Recipes

sourdough bread recipes

This page is a rollup of all my naturally leavened sourdough bread recipes, plus anything else I’ve managed to concoct in my kitchen. Below you’ll find a breakdown of the top level categories, some smaller categories (like tips on mixing, shaping, etc.) and if you’re looking for something very specific use the search bar at right to get right to it.



Sourdough starter creation & maintenance:

Guides:

Beginner sourdough recipes:

White (mostly):

100% Whole grain:

Mostly whole grain:

Rye:

Ancient Grains:

Using Fresh Milled Flour:

Specialty ingredients (nuts, seeds & more):

Sprouted Grain/Cereal:

Porridge sourdough:

Pan breads:

Mixing techniques:

In progress…

Shaping techniques:

In progress…

Other recipes with sourdough starter:

Flour testing:

Other food:

Do It Yourself

Go to top.

… and that’s the list. I hope you’ve clicked on something before reaching here, otherwise let me know what sourdough bread recipe you were looking for and I’ll get baking!

  • jinal contractor

    I am seriously hooked with your bog and writing, however gladly!!!! I have been maintaining two different starter (100% WW and Rye) and its been a huge waste of discard since I can only bake one or twice a week based on my schedule. Seems like combining two will be a greater relief and make feeding easier. Thanks for new perspective.

    Now bake to square one, what happens if you feed starter only one a week and hold back the discard and collect them together for 3-4 days and use once for weekend breakfast? and question #2, what if I feed once a day; in that case when I want to bake bread; will I need to build leaven to have more active and less sour tasting starter to mix dough, correct?

    From the beginning my biggest challenge is to reduce waste at the same time trying to keep the starter healthy & ready when I want to bake it with. I find scheduling is a greater challenge that I want to win over. However I understand the twice a day feeding schedule is like having leaven ready when you are ready to bake if one is baking practically 5 out of 7 days.

    Will feeding once a day is same as keeping it in hibernation. How does any of these two practices effect bread baking? In taste? Crumb? or oven spring? start to finish time? Your reccomandation for feeding twice is ideal but I am worried for the discard that I will have to throw away not having facility to compost or use it as one in condo/multidwelling situation. Apologizing for long comment.

    • Thanks for the comments! I’ll tackle your questions below:

      – If you hold back all the discard over a week, by the end of the week that discard will be extremely sour tasting, and slightly alcoholic. There won’t be any rising power left. I don’t recommend this.
      – You can definitely feed your starter only once a day, that is plenty. If you want to bake I do recommend feeding twice a day at least the day before you bake, this will help reduce the acidity in your starter so your bread isn’t quite so sour, and also help get your starter up to speed.

      If you want to reduce “waste” by feeding, you can always store your starter in the fridge all week, take it out, say, on Thursday and then bake with it on Saturday. This way you are only feeding a few days of the week. Or, if you want to bake only once every two weeks just leave it in the fridge until you want to bake with it.

      I bake 3-4 times a week so I continue to feed my starter 2 times a day, but this is not practical for everyone. If you are only baking once a week, or once every two weeks, using the refrigerator is the best bet.

      If you want to make some other food with the discard from your starter, check out a few of my recipes for pancakes, waffles and banana bread (there’s a lot more you can do as well!). I use my leftover starter quite often in these recipes and also in other breads (banana, zucchini, walnut, etc).

      I hope that helps, let me know if you have any more questions, or feel free to send me an email through the “Contact” link at the very top. Happy baking!

  • Hi What a great blog! I have now one of the most vigorous starters I have ever seen thanks to your posts here and my sd bread baking has really taken of. I have recently been playing with the longer autolyse period suggested in one of your posts and results have also been great.

    I use a flour combo of 70/20/10 AP/WW/Rye all organic and the WW & Rye are stone ground.

    A request – Please put up something in the Rye section. I’d love to see how you work with it.

    Thanks
    Geoffrey

    • Thanks so much Geoffrey! Your flour mixture sounds perfect, I bet that stoneground rye really gets things moving.

