Homemade Dinner Rolls Recipe
Published March 21, 2024. This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure policy.
This easy-to-make homemade Dinner Rolls Recipe is baked until golden brown with a light, airy center for the perfect bread side dish to any meal. Believe it or not, these are a lot simpler to prepare than you may have thought.
It doesn’t matter if you make an artisan country loaf or banana bread. There is nothing like making a fresh bread recipe at home. It will taste significantly better when you make it homemade, and you’ll also learn new bread-making tricks.
Dinner Rolls
Dinner rolls are made from a simple yeast-raised dough formed into individual balls and baked until golden brown and light and fluffy on the inside.
They are an excellent side dish to serve with an everyday dinner and of course, are a staple for larger holiday meals. These can also be slider buns if you’re looking for a homemade recipe and would like to serve them in that manner. There isn’t a kid out there who didn’t immediately reach for the rolls once they sat at the table.
Ingredients and Substitutions
- Milk – I used whole milk in this recipe to give it more fat. However, you can substitute with 1%, 2%, or skim milk.
- Sugar – Regular granulated sugar is used in these dinner rolls.
- Yeast – I used active yeast for this recipe, but you can also use instant yeast. If you are using instant yeast, you do not need to wait for it to form a raft with the sugar and warm milk.
- Butter – I always use unsalted butter in my cooking and baking to control the sodium content.
- Flour – All-purpose flour is used in these rolls. Bread flour can also be used.
- Salt – I always use coarse salt in my cooking and baking.
- Eggs – Large eggs that are chilled or at room temperature will work in this recipe.
How to Make Dinner Rolls from Scratch
Add your hot milk between 112° and 115° and pour it into your standing mixer. Immediately add sugar and sprinkle in your active yeast. Whisk the mixture and let it sit for 4-6 minutes or until a raft forms on the top.
Add the hook attachment and turn the stand mixer to low while adding the remaining sugar, butter, and salt.
Slowly add the flour, a few scoops at a time, so that the mixer can catch up and mix all the ingredients. You don’t want to dump everything in there at once.
Add 1 egg at a time, until mixed in, and then knead it on medium speed for 3-5 minutes.
Next simply add your dough to a container, cover with a towel or plastic wrap, and place in an un-used oven with the oven light on and let it proof for 1 hour or until doubled in size.
Remove the dough from the oven and place it on a clean surface dusted with flour and punch it down to simply flatten it out. We want it to rise again, so this is why you do it.
Form 20 individual golf-sized dough balls and place them about 1” apart from each other in a greased and lined with parchment paper cookie sheet tray or 13×9 dish.
Place a towel over the top of the bread and let it rise for 30 more minutes. You can absolutely place it back in the unused oven with the oven light on.
Remove the towel and brush the tops of the dinner rolls with a simple egg wash of whisked egg and milk. This will help them brown up beautifully. Bake the dinner rolls in the oven at 350° for 25-30 minutes. They should be golden brown on top and soft but cooked in the middle.
Brush on some melted unsalted butter, sprinklesome coarse salt, and have it, my friends.
Make-Ahead and Storage
Make-Ahead: You can make these 1 day ahead before baking them. Once they are on the baking sheet, place them in the refrigerator until about 90 minutes before you want to eat them. Remove them from the refrigerator and let them sit for 60 minutes to get up to room temperature. Bake them according to the instructions.
How to Store: Keep covered at room temperature for up to 3 days or in the refrigerator for up to 5 days. These will freeze well, covered for up to 3 months. Thaw in the refrigerator until soft.
How to Reheat: If you want to serve these warm, add them to a casserole dish and cover them with foil. Bake at 350° for 4 to 6 minutes or until hot.
CHEF NOTES + TIPS
- It is best to reheat these in the oven at 350° for 4 to 6 minutes or until warm.
- Bread, in most cases, is usually done rising once it’s doubled its size.
- You will be okay if your yeast hasn’t expired and your liquid is between the optimal 105° and 110°, even if no raft forms.
- The most foolproof way to activate yeast is to start with a warm liquid. While most active yeasts call for an optimal temperature of 105° to 110°. However, if I add it to a mixing bowl, I usually elevate these temperatures by 5° to 7°.
- When you transfer hot liquid to a mixing bowl, it is almost always cold and immediately drops the temperature from 5° to 7°, making it perfect. Always account for stuff like that because if it’s too cold, the yeast won’t activate.
