Easy Dinner Roll Recipe

This easy dinner roll recipe makes soft, fluffy, buttery rolls with minimal effort. Step-by-step instructions ensure perfect results, even for beginners!

These easy rolls are based on my potato rolls. The forgiving dough bakes into a light, fluffy, and buttery roll. Don’t be fooled by the name, you can have homemade restaurant quality rolls for breakfast, lunch, dinner, or a snack! You’ll find yourself craving them nightly.

Make sure you eat some rolls fresh out of the oven (that is the baker’s reward) then serve the rest with a bowl of vegan chili, ricotta meatballs, this brown sugar glazed meatloaf recipe, or even this mustard crusted pork.

Ingredients & Substitutions

• All-Purpose Flour: All-purpose flour has the perfect amount of gluten for developing a strong network while remaining tender and soft. If you only have bread flour, you can use that instead, but it will take less time to develop the gluten, and your final product will be a bit chewier than tender.
• Water & Milk: In this recipe, I use a combination of water and milk for hydration. I do this because I want a bit of the fat and flavor from the milk, but not too much flavor that it takes all the glory from the butter. I prefer baking with whole milk, but you could use skim milk, alternative milks, or even make this recipe using all water. You could even use buttermilk, like I do in my whole wheat rolls!
• Kosher Salt
• Active Dry Yeast: Active dry yeast requires the added step of hydration, but it is fast yet controllable. If you don’t have active dry yeast, you can substitute double the weight of fresh yeast or half the weight in instant yeast. If using either fresh or instant yeast, you can add it straight to the batter, but mixing it into the sponge will still kickstart the fermentation and gluten development!
• Granulated Sugar: A little bit of sugar is added here for flavor and caramelization of the crust and to give the yeast an easy, readily accessible food supply to get the party started! You can substitute dark brown sugar, honey, or maple syrup. The honey and syrup will make the dough slightly more sticky.
• Butter

See the recipe card for full information on ingredients and quantities.

Variations

• Make into a loaf.  Divide and shape this same recipe into two loaves. Follow my brioche bread recipe for dividing, shaping, and baking.
• Add some nuts and dried fruit. You can add raisins like in my sourdough raisin bread, or take inspiration from this cherry sourdough bread. You can add any combination of dried fruit or nuts you wish, up to one pound. 
• Cheese! After you reach the window pane test mix in some hard cheeses like cheddar, parmesan, or gruyere! Sprinkle some on top before baking too! Maybe serve it with some tomato soup!
• Spice up the bread! Use my pumpkin spice recipe, like I do in these pumpkin dinner rolls. You can add up to a tablespoon of spice without changing the recipe. 

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Professional Tips 

• Make sure your yeast is active. If the sponge has set for a few minutes and there are no bubbles, it means the yeast is dead. It’s time to get new yeast and start over. Don’t continue to make the bread; you will just end up with dense “rolls.” 
• Use room temperature butter and milk. This will make it easier to mix and faster to proof. The softer butter will mix in quicker and won’t cool the dough, so it will proof faster. 
• Don’t skimp on the proofing. It is tempting to skip the bulk proof (the first proofing), but that’s one of the most important aspects of fluffy and soft bread! It needs that time to develop its flavor and structure.

How to Make Homemade Easy Dinner Rolls

Use these instructions to make these pillowy dinner rolls! Further details and measurements can be found in the recipe card below.

Make the Sponge:

Step 1: Mix the sponge. Combine all the ingredients for the sponge in a medium bowl and mix with your hands. You can mix with a spoon, but it will be more difficult because the mixture is so wet.

Step 2: Let it rest. Cover with plastic wrap and set in a warm spot until visibly bubbly, about 20 minutes.

Mix the Dough:

I usually scale the remaining ingredients while the sponge is sitting. (Scale is just a fancy chef word for weigh.)

Step 3: Combine the dough. Add the flour, remaining sugar, salt, butter, egg, and sponge to the bowl of a stand mixer. Mix on low speed with the paddle attachment until combined.

Step 4: Switch to the dough hook and mix on medium speed until a rough window pane can be pulled. This can take 10- 15 minutes. It is an enriched dough, meaning the gluten will develop slower. 

A ‘window pane’ means the dough will have pulled together, making one cohesive dough around the hook and pulling off the sides of the bowl. To test, pinch off a piece and gently pull the sides apart, rotate, and pull again. The dough should not tear; you should be able to see through some of the dough like a window pane, but then there will be pieces of dough that look rough. This is what you want.

Proofing and Shaping: 

Step 5: First proof. Scrape the dough into a well-oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap or a kitchen towel, and allow it to proof for 30 minutes in a warm place. 

Step 6: Fold the dough by grabbing one side, pulling it upwards out of the bowl, and then folding it over ⅓ of the dough. Rotate the bowl 180 degrees and repeat with the opposite side. Rotate a quarter turn and repeat the same folding technique. Rotate the bowl 180 degrees and make the final fold. You should have a nice, tight square packet of dough.

Cover with plastic wrap and allow to double in a warm place. Mine took about an additional 30 minutes.

Step 7: Prepare the pan. While the dough is finishing its bulk proofing, grease a 9 x 13-inch baking dish with cooking spray or butter.

Step 8: Turn out dough. When the dough has doubled and feels light and airy when touched, turn it out onto an unfloured surface. The dough is soft, supple, and not sticky!

Step 9: Divide into 12 equal portions. You can eyeball or weigh them. 

For perfectly portioned buns that bake evenly, use a kitchen scale. They should weigh about 87 grams each.

Step 10: Shape the rolls. Take a portion and fold it in half, and then place the seam side down on the counter. Roll in the palm of your hand into a ball and shape each into boules, using your thumb as a guide. Place each roll equidistant apart in the prepared baking pan.

Step 11: Final proof. Cover and place back in the warm spot to double. This took about 30 minutes for me. Preheat the oven to 350°F.

Time to bake: 

Step 12: When the buns are ready to bake (doubled and light and airy), brush with beaten egg.

Step 13: Bake in the preheated oven for 20-22 minutes until golden brown or until an instant-read thermometer reads 185°F when inserted into the center of one of the middle buns. If you don’t have a thermometer, you can insert a cake tester or toothpick into the center, and it should come out with clinging crumbs but no streaks of dough!

Step 14: Brush the hot buns with melted butter to emulate my shiny, enticing tops! Technically, they should cool, but who has the patience? I say dig right in.

Recipe FAQs

Before You Go

I hope you enjoyed this buttery and soft dinner roll recipe! Check out our other delicious, yeasted bread recipes  like these parmesan garlic knots or this potato bread!