      I’m working on several rye recipes here soon and hope to fill in that section. I’ve received many requests for rye recipes!

      Thanks for the comments and happy baking!

      • The stone ground Rye truly puts a kick onto the starter. I have another mother which is just ap and we. The Rye based starter has a run that is really really vigorous and about 6 tomes greater than the other.

        • I see exactly the same results — it’s incredible, really!

  • Zaira | The Freaky Table

    Your passion for Sourdough is wonderful. I absolutely love all your
    recipes, and also the pictures are very nice! I spent half of my
    morning through this amazing blog and now that I’ve found it… I’ll
    come back often!
    Zaira

    • Thank you so much Zaira! I’m equally a huge fan of your site and will be there digging through your recipes this winter — ciao ciao!

  • Scotty Alderman

    Man, I love this blog. Thanks for making one that’s nice to look at too! Very clean and easy to navigate. Good on ya.

    I have a quick question about troubleshooting. I’ve done this recipe (following the timelines too—very helpful) for a few weeks now with some inconsistent results. When it’s good, it’s really good. Where things aren’t turning out so well is after I pull the loaves out and remove covers, I’m getting collapsed bread about 50% of the time. I’ve read that it’s an over-proofing (over-fermenting?) problem. Not sure where I should fix it in the process though. I’ve experimented with a few variables, but I’m not quite getting it. The overnight proof in the refrigerator seems correct. Am I letting the bulk fermentation at room temp go too long? The ambient temp in the kitchen is about 75° / 47-50% humidity (I’m in Florida.) If I were going to cut ferment time down, would I start with 30 minutes or so? Or, should I just watch the dough more closely? It’s seems tricky to get the fermentation right while also giving the dough enough time to relax and form the gluten network properly with stretch and folds. Anyway, if you find a sec, any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! -Scotty

    • Thanks Scotty, I appreciate that!

      A collapse, or significant spreading, in the oven can be a sign of overproof, yes. There are other things that could cause this as well (e.g. not enough tension in your dough from shaping) but let’s focus on overproofing first. Bulk should be somewhere in the ballpark of 3.5-4.5 hours at around 75-82ºF — depending on the mix of flour you’re using (whole grains ferment faster). At around 3.5 hours start to look for signs your dough is ready to be divided and preshaped: if you tug a little on the dough with a wet hand it will resist pulling, the dough will look smoother, the edge between the dough and the bowl will be slightly concave (domed) and there will be bubbles on top and the sides.

      For your proof in the fridge, give the dough a poke with a wet finger in the morning. Does it feel strong or does it feel very weak? If it’s weak you could be proofing for a bit too long, cut it back a few hours and see if that helps.

      The best advice I can give for troubleshooting this type of problem is to pick a single recipe (like my Tartine #33) and just bake that one over and over until you dial it in. If the dough spreads or collapses do the same recipe next time (try to keep everything you can consistent, temps, times, etc.) and back off the proof 2 hours to see if that helps. Changing only one variable at a time will help you diagnose this issue faster and give you a direct correlation between cause and effect.

      I hope that helps, Scotty — happy baking!

  • illya

    Found u, don’t know how I ended up here.Luv what I see. Long ago on another Island my son gifted me the old LAUREL’S KITCHEN book on breads. I baked through the book almost. A wonderful book w/no colored pictures.
    Still now only Portuguese Sweetbread and Finnish Braided bread do I make. I will start back again w/ur basic Sourdough, thanks much! Debra

    • Debra — thanks for stopping by and thanks for the kind words! I’ve heard about that book but sadly I haven’t had a chance to read it, I’m going to have to try and find a copy (several people now have commented on it!).

      My “Beginner’s Sourdough” is the perfect place to start, a great jumping off point to get reacquainted with sourdough. If you ever have any questions feel free to shoot me an email (through the Contact link at the top of my website) or just comment on a post.

      Happy baking!

