This sourdough discard sandwich bread recipe is perfect for sandwiches and has that classic subtle sourdough tang while only taking a few hours to whip up rather than a day. A soft crust with a fluffy interior, this is the best and easiest recipe.
Sometimes you just need a loaf of homemade bread within a few hours.
Say company is coming over, or you didn’t plan dinner or lunch very well and realize you need some bread for sandwiches. Or maybe you are just getting into sourdough bread making and your starter isn’t mature enough to make bread just yet…
Well this discard sourdough sandwich bread is perfect for that. It uses commercial yeast to give it rise rather than relying on the natural yeast from the sourdough starter. But the sourdough starter still gives it a slight tang.
Is that slightly cheating? Maybe, but sometimes we just need something a little quicker and easier. Plus, there is just no comparing homemade to store-bought bread.
It is soft, buttery, and fluffy with a closed crumb. Perfect for sandwiches, french toast, toast, grilled cheese, bread pudding, and more.
Why you will love this recipe:
Easy recipe: This recipe takes very little hands-on time. After activating the yeasts, you just throw all the ingredients into a stand mixer and let it work its magic.
Quicker: Similar to my soft sourdough sandwich bread recipe, but much less time. Yeast breads just don’t take nearly as long as a sourdough loaf.
Great way to use sourdough starter discard: If you have a new starter and are discarding and feeding a lot, this is a great way to use up that extra discard.
Tips:
- Use really soft butter so it will combine with the rest of the dough ingredients really well and without chunks.
- Don’t let the dough over ferment. It will turn into a wet sloppy disaster that won’t rise well.
- When making the dough, using a stand mixer makes the process much easier and hands off. You can also do this with your hands.
- If you have a Professional KitchenAid stand mixer you can double this recipe. If you have a standard mixer, I would not recommend doubling.
- If you are new to sourdough, you can check out how to make a sourdough starter here.
This post contains affiliate links, which means I make a small commission at no extra cost to you. See my full disclosure here.
Ingredients:
Active dry yeast – The main ingredient to give this recipe rise, it doesn’t rely on the wild yeasts and bacteria in the starter to give it rise.
Butter – Softened
Honey – Could also substitute with sugar.
Salt – This gives the bread so much flavor and skipping it will leave you with a tasteless loaf.
Sourdough discard – This is a sourdough starter that hasn’t been fed in at least 12 hours. It is the portion you would typically just toss before feeding the starter. Active starter could also be used, but you will have a less tangy flavor. Find more sourdough discard recipes here.
Warm water – Room temperature. Make sure it is not too hot or you run the risk of killing the yeasts. It should be about 100 degrees F.
All-purpose flour – One of the best things about this recipe is it includes all-purpose flour, a pantry staple. If you have bread flour, that will also work.
Tools you may need:
Loaf pan
Large bowl with lid
Stand mixer with dough hook attachment
Rolling pin
Measuring cups and spoons or kitchen scale
Bench scraper: optional, but helpful.
How To Make Sourdough Discard Sandwich Bread
Whisk together warm water, sugar, and yeast. Allow it to sit at room temperature for about 5 minutes. The mixture should get nice and bubbly. Make sure the water isn’t too hot or it will kill the yeast.
To a bowl of a stand mixer with dough hook attachment, add all of the ingredients.
Knead on low speed until the dough is smooth and elastic – about 10 minutes or so. It may take longer. You can also do this by hand. It shouldn’t stick to the sides of the bowl.
To check to make sure the gluten has developed enough so the bread is nice and fluffy, it should pass the windowpane test. Grab a small ball of the dough and stretch it into a square. It should stretch thin enough to see through without breaking. If it breaks, it needs to be kneaded a little longer.
First Rise
Place the dough in a greased bowl with a lid, towel, or plastic wrap.
Let the dough rise (also known as bulk rise) for about 1-2 hours (or until it about doubles in size) in a warm place like on top of a stove or on top of the refrigerator.
Shape And Rise
Grease a bread pan or add parchment paper.
Roll the dough flat into a rectangle and roll it up. Pinch the ends to the rest of the loaf.
Add the shaped bread dough to the parchment lined or buttered loaf pans seam side down.
