Crusty Artisan Bread
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This crusty bread recipe is astonishingly easy—no kneading required—and makes three beautiful loaves, which you can bake as needed.
This homemade artisan bread recipe is astonishingly easy, and it makes enough for three delicious loaves, which you can bake as needed. What’s more, the dough takes just five minutes to make, does not require kneading or any special equipment, and can rest in the fridge for up to two weeks (the flavor becomes more complex the longer it sits). The recipe is modestly adapted from one of my favorite baking books, Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes A Day by Jeff Hertzberg M.D. and Zoë François.
Table of Contents
What You’ll Need To Make Crusty Artisan Bread
This recipe has just four ingredients: all-purpose flour, instant yeast, kosher salt, and water. (The cornmeal is for dusting the pan.) As you can see, I use instant (or rapid-rise) yeast. Active dry yeast may be used instead of instant yeast, however, the dough will take longer to rise. To give active dry yeast a boost, you can dissolve it in the lukewarm water and let it sit until frothy, about 10 minutes. After that, add it to the flour and proceed with the recipe.
How To Make Crusty Artisan Bread
In a very large (6-quart) bowl, combine the flour, salt, and yeast. Mix to combine.
Add 3 cups of lukewarm water (no need to be exact but lukewarm is about 100°F).
Stir with a wooden spoon until the mixture is uniformly moist, without any patches of flour.
The dough should be sticky and conform to the shape of the bowl. If your dough is too dry, add a few tablespoons more warm water. If it’s too wet, add a few tablespoons of flour. Cover the bowl loosely with plastic wrap and let it sit on the counter in a warm spot for 2 hours. As you can see below, it will rise a lot!
When you’re ready to bake a loaf, pull out one-third of the dough.
Coat the outside lightly with flour (you don’t want to incorporate more flour into the dough, you just want to be able to handle it). Gently work the dough into a smooth ball, stretching the surface and tucking the ends underneath.
Put the dough ball onto a cornmeal-dusted baking sheet and let rest at room temperature, uncovered, for about 40 minutes. (If the dough has been refrigerated, allow it to rise for 60 minutes, or up to 90 minutes if you want a more open and airy crumb structure.) The dough will rise a bit. It may also spread/flatten a bit; that’s okay.
The dough will rise a bit.
Generously dust the dough with flour. Using a sharp knife, make a few 1/2-inch-deep slashes in the dough — a scallop, cross, or tic tac toe pattern all look nice.
Set a metal pan on the bottom rack of a preheated 450°F-oven. Slide the baking sheet with the dough into the oven, and carefully fill the metal cake pan with one cup of hot tap water. This creates steam in the oven. (Try to do this quickly so as not to let heat out of the oven.) Bake until the loaf is golden brown, about 30 minutes. Cool completely on a wire rack.
This bread is best enjoyed fresh on the day it is made. Once sliced, place the loaf cut-side down on a cutting board or plate and leave it uncovered.
How To Freeze
The dough can be portioned into thirds and frozen in airtight plastic containers for up to 1 month. Defrost the dough in the refrigerator overnight, then shape, rest and bake as usual. The baked loaves can also be frozen whole or sliced. Wrap in a zip-top freezer bag and freeze for up to 1 month. To thaw, take the bread out of the freezer and let it come to room temperature, about 3 hours. Reheat in a 350°F oven until warmed through, about 10 minutes.
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Crusty Artisan Bread
This crusty bread recipe is astonishingly easy—no kneading required—and makes three beautiful loaves, which you can bake as needed.
Ingredients
- 6½ cups all-purpose flour, spooned into measuring cup and leveled-off (preferably King Arthur; see note)
- 4 teaspoons kosher salt
- 1½ tablespoons instant/rapid-rise yeast (see note)
- 3 cups lukewarm water (no need to be exact but lukewarm is about 100°F)
- Cornmeal, for dusting the pan
Instructions
- In a very large (6-quart) bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, and yeast. Add the water and stir with a wooden spoon until the mixture is uniformly moist, without any patches of flour. The dough should be sticky and conform to the shape of the bowl. If your dough is too dry, add a few tablespoons more warm water. If it's too wet, add a few tablespoons of flour. (See the step-by-step photos for guidance on what the dough should look like.) Cover the bowl loosely with plastic wrap and let it sit on the counter in a warm spot for 2 hours. If you plan to bake a loaf immediately, proceed to the next step. Otherwise, place the bowl of dough in the refrigerator to be used over the next 14 days. (Once refrigerated, the dough will shrink back a bit; that's okay. Do not punch down the dough at any point, and keep it loosely covered with plastic wrap.)