  • g2gsr

    Thank you so much for your great blog! I’ve been struggling with various starters for the last month and finally have your starter alive and well and ready to start using in some bakes. No questions here, just a suggestion for another addition to your recipes section……Sourdough English Muffins. I will be experimenting with those in the near future, but would love to see what you can come up with!! Thanks again!

    • Thanks for the comments, really appreciate that! Sourdough English Muffins are on my radar! I actually just picked up some rings for these and will start experimenting with them soon. It’s something I grew up eating as a kid and I’m looking to replicate those muffins exactly — so good.

      Thanks again and keep an eye open for that recipe!

  • Yan

    Hi Maurizio,
    I would like to try the banana bread recipe, but can you advise how many g equal to one cup?

    Many thanks,
    Yan

    • Hi, Yan! Unfortunately I don’t have a personal measurement for this although I do plan on converting all those recipes to metric as well as Imperial units (should have done this a long time ago!).

      A good approximation is 1 cup all purpose flour = about 125g.

      Hope that helps!

  • 賴玉如

    Hi Maurizio, this is the first that I’m writing to you. I started to get interests in sourdough about 2 weeks ago and I have used a different recipe to create my starter before I stumble upon your website. I live in Taiwan and we have a very high humidity. My starter is still alive and looking healthier and healtier (I feed it with equal amount of water and organice fye flour). I have tried to bake a few times with different outcome each time. The most recent one when I cut into it (after 3 or so hours out of the oven), it felt a bit “moist” on the bread. Is that normal? I was thinking was it too much water as it is very humid here, or that I over – proof the dough as I didn’t have time to bake after 12 hours in fridge, it went to nearly 24.
    I am trying to get better at this so I can pass it onto as many people as I can so we can all eat health bread. So, I am really grateful to you that you share so much of your information and experience on your amazing site. I am lucky that I read and write English as there’s just isn’t much information on sourdough in Chinese.
    Thanks again and look forward to hearing from you.

    • Sorry for the late reply, I’ve been out on travel! The inside of your baked bread should definitely not be wet or “gummy”. It’s most likely your bread has not fully cooked through and you should let it bake longer despite what the times say here on my website. Each oven and each environment is different and modifications are necessary, it sounds like you need to bake your dough longer to ensure the interior is fully cooked.

      One thing you can do to test, at least for now until you figure out the problem, is to use a instant read thermometer. When you think your loaves might be cooked, carefully take them out of the oven and insert the thermometer, it should read somewhere around 210ºF. This indicates the interior is fully baked.

      Hope that helps, let me know if you’re still having issues!

      • Shaolai

        Thank you for your replied. I did changed my baking time before you got the chance to replied. And yes it was the issue of not enough time in the oven. Now I’m concentrated on making your “Beginner’s Sourdough” and the end result is getting much better each time. I need to reduce a bit of water thought. I’m not sure if it’s the fact that I’m not used to handling wet dough or that my flour doesn’t obsorb as much water. But, all in all, pretty happy with the bake. Thank you so much again for sharing your baking experience~~

        • Definitely a good idea to reduce water at the beginning and work your way up until you know your flour can handle it and you’re comfortable with the wet dough.

          Glad I could help! Happy baking 🙂

  • Mimi

    Maurizio, Maurizio, Maurizio!!!
    Your gumption, perserverence and your sharing so unselfishly to us – the people you have never met – and now you’ve won the 2016 Saveur Food Obsessive Award in both the Editor’s and Reader’s Choice categories!
    We are So Very Proud of You!
    Congratulations! Well done!
    Mimi and Brian

    • Thank you SO much guys I really appreciate it!! So honored to have won and still a little shocked to be honest 🙂

      Thanks again Mimi & Brian!

  • Anne Marie Healy

    I followed your recipe for Tartine Sourdough Country Loaf Bread #33 and it came out pretty good. I used a “levain” that was only a week old, so it didn’t rise too much, but the taste was great. I think I’ll give my starter another week before trying again, and I’ll try an easier recipe next time. Thank you, Maurizio!

