No-Knead Make-Ahead Dinner Rolls with Honey Butter

by Averie Sunshine on June 16, 2013

There’s nothing almost nothing better than warm, fresh, buttery homemade dinner rolls.

The only thing better than the rolls is that the dough is a make-ahead and no-knead dough.

The rolls are so easy to make. I adapted the dough from my Challah recipe, which uses the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day method.

The principle is that you make a big batch of dough, keep it in the fridge for up to 5 days, and just bake off what you need on that particular day. It sounds too good to be true but it works.

They’re practically work-free because there’s no-kneading involved.

Since there’s no kneading, I don’t even use my stand mixer and stir everything together with a wooden spoon in a bowl.

Simply combine warm water, yeast, two eggs, honey, oil and flour.

Stir, cover it for about two hours to rise, and from there you have options.

…Two Hours Later

You can either bake with some of the dough now, or bake later. I usually use about one-quarter of the dough, and refrigerate the rest.

The recipe will yield about 14 to 16 dinner rolls, but I don’t only make rolls with this dough.

Sometimes I make mini-challah loaves. Mini food tastes better.

Or I make mini loaves of bread in Mini Loaf Pans. These pans and they come in handy for so many things and I just love them.

I bake rolls in them, too. We are a family of 3 and 4 rolls is fine. We don’t need carb mania every night.

You can see how much mileage I got from one batch of dough. And it’s not even that much dough, just a 3 1/2 cups flour recipe, but I love the flexibility of it.

Sometimes I form the dough into balls and keep them in the fridge in a covered pie dish. About an hour before I want to bake them, I put the dish on the counter to warm up and rise.

Bake for 15 minutes.

Instant dinner rolls.

The recipe is perfect for anyone who’s never worked with yeast because it’s almost impossible to screw up.

If you can dump ingredients in a bowl and stir, you can make these.

I like to brush the tops with honey butter before baking and it makes them even more irresistible.

Schmear the extra honey butter on after they’ve baked as you’re devouring them. So good.

The rolls are light, soft, and fluffy.

I just want to rip them apart and drench them in honey butter.

Nothing beats warm, fresh, homemade bread.

And for the rest of the day, your house will smell like a bakery.

If you literally need to butter someone up in your family, these will do the trick and earn you some major brownie points.

You can just pretend that you slaved away over them.

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These soft, light, fluffy dinner rolls are so easy. They're practically work-free because there's no-kneading involved. The beauty of this dough is that you can make it ahead of time, refrigerate it, and when you're ready to bake, grab a hunk and bake off only what you need. You can use it for more than just dinner rolls, too. Try challah or mini-challah, mini loaves of bread, or even cinnamon rolls. So many possibilities and knowing you have dough in the fridge waiting makes having fresh bread or rolls an easy reality.

Yield: 12 to 24 dinner rolls, depending on size

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 18 minutes

Total Time: 3+ hours, for rising

Rolls
7/8 cup water (scant 1 cup), warmed to about 125F for Platinum yeast, about 105 to 115F for most other yeast
2 1/4 teaspoons instant or active dry yeast (one 1/4-ounce packet, I use Red Star Platinum)
2 large eggs
1/4 cup canola or vegetable oil, or 1/4 cup butter (oil creates a softer loaf, butter creates a crustier crust; butter-based dough is firmer and slightly easier to work with, but I have no trouble with oil-based dough and prefer the bread)
1/4 cup honey
pinch salt, optional and to taste
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (I have also used 2 1/2 cups bread flour and 1 cup all-purpose; bread flour creates chewier, firmer bread; AP creates softer, squisher bread and it's not quite as high-rising)

Honey Butter
1/4 cup (half of one stick) unsalted butter, very soft
2 to 3 tablespoons honey