Second rise for 30 minutes to an hour at room temperature, or until doubled. Covered with a towel.
Optional: whisk an egg in a small bowl. Brush on top of the dough.
Bake the sandwich loaf at 375 for about 45 minutes, or until a lovely golden brown color on top. The internal temperature should be between 195-210 degrees F.
Allow to cool completely before slicing or storing.
Storage:
Store in an airtight container for up to a week or freeze for up to 3 months. Check out this post all about how to store sourdough bread.
FAQ
Can you do anything with sourdough starter discard?
Rather than throwing away your sourdough discard, you can use it for so many recipes. Especially recipes calling for other leaveners like yeast, baking soda and baking powder.
To learn how to make any recipe in sourdough, check out this post or for all my favorite sourdough discard recipes, check out this post.
Can you use sourdough discard in sourdough?
Yes. As long as the sourdough recipe has another type of leavener like baking soda or baking powder and doesn’t require the wild yeast in an active starter to rise the recipe (like in muffins, cookies, quick breads, cakes, etc.) then you probably can use discard.
What is the difference between sourdough bread and sourdough discard bread?
Sourdough bread relies on the wild yeast in active sourdough starter to give the bread its rise, whereas sourdough discard bread uses discard and relies on commercial yeast.
Is eating sourdough discard healthy?
Sourdough discard is healthy because the grains are already fermented and broken down. It works great in recipes, and if you add it to recipes and let it ferment, it will also ferment the grains in said recipe.
Can I use active sourdough starter for this recipe?
Yes. You can use an active starter for this recipe even though it calls for discard.
Find More Discard Sourdough Recipes:
- The Easiest Artisan Sourdough Bread
- Sourdough Discard Pretzels
- The Best Sourdough Discard Scones
- Easy Sourdough Discard Bagels
- Discard Focaccia
If you make this recipe and love it, I would love if you gave it 5 stars! Tag me on Instagram @farmhouseonboone with your delicious creation.
Sourdough Discard Sandwich Bread
Ingredients
- 1 cup water, 236 grams
- 1 tablespoon honey, 21 grams
- 3 teaspoons active dry yeast, 9 grams
- 4 tablespoons butter, 56 grams, softened
- 4 cups all purpose flour, 560 grams
- 1/2 tablespoon salt, 8 grams
- 1 cup sourdough discard, 250 grams
Instructions
- Whisk together warm water, honey, and yeast. Allow it to sit at room temperature for about 5 minutes. The mixture should get nice and bubbly.
- To a bowl of a stand mixer with dough hook attachment, add water yeast mixture, butter, flour, salt, and sourdough discard.
- Knead on low speed until dough is smooth and elastic- about 10 minutes or so. It may take longer. You can also do this by hand. It shouldn't stick to the sides of the bowl.
- To check to make sure the gluten has developed enough so the bread is nice and fluffy, it should pass the windowpane test. Grab a small ball of the dough and stretch it into a square. It should stretch thin enough to see through without breaking.
- Place the dough in a greased bowl with a lid, plastic wrap, or towel.
- Let the dough rise (also known as bulk rise) for about 1-2 hours (or until it about doubles in size) in a warm place like on top of a stove or on top of the refrigerator.
- Grease a bread pan or add parchment paper.
- Roll the dough flat into a rectangle and roll it up. Pinch the ends to the rest of the loaf.
- Add the shaped bread dough to the parchment lined or buttered loaf pans seam side down.
Second rise for 30 minutes to an hour at room temperature, or until doubled. Covered with a towel. - Optional: whisk an egg in a small bowl. Brush on top of the dough.
- Bake the sandwich loaf at 375 for about 45 minutes, or until a lovely golden brown color on top.
- Allow to cool completely before slicing or storing.
Notes
- The internal temperature of baked bread should be between 195-210 degrees F
- Use really soft butter so it will combine with the rest of the dough ingredients really well and without chunks.
- Don’t over ferment the dough. It will turn into a wet sloppy disaster that won’t rise well.
- When making the dough, using a stand mixer makes the process much easier and hands off. You can also do this with your hands.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
This bread turned out really great except I would double the salt if not more!
