Quick and Easy Sourdough Bread Recipe

Sourdough does not have to be complicated. This one is a straightforward, repeatable method that works in a home kitchen. The aim is a balanced loaf with good structure, an open crumb, and a crisp crust, without unnecessary steps or specialised equipment.

You will need an active sourdough starter to make this bread. If you do not have one yet, you can use my sourdough starter guide to get started. Once your starter is bubbling and responsive, this recipe walks you through the process step by step, from mixing and fermentation to shaping and baking.

This method prioritises consistency and temperature control, which are the two factors that most affect sourdough results at home.

Want to scale this loaf up or down? I built a sourdough calculator so you can set your own flour weight and hydration, and it works out the water, salt and starter for you.

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How Long This Actually Takes

About 24 hours end to end, and almost none of it is work. Roughly 45 minutes of hands-on time is spread across two days, and the rest is waiting: five hours to wake the starter, an hour and a half to two hours of bulk fermentation with a fold every half hour, then overnight in the fridge, then an hour in the oven the next morning.

That is the same span as most good sourdough recipes, so it is not slow for what it is. But it is worth saying plainly rather than burying: if you start at nine in the morning you are eating bread the following lunchtime. The quick part is how little of it you have to be present for.

What Flour Should You Use for Sourdough Bread?

Use a strong white bread flour with a protein content of at least 12 per cent. That is what gives the loaf the structure to rise properly and hold its shape through fermentation and baking. Avoid cake or pastry flour, which is too low in protein and will give you a dense, flat loaf.

Why Protein Content Matters

Sourdough relies on gluten strength to trap the gases fermentation produces. A higher-protein flour forms a stronger gluten network when it meets water, which gives you better dough strength and elasticity, a more open crumb, and a better rise in the oven. Lower-protein flours cannot hold the gas, which is why those loaves spread rather than rise.

Small amounts of wholemeal or rye can go in for flavour once you are comfortable, but the structure should still come from strong white flour.

A Note on Canadian Flour

Flour milled from Canadian wheat often runs naturally higher in protein, typically around 13 to 14 per cent, which makes the dough more forgiving to handle. The percentage matters more than the origin, though: any strong bread flour at similar protein will behave the same way. Read the label rather than the country.

Other Suitable Flour Options

If very high-protein flour is hard to come by, buy the strongest bread flour you can get. In the UK and EU that is usually labelled strong white bread flour. Bread flour at 12 to 13 per cent works, very strong is better if you can find it, and a small percentage of wholemeal blended in adds flavour without costing much structure.

A Word on Water and Salt

Two things get repeated about sourdough that are worth being straight about, because this recipe used to repeat them too.

• Tap water is almost always fine Chlorine is dosed into tap water to keep it safe on its way through the pipes, not at a level meant to sterilise anything, and the amount reaching a dough is small against the size of an active culture. Plenty of established starters have been fed on tap water for years. If your water is noticeably heavily chlorinated, standing it uncovered for a few hours drives most of the free chlorine off, though chloramine, which more and more water companies use now, does not go the same way. A brand new starter that has not established itself yet is the one case where it is worth bothering.
• Salt: use non-iodised if you have it, but do not go shopping for it The usual line is that iodised salt kills the culture. Iodine in table salt is there for human nutrition and sits at a tiny fraction of a per cent, and what reaches a dough at 2 per cent salt is a very small amount indeed. If anything has an effect it is more likely the anti-caking agents in some table salts, and even that is minor. Any salt without added iodine is what most bakers reach for out of habit; if iodised is what is in the cupboard, your bread will be fine.
• The salt quantity does matter 13 g against 500 g of flour plus the flour in the starter works out at about 2 per cent of the total, which is squarely where bread salt should be. Salt is not only seasoning here: it tightens the gluten and slows fermentation slightly, which is part of why the timings in this recipe hold.

Equipment You’ll Need

You do not need specialised kit to bake good sourdough at home. These are the tools that make it easier and more consistent.

If you have the basics, you can bake this bread successfully.

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How to Make Sourdough Bread, Step by Step

Nine steps across two days. Each one below matches a step on the recipe card and explains what is happening underneath it.