For the Rolls - Pour water into a microwave-safe measuring cup or bowl and warm it to manufacturer's directions on yeast packet, about 45 seconds on high power. Take the temperature with a thermometer. If you don't have one, water should be warm to the touch, but not hot. Err on the side of too cool rather than too hot because you don't want to kill the yeast.Pour water into a large mixing bowl and sprinkle the yeast over the top; wait 5 to 10 minutes, or until yeast is foamy. This means it's alive and will work. (This is proofing and technically with instant dry yeast you don't have to proof it, but for this recipe, I do)Add the eggs, oil, 1/4 cup honey, optional salt, and whisk to combine, about 30 seconds.Add the flour and stir with a wooden spoon to incorporate the flour. Stir for about 1 minute more. This is as much 'kneading' as the recipe requires. Dough will be thick, lumpy, bumpy, and not smooth. This is okay. Make a ball with the dough in the center of the bowl. Cover bowl with plasticwrap and place in a warm, draft-free place to rise until doubled in bulk, about 2 hours. Tip - Create a warm environment by preheating your oven for 1 to 2 minutes to 400F, then shutting it off. This creates a 90F-ish warm spot. Slide the bowl in and wait while the yeast works. Just make sure your oven is off.At this point you have a choice... If you plan to bake now (through step 11) punch dough down, remove it from bowl, and turn it out onto a well-floured surface. Knead it only so much as necessary to shape it into balls for rolls (I divide the dough in half, and if I'm making rolls, I make 8 rolls from each half, for 16 rolls total, they're just a bit bigger than golf balls). Or form desired shapes such as mini loaves, challah, breadsticks, pretzels, etc. Use only what you need and save the rest for later in the refrigerator.Place balls of dough in a cooking sprayed round baking dish or pie plate, or in an 8x8 or 9x9 pan; size depends on how many you're making. They can be close to each other, but if they're overly squished they'll bake into each other.Cover baking dish with plasticwrap, and allow rolls to rise in a warm, draft-free environment for about 1 hour, until almost doubled in size. I use the preheated oven trick again.In the final minutes of rising, preheat oven to 350F.For the Honey Butter - Stir to combine the butter and honey. Generously brush or spread the mixture over the top of the dough before baking. Reserve remainder to serve with rolls after bakingBake rolls for about 15 to 18 minutes, or until lightly golden and puffed. Baking time will vary greatly based on how many rolls you're baking, or if it's another shape such as a mini loaf, the size of the pan, and personal preference. Watch your bread, not the clock.Serve as soon as bread is cool enough to handle. Rolls are best fresh, but will keep airtight for up to 4 days at room temperature or may be frozen for up to 4 months.If you plan to bake later - Take dough that's risen for about 2 hours from step 5, keep it covered, and refrigerate it. Dough may be kept refrigerated for up to 5 days before baking.When you plan to bake, pick up at step 5 and follow through step 11.

Recipe from Averie Cooks. All images and content are copyright protected. Please do not use my images without prior permission. If you want to republish this recipe, please re-write the recipe in your own words, or simply link back to this post for the recipe. Thank you.

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Thanks for the entries in the 25 Restaurant Copycat Recipes and CopyKat Cookbook Giveaway

Do you make dinner rolls or bread? What’s your favorite recipe?

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No-Knead Dinner Rolls

Let’s face it. There’s just nothing like fresh, homemade bread. Sure, you can get some wonderful, artisan breads at local shops, but they can’t come close to magic of the smell and taste of home-baked bread pulled from the oven and spread with butter and jam (or honey).

But here’s the problem: With busy lives, especially around the holidays, there’s precious little time to spend agonizing over kneading and rise times. And so homemade bread is often neglected.

This recipe, brought to us by Terri, is about as low-fuss as yeast bread gets. All you have to do is mix everything in a large bowl, let it rise, form into buns, and bake once they’re puffy. Still skeptical about no-knead bread? Let me assure you, it is good. Like, really good: fluffy and flavorful and soft. Let me show you!

To begin, grab the few ingredients you’ll need: yeast, sugar, oil (I used olive, but if you don’t like the flavor, you could use melted butter or vegetable oil), salt, flour (I used part white, part wheat), butter, and water.