- Dust a sturdy baking sheet with cornmeal.
- Dust the surface of the dough and your hands lightly with flour. Pull out one-third of the dough and coat the outside lightly with flour (you don't want to incorporate more flour into the dough, you just want to be able to handle it). Gently work the dough into a smooth ball, stretching the surface and tucking the ends underneath, adding more flour as needed so it doesn't stick to your hands. (Don't overwork the dough; this process should only take about 30 seconds.) Put the dough ball onto the prepared baking sheet and let it rest at room temperature, uncovered, for about 40 minutes. (If the dough has been refrigerated, allow it to rise for 60 minutes, or up to 90 minutes if you want a more open and airy crumb structure.) The dough will rise a bit. It may also spread/flatten a bit; that's okay.
- Preheat the oven to 450°F. Set one rack in the lowest position of the oven and one rack in the middle position. Place a metal pan (any metal cake pan or broiler pan will work; just don't use glass) on the bottom rack. (You will fill this with water later to create steam in the oven).
- Generously dust the dough with flour. Using a sharp knife, make a few ½-inch-deep slashes in the dough -- a scallop, cross, or tic tac toe pattern all look nice.
- Slide the baking sheet with the dough into the oven, and carefully fill the metal cake pan with one cup of hot tap water. (Try to do this quickly so as not to let heat out of the oven.) Bake until the loaf is golden brown, about 30 minutes. Cool completely on a wire rack.
- This bread is best enjoyed fresh on the day it is made. Once sliced, place the loaf cut-side down on a cutting board or plate and leave it uncovered. (If it lasts beyond a day, I suggest slicing and freezing.)
- Freezer-Friendly Instructions The dough can be portioned into thirds and frozen in airtight plastic containers for up to 1 month. Defrost the dough in the refrigerator overnight, then shape, rest and bake as usual. The baked loaves can also be frozen whole or sliced: Wrap in a zip-top freezer bag and freeze for up to 1 month. (If you plan to use slices one at a time, place pieces of parchment between them so they don't stick.) To thaw, take the bread out of the freezer and let it come to room temperature on the countertop. Reheat in a 350°F oven until warmed through, about 10 minutes.
- Note: Active dry yeast may be used instead of instant/rapid-rise yeast, however, the dough will take longer to rise. To give active dry yeast a boost, you can dissolve it in the lukewarm water and let it sit until frothy, about 10 minutes. After that, add it to the flour and salt, and proceed with the recipe.
- Note: I use King Arthur flour, which is higher in protein than some other all-purpose flours. If using a flour with a lower protein content, such as Gold Medal, you will likely need to add a few more tablespoons of flour.
Nutrition Information
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- Serving size: 1 slice
- Calories: 100
- Fat: 0 g
- Saturated fat: 0 g
- Carbohydrates: 21 g
- Sugar: 0 g
- Fiber: 1 g
- Protein: 3 g
- Sodium: 64 mg
- Cholesterol: 0 mg
This website is written and produced for informational purposes only. I am not a certified nutritionist and the nutritional data on this site has not been evaluated or approved by a nutritionist or the Food and Drug Administration. Nutritional information is offered as a courtesy and should not be construed as a guarantee. The data is calculated through an online nutritional calculator, Edamam.com. Although I do my best to provide accurate nutritional information, these figures should be considered estimates only. Varying factors such as product types or brands purchased, natural fluctuations in fresh produce, and the way ingredients are processed change the effective nutritional information in any given recipe. Furthermore, different online calculators provide different results depending on their own nutrition fact sources and algorithms. To obtain the most accurate nutritional information in a given recipe, you should calculate the nutritional information with the actual ingredients used in your recipe, using your preferred nutrition calculator.
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Hello. Thank you for sharing this recipe. I use a grain mill and grind my own flour as needed. Im about to try this recipe with hard white wheat berries. Fingers crossed it is as good as yours. I’m still pretty new to my grain mill and experimenting.
Cheryl I just noticed your review from last winter and would love to know how your bread turned out and if you made any adjustments. I’ve made this recipe countless times with packaged flour and it’s amazing, but am starting my journey into fresh milled flour and would love to try it for this!
Jen, I am obviously missing something here…how much flour and how much salt?
It sounds like you are just looking at the portion of the page that has the pictures with some instructions underneath. If you scroll down a bit to under the pictures, you’ll find the full recipe. Alternatively, at the very top of the page, to the right of the recipe name, you’ll see an orange/red button that says Jump to Recipe – if you click on that, it will take you directly to the recipe. Hope that clarifies!