    • Fantastic! Thanks for the comments. Have you had a chance to check out my Beginner’s Sourdough post? It’s awesome bread, even if you are past “beginner” 🙂

      • Anne Marie Healy

        Oh, no, I am definitely not past “beginner”, lol. I think I found your beginner’s sourdough after I tried the Tartine #33. I am now following those instructions. Maurizio, my problem so far, after 3 loaves, is that my bread isn’t rising very much. It’s tasty, it’s soft, but it only rises about 2 inches. I followed the directions for the beginner starter, and after about 7 days, I started feeding it a 1:2:2 mix in the morning and in the evening. The starter doubles, and it’s usually while it’s doubled that I take out starter to use for the bread I’m going to make. I follow the steps and it just doesn’t rise. What would most likely be my problem? Thank you.

        • It could be several things, unfortunately. Have you taken any photos of the process? If you don’t mind you could shoot them over to me in an email and I can help diagnose that way. A picture of the dough at the end of bulk, end of shape and then finally baked would help quite a bit!

          Use the “Contact” link up at the top to send me over an email with some more details!

  • Hi Maurizio!! Any sourdough pizza recipe coming soon?

  • Stephen Briggs

    How well does a loaf of bread freeze? I have been making bread now for a month, thanks for all the info.

    • I actually find it freezes really well! I’ll freeze bread from time to time using this method: leave it whole and wrap it several times around with plastic wrap (more than you think necessary), then toss into a freezer Ziplock bag and place into the freezer. When I want to use the bread I take it out a couple days before and let it thaw in the fridge, then finally put it out on my cutting board and leave it there.

      I’ll usually toast the slices en mass in the oven or use my toaster and they are almost like fresh baked. Hope that helps!

  • KF in VT

    I’m wondering if pita type bread is a possibility?

    • Absolutely possible! I haven’t had a chance to try it out but I know other bakers who have successfully and make them quite often. I’ll get there at some point…

  • Caroline

    Would love sourdough doughnuts!! Thanks for all the great recepies!!

    • You’re welcome! Will definitely get to sourdough doughnuts 🙂

  • NatureWins

    Ciao Maurizio! First of all, thank you so much for such an amazingly interesting, informative and beautifully designed website! I am an avid baker and, like you, am pretty obsessed with sourdough.
    I have tried making baguettes following different recipes/methods, and had fairly satisfying results, but I bet you could come up with a truly amazing recipe to share with all of us! 😉
    Thank you,
    Rocco

    • You’re welcome and thank you for the kind words! Yeah, sourdough sure has a way to make obsessives of us all 🙂

      I’m definitely going to tackle baguettes here at some point, just haven’t quite had the time to do some proper experimentation. Soon!

      Happy baking, Rocco!

  • Michael H.

    Hi Maurizio! I’m a huge fan of your blog and have tried several of your recipes. Your “Best” sourdough recipe is my go-to and make it several times a month. Recently I strayed from The Perfect Loaf (shame! shame!) in search of a “one day” sourdough recipe (I.e., mix all ingredients, bulk ferment, shape, bake in same day). I’ve really found only one with partial/lacking instructions which has made me come running back to TPL after mixed results. Have you experimented with a “one day” sourdough? Is this blasphemy in the slow bread world?! Or just impossible? I love my sourdough but with my stay-at-home-dad responsibilities, three day processes can sometimes be daunting. Congrats on your Saveur win!

    • Super glad to hear that, thanks! It’s not a bad thing to do a single day loaf of bread at all, in fact many bakers prefer the very mild flavor produced by such a schedule. What you can do is follow my recipes how they are written and then instead of placing the dough in the fridge for the long, cold proof in the fridge just let them sit out on the counter util they are fully proofed. Google “bread poke test” for an idea on how to determine exactly when your bread is fully proofed and ready for baking.