Pour some warm water into a large mixing bowl and sprinkle in the yeast and 1/4 teaspoon of sugar. You can gently stir it with a fork if you wish.

Let the yeast “activate” in the water (about 5 minutes). Then add the flour …

… wheat flour (if using), sugar, oil and salt.

Stir it all together.

If the dough is too wet, you can add more flour. The right texture is soft and sticky, but not soupy.

See that? That’s how it should look. Don’t stir too much! After all, these are no-knead.

Cover the dough and set aside to rise until doubled. This only took about and hour for me, but it all depends on how warm your house is.

Now, give that dough a punch!

Ahhh … melted butter. 

Pour a little onto a rimmed baking sheet.

Get your hands in it and smear it around.

Now it’s time to make a mess! Sprinkle your work surface generously with flour.

Scoop your risen dough out onto your counter/table and sprinkle with some more flour.

Roll the dough out to about a 1/2-inch thickness.

Take a round cookie/biscuit cutter and stamp out circles of dough. You could get your circles closer together than mine.

Grab a circle of dough …

And stretch it out a bit.

Dunk half of it into the melted butter …

And fold it in half with the butter side up. Now you have a lovely little Parker House roll.

Place on your buttered baking sheet (buttered side up). Repeat with remaining dough, placing the buns close together.

Gather up your scraps and go again!

Cover the buns and let rise until nice and puffy. Aren’t they beautiful?

Bake at 375°F until lovely and golden brown. You can brush the tops of the buns with extra butter, if you wish.

Just look at how pillowy soft they are!

Recipe notes:

1. This dough can be refrigerated for up to a week. You can mix up a big batch and just pull off pieces of dough and bake them for fresh bread throughout the week!
2. You don’t have to make Parker House rolls from the dough. Terri suggests cinnamon rolls, pull-aparts and breadsticks.
3. These rolls reheat very well. Just pop them in a 350°F oven for 10 minutes.

Thanks so much to Terri for sharing these buttery rolls with us. She blogs over at That’s Some Good Cookin’, where she posts many more lip-smackin’ recipes.

I have no idea why these easy rolls work so well time after delicious time.

In a large mixing bowl dissolve yeast in warm water with 1/4 teaspoon sugar.

When the yeast has activated, add all other ingredients (except butter) and stir well with a wooden spoon until all ingredients are incorporated. Avoid over mixing and do not knead the dough. Just stir it. The dough is soft and will be somewhat sticky, not drier like other roll doughs that you may be used to using.

Cover bowl and let dough rise until doubled in bulk. Punch dough down and let it rest for a few minutes.

Melt the butter in a small bowl. Prepare a baking pan by greasing the pan with some of the melted butter.

To shape a Parker House style roll, divide the dough in half and roll out one half of the dough on a well floured counter top until about 1/2-inch thick. Using a round biscuit cutter, cut out circles of dough. Stretch the dough just a little lengthwise and dip one half into melted butter. Fold dough over in half and place on the pan. Place the rolls close to each other in rows. Repeat with remaining half of dough. Work the left-over dough from the two dough halves together to finish making your rolls. You should be able to get 32 rolls on a large baking sheet (4 rolls across and 8 rolls down).

Cover rolls and let rise again until almost doubled in size. Bake at 375ºF for 20 minutes or until the rolls are golden brown. Brush hot rolls with additional butter if desired.

Note: This dough can be kept in the refrigerator for at least a week and the dough just pulled off as you wish to use it to make cinnamon rolls, scones, pull-aparts, hot rolls or bread sticks during the week.

3 cups Warm Water2 Tablespoons Yeast½ cups Sugar½ cups Vegetable Oil (canola Works Best)2 teaspoons Salt6 cups To 7 Cups White Flour1 stick Butter

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Newly-married Erica Kastner shares her wonderful recipes and amazing food photography on her blog, Cooking for Seven. She also writes about crafts and posts more of her beautiful photography in her personal blog, EricaLea.com. There really isn’t much that this amazing young lady can’t do, and we’re thrilled she does some of it here.

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