Hi Jenn, This bread is phenomenal. It tastes like some of the best bread we have ever had in a restaurant & it is hard not to devour it all by myself in one sitting. I was wondering if you would recommend making this in a loaf pan so that the slices would be more equal in size when cut to use for sandwiches. Would it come out as crusty if not exposed all around? If a loaf pan can be used, would I still need to use the pan of water since the dough will be enclosed in the pan and not open to the heat of the oven and steam from the water on all sides? Thanks so much for your answer.
Looking forward to many more recipes in 2023…Happy New Year!
Marsha
So glad you like it, Marsha! It can be baked in a nonstick, greased loaf pan, but you won’t get that crispy crust all around. Please LMK how it turns out if you try it!
Hi Jenn, thanks so much for the feedback. I did make it in a loaf pan; just to be on the safe side I put a pan of water in the oven with it. The top was crusty, the sides were not as crusty but actually came out crustier than I thought it would although certainly not as crusty as when baking it on a sheet pan. Still, it was delicious; this is one great recipe. In the future, I guess I will alternate between a sheet pan and a loaf pan, depending upon how the loaf will be used. Either way, both my husband and I look forward to stuffing our faces with it!! I am going to make the part of the loaf that is left into croutons and bake a fresh loaf today.
Thanks again for all of the great recipes.
So glad it came out well — thanks for taking the time to report back! 🙂
Hi,
your artisan bread recipe looks interesting and I would like to bake it. But, being from Europe, where we use grams instead of cups, (which I find can be very inaccurate) it really puts me off having a go. Could you possibly consider putting a metric conversion in grams alongside cups in your recipes? I’m sure you would find more followers online if you did this. Me for one!
Many thanks,
James
Hi James, The great majority of my recipes (including this one) include conversions to metric/weight measurements. To view them, scroll down to the recipe, and immediately under the recipe title on the right side, you’ll see a little toggle. If you move it from “cup measures” to metric, you’ll see measurements that will work for you. Hope that helps!
Hi Jenn,
As the other 672 people have said, yes, the bread is amazing and remarkably easy to make. I am wondering if the recipe is adaptable to add-ins. I’d love to try cranberry walnut, rosemary, or something else along those lines. Can I just add them in with this as the base recipe? Or do you think I need to find different recipes? Also just want to say I think every single recipe I have ever made from your site is amazing. 🙂
So glad you like the recipes including this bread! And while it may work to add nuts, etc, to the dough, I’ve never added any “extras”, so I’d be hesitant to suggest it.
What a delicious, easy recipe! We munched down the first two loaves and for the third batch of dough, I made it into monkey bread using a muffin pan. It was amazing and my family was moaning with delight. Also, made a few slices of French toast using eggnog—also very good. What a versatile recipe!
@onceuponachef This was sooo good! And easy too! We don’t keep our home very warm, so sat the bread on the open oven door (250F) to rise. Worked great! Then popped it back in the oven (now turned off) for the 2nd rise, with door open again. Froze 2 portions, so will see how they turn out as I use them. Will also try adding some rosemary and/or garlic the next time I make this. Thanks for the recipe Jenn!
I made this today, during my work breaks. It was so easy! I mostly followed the recipe, but I scooped the flour (I didn’t spoon it into the cup), used expired instant yeast, and it was rising for more than three hours in my not-very-warm kitchen. Due to this, the dough was probably drier and didn’t rise as much as it could have. Even so, it made a delicious, crusty, airy, soft and chewy loaf of tasty bread! Truly foolproof! Lol… So excited that I have two more balls of dough sitting in my fridge to make more fresh bread over the next couple of days!
Also, I want to add that I asked Jenn via this site for advice on why my baguettes were not working out. She responded very soon, to my amazement, and helped me troubleshoot. Then she shared this amazing recipe and recommended it for baguettes as well. (That’s next week’s project.) If I could give six stars for being so helpful and kind to her site’s readers, I would. Thank you so much, Jenn!
💗
Where’s the French bread recipe?
Hi Bonnie, the recipe is the same. You can shape this dough into a French bread shape instead of a round loaf if you’d like. The bake time may be a bit different, so you’d need to keep a close eye on it. Hope you enjoy if you make it!
Hello! The best bread recipe.It’s sooo good ,crusty even on the second day.I made 2 out of the recipe ,almost ready to eat the second one.Thank you !!
Very pleasantly surprised at the simplicity of this bread recipe. Didn’t really expect it to be so good as well. Thank you for posting this recipe. Will be sharing it with my son who enjoys making bread.