1. Wake the starter. Mix 150 g of your starter with 75 g of flour and 75 g of water and leave it somewhere warm for about five hours, until it has roughly doubled, domed on top and smells yeasty and faintly sweet, not sharp. If it has not risen after five hours, do not carry on and hope. Feed it again, put it somewhere warmer, and use it when it doubles within six to eight hours of feeding. If your starter is already very lively, skip this step.A sluggish starter is by far the most common reason a loaf comes out dense, and no amount of fermenting later rescues it. The low twenties suit it, and a cold kitchen is usually the whole problem.
2. Mix the dough and let it rest. Combine 300 g of the activated starter with 500 g of very strong flour, 300 ml of water and 13 g of salt, just until there is no dry flour left. It will feel sticky and shaggy. Then leave it alone for 30 minutes.In that rest the flour takes up the water and the gluten starts forming on its own, which is why this recipe needs no kneading.
3. Stretch and fold, three or four times. Every 30 minutes over the next hour and a half to two hours, wet your hand, lift one side of the dough and fold it over itself, then turn the bowl and repeat on each side. Go by the dough, not the clock. It is ready to shape when it has risen noticeably, domed on top, and wobbles as one mass when you nudge the bowl.Each round builds the gluten gently without knocking the air out, and you feel the dough go from slack and tearing to smooth and springy. In a cold kitchen it can take longer than two hours, and giving it the time is right.
4. Shape it and build surface tension. Flour the worktop lightly, stretch the dough into a rough rectangle and roll it up tightly into a loaf, with a taut skin across the top. Handle it firmly, but do not knock it about.The taut skin holds the shape and sends the rise upwards, not outwards. The gas you spent two hours building is the crumb.
5. Cold proof overnight. Seam side up into a floured proofing basket, covered, into the fridge until the morning.The cold slows the yeast right down while the bacteria keep working, and that is where the deeper, tangier flavour comes from. It also firms the dough, and a cold, firm loaf is far easier to turn out and score than a warm, slack one.
6. Preheat the oven with the pot in it. As hot as your oven goes, with the Dutch oven and its lid inside, for at least half an hour. Mine goes to 275 C. If yours tops out at 240 or 250, give it a longer preheat and expect a couple of extra minutes on the bake.What matters is the heat stored in the cast iron, not the number on the dial. A heavy preheated pot holds and gives back far more heat than hot air does, and that is why this works without a bakery oven.
7. Turn out, dust and score. Tip the cold dough straight from the basket onto baking parchment, seam side down. Dust it with flour and make one confident cut with a razor blade or a very sharp knife, about a centimetre deep, at a shallow angle. Get it in the oven straight away.A score that will not open is nearly always too shallow, too hesitant or too upright. A dragging blade is a blunt one, and a fresh razor or a lightly oiled blade cuts cleanly through a sticky surface. A scored loaf left sitting closes itself back up.
8. Bake covered, then uncovered. Lower the loaf in on its parchment, lid on, and bake for 20 minutes. Then take the lid off, drop the oven to 225 C and give it another 20 minutes or so until deep brown. Take it to 96 C in the middle if you have a thermometer.The covered stage matters most, and the reason is in the next section. Colour alone does not prove it is done, and a loaf pulled early is the other common cause of a gummy crumb.
9. Cool it completely before you cut it. Onto a rack, for at least an hour, two if you can wait.This is the step people skip, and it matters. On a rack the steam escapes underneath and the crust stays crisp. The crumb is still setting as it cools, and bread cut hot is gummy whatever you did in the oven.

Why the Lid Matters More Than the Temperature

Every sourdough recipe tells you to bake covered and almost none of them says why. It is the single most useful thing to understand about this bake, because it explains what the Dutch oven is actually for.

• Steam moves heat about four times faster A dry oven takes around four minutes to bring the surface of the dough to 90 C. In a steamy one it gets there in about a minute. Trapped steam condenses onto the cold loaf and dumps its heat into the surface, and that early blast is what drives the rise.
• It stops the crust setting too early That condensing steam leaves a film of water on the loaf, which keeps the surface soft and stretchy for the first few minutes instead of drying into a rigid shell. A crust that sets early is a lid on the loaf, and the dough stops expanding against it. This is why an unsteamed loaf comes out smaller and tighter, and why a score that opens beautifully in a covered pot barely parts in an open oven.
• It is also where the shine comes from That same water film gelates the starch on the surface into a thin transparent coating, which dries during the uncovered stage into the glossy, crackling crust. No steam, no gloss. The colour and flavour that arrive once the lid comes off are the Maillard reaction, which is why the second half of the bake is uncovered and why an underbaked loaf tastes of so much less than a dark one.
• Oven spring is over in six to eight minutes The rise in the oven is mostly alcohol and water flashing into vapour inside the gas pockets, and it can add half the loaf volume again, but it is finished within about eight minutes, once the inside reaches 68 to 80 C and the gluten sets. So the 20 minutes covered is generous rather than marginal, which is good: it means you have room for error and no reason to peek.
• No Dutch oven? Two trays work One tray under the loaf and a second inverted over the top traps the same steam. A roasting tin over a baking sheet does it too. Failing that, put a tray of boiling water in the bottom of the oven as the bread goes in. It is less effective than an enclosed pot, but far better than nothing.

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Watch the Video: Step-by-Step Sourdough Bread Guide

If you prefer learning visually, this video walks through the whole process - dough development, shaping, scoring and baking - so you can see the dough at each stage.