      I know what you mean, it’s a long schedule and really part of the battle with baking bread is fitting it to our schedule. Lucky for us it’s such a versatile process we can make it work 🙂

  • Siliana Chiliachka

    Hi Maurizio! Thank you for such awesome blog! I have a problem with my 100% rye sourdough starter. I’ve been feeding it twice a day for over a month and although it has been consistent in doubling in volume over 12 hours, it has never been frothy on top. Plenty of air bubbles when looking at the sides and bottom of the jar, but no bubbles on top. My kitchen is cool at this time of year but I have tried keeping it in a warmer room several times to no success. Any idea what’s going on? I am using bob red mill’a organic dark eye flour…thank you!

    • You’re very welcome! You won’t really see much “froth” on top with a 100% rye starter — this is just due to the nature of the grain itself. When you see pictures of starters that have lots of bubbles or froth it’s usually a wheat starter at a high hydration. That froth isn’t necessary! As long as your rye starter is showing signs of fermentation (including the smells) you’ll have plenty of leavening power to make sourdough.

      Hope that helps and sorry for the late reply!

  • virginia morra

    Salve Maurizio. Love your site and am now inspired to make my own bread. I’m wondering which combination of flours you would recommend for someone who is gluten intolerant? Not interested in a completely gluten free product (e.g. I’m thinking rye and spelt) but the lowest possible gluten without compromising on taste/texture. Gracie mille!

    • Really glad to hear that, thanks for the kind words! I’m not super familiar with the varying types of gluten intolerances but so far as my reading goes I’ve found that, as you mentioned, spelt and rye are two great choices. There are other grains/cereals that could be added to a loaf as well such as buckwheat, but when these are used in too high of a percentage they will cause your bread to become more dense (but bring a lot of flavor!). My first choice would be to work with spelt, it’s one of my favorites and it has a fantastic flavor! Perhaps a small test with it to see if it’s tolerable and if it is you could start with a high percentage of spelt and perhaps try a small amount of wheat if desired/able. I hope this helps!

      • Renee J. Flategraff

        I have heard that heritage wheat doesn’t have as much of a reaction for gluten intolerant individuals…you may want to read about it a bit and give it a try for the wheat flour portion of your recipes. The claim is that some of the hybridization of wheat has changed the gluten…might be worth looking into if you have gluten intolerance:)

        • Einkorn has been on my “to-bake” list for a while now!!

  • Randy Pollak

    Hi Maurizio,
    I plan to make a fougasse. I love spelt and thought I might use your recipe with my yeasted date water and yogurt starter. Any tips you might suggest?

    • Hey, Randy! I’m not too familiar with yeasted date/yogurt starter but as long as you’re seeing consistent and strong fermentation then it should be fine to use that! One suggestion when using spelt: be weary of how much water you add to the dough initially, add it in slowly through the mix until the dough feels “right.” Spelt seems to not want to absorb quite as much water as traditional wheat, just something to keep in mind.

      Let me know how it goes! Happy baking 🙂

  • Janet

    Hi Maurizio, I love your site. Could you please bake sourdough 🥐 I am trying another recipe but would like to follow one you have tried.
    Janet

    • Thanks, Janet! I will definitely get to making sourdough croissants — hopefully sometime very soon!

  • Elsbeth Schey Weissman

    Any suggestions for leftover levain? Perhaps a way to work it into a pizza crust?

    • Absolutely, you can use some in pizza (my pizza recipe is here) and you can also use it in many other things: galette and pie crust and even banana bread, waffles or pancakes. And that’s just the start!

      • Elsbeth Schey Weissman

        I figured as much—to use it in the pizza dough would I use it to fully replace the mature starter, or should I also bring down a little of the added flour as well (since it already has the starter+flour)? I want to make sure the crust gets nice and fluffy 😛

  • Janet

    Oh thank you so much Maurizio.

  • Leide Galhardo

    Hi Maurízio this is your Brazilian fan (but I leave in Brookfield, Wisconsin). I really enjoy your site. I’ve been baking every weekend your high hidration sourdough and your best Sourdough recipe. This week was awesome with the pancakes , waffles and banana bread. I was wondering if you have a ciabatta recipe. I didn’t found any here..Did I missed it? Thank you very much for sharing your recipes.

