added yeast, bread made with discard either won’t raise properly or it will take it a long time to raise. I have made this many times with both instant yeast and regular active dry yeast.

This post contains affiliate links, which means I make a small commission at no extra cost to you. See my full disclosure here

Tools You May Need

Stand mixer – my favorite mixer is a Bosch. They are very heavy duty and a good investment if you plan to cook from scratch. They pay themselves off in no time especially with the high cost of groceries.
Measuring cups and spoons
Large bowl
Bench scraper
Loaf pans – I like to use these large bread pans
Bread Bags

Favorite Sourdough Recipes:

How To Make Sourdough Discard Sandwich Bread

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook attachment, add all the ingredients except for the flour and mix on low speed just until combined. Then while the mixer is on low speed, add the flour until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl.

Turn the mixer on medium speed and allow the dough to mix for 8-10 minutes to allow the gluten to fully develop.

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Turn off the mixer and check the dough to make sure it’s soft and fluffy but not too sticky. If it feels super sticky, you can add a little more flour until it’s not so sticky.

Cover the mixer bowl and let the dough rise until double.

Once the dough has risen, punch it down and dump it out onto a lightly floured surface. Shape into loaves by first dividing the dough using a bench scraper. Flatten each piece of dough into a rectangle. Take each corner of dough that is closest to you and place in the middle of the rectangle forming a triangle. Take tip of triangle that is closest to you and roll away from you until the dough has formed into a loaf. Tuck the edges under if needed and place in greased loaf pans. (See video below).

Second Rise

Allow dough to do it’s second rise until its just above the edges of the loaf pans.

Bake

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Using a bread lame or razor blade, slash the tops of the loaves to allow more room for the loaf to expand.

Place loaves into oven and bake for 30 minutes or until the internal temperature of the bread is 190 degrees.

Remove from the oven and bread pans, and place on cooling rack. Brush the top of the loaf with butter to keep it nice and soft, and allow the bread to cool.

Enjoy

Slice and enjoy a couple of slices with fresh butter and strawberry jam. There’s nothing better than homemade bread!

Can be stored in a plastic bag on counter or refrigerator for up to a week, or frozen for up to three months. You can even slice and freeze a few slices in separate bags so you only have to take out a little bit of bread at a time. It’s best to freeze bread the same day that it is baked for the freshest taste.

If you try this recipe and love it, please come back and give it 5 stars! Tag me on Instagram @wagonwheelhomestead21. I can’t wait to see what all you make!

Tips

Use a stand mixer if possible, as it will make this bread so fast and easy to make. You can also make this without a mixer, and just use your hands, but it will be more work of course.
This bread freezes well, so if you won’t be able to eat all the loaves right away, you can just put some in the freezer, or shape some of the dough into cinnamon rolls or hamburger buns and bake it up that way.

This post contains affiliate links, which means I make a small commission at no extra cost to you. See my full disclosure here

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