Recipe Card for Quick and Easy Sourdough Bread

Check out my other Recipes:

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What to Serve With Sourdough Bread

Sourdough is at its best as part of a dish rather than beside one. A few of the ways it earns its place on my table:

• Leczo with Smoked Sausage: Scoop up this pepper and sausage stew with fresh sourdough.
• Beef Fillet Mignon with Gnocchi on Pan-Fried Sourdough: My signature dish. Crisp sourdough slices add the perfect crunch to tender beef and gnocchi.
• Bigos Hultajski: Soak up the rich flavours of this hearty Polish hunter’s stew with crusty bread.
• Authentic Hungarian Goulash: Tear off a slice to dip into this smoky, paprika-infused beef stew.

Sourdough Troubleshooting

Most problems come down to starter strength, fermentation timing or handling rather than anything going wrong. Use this as a diagnosis tool: change one variable and bake again.

My starter has not doubled and I want to bake today

Do not bake with it. A starter that is not visibly active is the commonest single cause of a dense loaf, and nothing later in the process makes up for it. Feed it again at the same ratio, keep it somewhere in the low twenties rather than a cold corner, and wait until it doubles reliably within six to eight hours of a feed. If it is a young starter, give it a few more days of daily feeding before you ask it to raise a loaf.

My bread is dense and did not rise properly

Usually the starter was not active enough, the bulk fermentation was cut short, or too much extra flour went in during shaping. Bake only when your starter doubles reliably, give the bulk longer in a cool kitchen, and resist adding flour - a sticky dough is normal at this hydration and it firms up as it ferments. I go through the causes one by one in why sourdough comes out dense.

My score will not open in the oven

Nearly always the cut itself. Go about a centimetre deep rather than scratching the surface, hold the blade at a shallow angle so it makes a flap that can lift rather than a vertical slit that just closes, and make one confident cut rather than several tentative ones. A blade that drags is blunt: use a fresh razor, or oil it lightly. And get the loaf into the oven straight after scoring, because a scored loaf left standing seals itself back up. If you are baking uncovered, the missing steam is the other likely cause.

My dough is very sticky and hard to handle

That is normal at this hydration, especially early on. Use wet or lightly oiled hands, build the strength with stretch and folds rather than by adding flour, and it will get smoother with every round. A bench scraper makes it much less unpleasant.

How do I know when bulk fermentation is done?

Not by the clock. The dough should have risen noticeably, look domed rather than flat, feel airy and alive, and wobble as one mass when you nudge the bowl. Three to four folds over an hour and a half to two hours is the usual span in a warm kitchen; a cold one takes longer and that is fine.

My bread has a very thick or hard crust

Not enough steam in the first part of the bake. Bake in a preheated covered pot, or improvise with two trays. If you are baking uncovered, get a tray of boiling water into the bottom of the oven as the loaf goes in.

My sourdough tastes too sour

Over-fermentation, usually in a warm kitchen. Shorten the bulk, lean on the overnight cold proof rather than a long warm one, and bake earlier rather than waiting for a dramatic rise.

I want a more open crumb

Strong flour, gentle handling and proper fermentation, in that order. Do not knock the gas out during shaping, let the dough build real strength before you shape it, and do not rush the bulk.

My dough spreads instead of holding its shape

Weak gluten or overproofing. Add an extra stretch and fold during the bulk, shape with more surface tension, and shorten the final proof a little.

My bread is gummy inside even though it looks baked

Underbaked or cut too soon, and the second is far more common than people think. Bake to about 96 C in the centre, and let the loaf cool completely before slicing - the crumb is still setting as it cools.

My starter smells like alcohol or vinegar

It is hungry. Feed it more often, and at least once a week if it lives in the fridge. Pour off the dark liquid before feeding.

My loaf stuck to the proofing basket

Not enough flour in the basket. Rice flour is the best answer because it does not absorb moisture and turn to paste the way wheat flour does. A floured cloth lining works too.

Can I use wholemeal or rye flour?

Yes, but replace only 20 to 30 per cent of the white flour, add a little more water, and expect a denser crumb and faster fermentation. Both ferment more quickly than white flour, so keep an eye on the bulk rather than the timings.

Can I bake this without a Dutch oven?

Yes. Two oven-safe trays, one inverted over the other, trap steam perfectly well, and a roasting tin over a baking sheet does the same. Preheat whatever you use along with the oven, because the stored heat matters as much as the cover.

If your dough regularly struggles to rise - especially in colder kitchens - this winter dough proofing guide explains exactly how to fix it. While written for winter, it works year-round whenever fermentation slows down.

A Few Words from the Chef

There is very little in cooking as satisfying as turning a jar of flour and water into a loaf that fills the house with that smell. Every bake teaches you something, and after a few of them the timings stop being instructions and start being something you can feel. The same starter will do focaccia and flatbreads too, so it earns its keep.