    • Tobias Breer

      Maurizio, I was just wondering the exact same thing. Any ciabatta recipe you can share?

      • Tobias — no ciabatta recipe just yet but I’ll get there sometime soon! Until then, happy baking!

    • Leide, sorry for the late reply! Glad to hear you’re enjoying my website, really appreciate that. I don’t have a ciabatta recipe, yet. it’s definitely something I’ll be working on though! Keep an eye out for it 🙂 Thanks again and happy baking!

  • Alex F.

    Hi Maurizio! I have had great success following your guide to making a starter and whilst devouring all there is to read in my mother -in-laws kitchen about bread. I have successfully made a couple batches of bread following your starter recipe and the “best recipe.” My wife is a lover of cheese and we were recently discussing an asiago loaf, have you done any experimenting with cheeses? I plan to try it soon along with a rosemary/garlic loaf. My thoughts are that it would closely follow your olive loaf, in that the small cubes of cheese would be treated as a solid addition to the high hydration dough, and added in mid-bulk fermentation. As an engineer, I appreciate your highly scientific approach to bread and controlling all the variables to the greatest degree. Keep it up!

    • Great to hear that about making your starter! I have not tried making cheese bread but it’s definitely on my radar at some point (I mean, its cheese, and bread, can’t go wrong!). I’d say small cubes would work really well, that’s how I’d go about it. I’d add it just like you suggested, and similar to my olive loaf, somewhere at the beginning of bulk after the dough has a little strength built up.

      Thanks for the kind words and happy baking!

  • Ann

    Good morning Maurizio,
    I have been baking sourdough loaves for a few years now after attending a number of classes ( one with Dan Lepard which was very good).
    I have been baking following your best ever recipe and instructions with really fabulous results…..and then last week I had a disaster.
    The bread didn’t really rise very well and when cut was a soggy mess inside.
    I really don’t know what I did any different to previous bakes.
    Can you give me any tips on how this happened,

    Thanking you in anticipation,
    Ann

    • Good morning! It sounds like maybe your dough was very underproofed or your starter wasn’t active enough. First, make sure your starter is strong and rising and falling predictably. When you make the levain you really want a lot of activity in there before you use it to mix your dough.

      Second, make sure you keep the dough warm through the entire process and you hit the final dough temperature listed in the recipe — warm temperatures are very important!

      One last though: it’s possible your dough was very over hydrated (although you might have mentioned a slack, soupy dough). If you’ve recently changed flours you might have to adjust the hydration of the recipe to suit (reduce by 5-10% and see if that helps).

      I hope one of these suggestions helps!

  • Ann

    Thank you, I will take all of these points on board when I next bake.

  • Sven

    Ciao Maurizio, so glad to have found your blog! I started experimenting with sourdough in December and since have been getting decent results. I am now at a point where I developed a weekend schedule that works for me.
    I’ll read through your various posts, there is so much to discover and learn. Exciting!
    Thanks for your passion and dedication.

    • Sven — really glad to read all that! Happy to hear your baking schedule is working out, that’s half the battle 🙂 Happy baking!

  • Robert Hughes

    Hi, I came across your web page via Face Book and I very much like your demonstration video. I have made sour dough before but thought I would give your methods a try. When making the first batch of Levain do I have to use a glass bowl? Is there any reason why I shouldn’t use a stainless steel one as that’s all I have. Thanks.

    • Hey, Robert! Glad to have you along. I’ve actually never used a stainless steel bowl, surprisingly. Should work just fine, though!

      Happy baking!

    • Koby

      I’ve been tryng to find the facebook page but can’t find it. What do I search for?

  • Janet

    Hi Maurizio, would you be able to put the recipe that is half ready on today’s instagram with the lemon rind, sunflower seeds (not sure what the other is) up somewhere please. I NEED TO MAKE IT!!!!! Thank you for everything you have done so far and sharing your recipes and methods etc.

  • Janet

    Found it after reading your comments. Thanks