This sourdough discard sandwich bread is a lifesaver. I am a moderately experienced sourdough baker but needed to find something other than waffles to use up my excess instead of just throwing it away. I had tremendous success with this recipe from the very first time. I have since modified it to make whole wheat, cinnamon swirl, cinnamon raisin and am now in the middle of making oatmeal raisin. The basic recipe is simple enough but allows for modifications readily. Everyone loves it toasted. I like the recipe because it uses 250g of unfed starter. I imagine if I were having trouble with this recipe I would examine all the basics, water temp, oven temp, yeast action, etc. The recipe seems pretty sound as it is written.
Awesome
Easy and excellent
I have been making sourdough and yeast risen bread loaves for years and have never had a recipe fail so bad. This was really disappointing because I wasted all the ingredients and time. Reading through reviews, there are more than enough people who have experienced this as well so I feel it’s warranted by now for the author to retest and revise this recipe. The ratio of “fails” can no longer be contributed to user error, IMO. I think this recipe is just bad and needs to be fixed.
To start, any baking recipe but ESPECIALLY bread recipes should use weight measurements. You can measure a cup of flour 10 times and each time it’ll weigh a different amount of grams. This recipe needs to be tested and rewritten with grams. That MAY solve most issues.
It’s hard to know though if the other issues I experienced were solely based on the fact that you are only given cup measurements. To start, the dough was not like any other bread dough I’ve worked with. I agree with other commenters that it was almost play-dough like. Even after the 10 minute kneading, it still didn’t seem right.
Once I let it proof the second time, it didn’t hold its “crust”, meaning the formed loaf split all over and basically was no longer in a loaf shape. I couldn’t even bake this loaf because I knew it was a lost cause.
I also think this is slightly too much dough for a standard loaf pan. I ended up not using all of it because it clearly would overfill the pan.
Anyways, save your time and money and find another recipe until this one has been properly retested and updated.
I love this recipe for my sourdough discard! It comes out perfectly every time!
You see the button that says “METRIC” right next to “US Customary”? Yeah, that button does exactly what you’re complaining about.
Used this recipe MANY times and never have had an issue. Makes the most delicious sandwich bread. I think the problem is in your kitchen.
I doubled the recipe, but baked in 3 loaf pans. The dough is super nice to work with, and I ended up with 3 beautiful loaves of bread. I love using the discard, but haven’t been brave enough to try a sourdough loaf.
There’s a button under the list of ingredients for metric, which shows all of the measurements in grams. Just a heads up 😉
The recipe does provide what you are asking for. There is a button to click with the recipe for metric units, it is directly under the last ingredient. I have used the metric version of this recipe since May and have made it two dozen times. It has turned out great everytime! I do use instant yeast because that is just what we have and I have started dividing the dough after the first rise into 2 loaf pans. Those are the only alterations I have made.
This is the 4th time I’m baking this bread and it comes out perfect every time. Because there’s just the two of us, I cut the loaf in half, wrap it twice in plastic wrap, put it in a zip bag and freeze it. Thanks for sharing. I love your site.
Such good and easy sandwich bread. I made 2 small loaves and baked them for about 35 minutes. Thank you!
Everything was going perfectly. The dough was the right consistency and shape. It rose quickly each time (about 15-20 minutes faster) but it’s summer so I didn’t think much of it. It exploded up in the oven…it looks like it should be split into two loaves and not one. Hoping it can cook all the way through and still work.
I am able to make this into one loaf, but there are a lot of people who split this up into two loaves! Sorry you had an issue with it.
3rd time making this and am trying it with whole wheat flour instead of bread flour excited to try this.
The bread is delicious, and easy to make. I wish I could upload a picture, because the final product is hilarious to to look at. I doubled the recipe because I needed two loaves. I read the recipe through a few times and thought it was for only one loaf, so I doubled it. It rose up quickly on the first rise, so I shaped if and put it in the pans. The second rise put it well above the tops of the loaf pans within 25 minutes. Too late to turn back, I went ahead and put them in the oven. The loaves doubled again! I had a full loaf on the top of the pan! I sent my sisters pictures and one of them dubbed it Dolly Parton bread. From this point forward, every time I make this recipe I will refer to it as the Dolly Parton bread. It’s excellent. The crumb is tender and the flavor delicious.