- Try proofing your bread in the oven with it turned off, slightly cracked, and only the oven light on. This will create the perfect proofing environment and temperature.
- When the rolls are done baking, add some herb butter, garlic butter, or cheese to the top for more flavor.
- Bread should have a nice, thin, or thick brown crust on top and a cooked, soft center. There should be no raw dough. They will read at least 190° internally when they are done.
More Bread Recipes
- Homemade Pita Bread Recipe
- Homemade White Bread
- French Boule with Poolish
- Kamut Flour Bread with Biga
- Gougéres
Video
Homemade Dinner Rolls Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups whole milk at 115° + 2 tablespoons
- ¼ cup sugar
- 1 packet active yeast
- 7 tablespoons unsalted melted butter + more for brushing
- pinch coarse salt
- 4 ¼ cups All Purpose Flour
- 3 large eggs
Instructions
- Add the 1 ½ cups hot milk, 1 tablespoon of sugar, and yeast to a standing mixer with the hook attachment. Whisk with a whisk until combined and let it sit for 4-6 minutes or when a raft forms.
- Add the remaining sugar, 7 tablespoons of melted butter, and sea salt.
- Turn the mixer on low and slowly add the flour in 4 or so batches until combined.
- Add 2 eggs until mixed in, and then knead for 3-5 minutes.
- Cover and let rise until it has doubled in size for 60 minutes.
- Punch down the dough and form 20 small golf ball-sized dough balls. Place 1” apart in a greased and parchment paper-lined cookie sheet tray or 12×18 baking pan.
- Cover with a towel and let rise for 30 more minutes.
- In a small bowl, whisk together the remaining egg and 2 tablespoons of whole milk until combined.
- Brush the tops of the bread with the egg wash and bake at 350° for 25-30 minutes or until browned on top and soft and cooked in the middle.
- Brush with unsalted melted butter and sprinkle on sea salt.
- Serve warm.
Are they sweet? Thanks for sharing!
Love how they look, have already tried other recipes of yours and they are yummy! Including breads, dessert, etc.
Lovely rolls. Easy to make, I made a day ahead and was pleased with results. This is my hew go-to roll recipe!
Excellent and easy deelicious
There’s nothing better than homemade Bread…It’s just the best…
Thank you so much for this. I gave it 5 stars even though I have not actually made the recipe, which sounds amazing, but more importantly for the instruction, I have never known how to work with yeast or how to properly knead dough, and this was the best instruction I have ever come across. I feel like I could make this recipe and be confident it would turn out great! I am 71 yrs old by the way, and my first and last attempt at making something using yeast was about 40 years ago! I had no idea what I was doing and it was an epic fail! I have numerous bread and roll recipes saved, because who doesn’t love them, but never had the nerve to try again. Thanks for the confidence. You are a great teacher!!
Yummy, Good tasty homemade rolls. Making them again for Easter. Thank you for all your recipes, im in heaven.
We loved these. I put some in the freezer before the last rise & I take them out of the freezer to thaw & rise before baking.
Excellent!
These are the best rolls. Addictive!
We make the at least twice a month, a double batch
I have just finished baking and eating your dinner rolls. Very easy to make. Thank you for all your recipes. So far I have only tried the Ham and potato soup and now the buns. I will definitely be making more of your recipes from now on.
Great recipe. So easy and you can make anything out of the dough. My wife loves Oliver Garden garlic parm bread sticks, I use this same recipe and just make the different shape!!
Best easiest fluffy rolls my go to forever now.
Second time making these rolls. Easy to follow and mighty tasty.
Wonderful fluffy rolls. Made them for Christmas dinner and everyone raved about them!! Very easy!!!
My wife and I spent xmas eve making these…they were awesome! Thank you and happy holidays. How may I post a photo of our Dinner Rolls? I posted it on your FB page as AJ Simon. Cheers.
Great recipe! I made them for our Christmas Eve dinner and my family all agreed that they were the best dinner rolls that I have ever made and I have made a lot of rolls in the past.
I made these tonight. First batch horrible because I didn’t do something right. 2nd batch look good. Cooked a few in the advantium and they were great. I have the rest covered with towels in the refrigerator. Will they last until Christmas Day like that, and then I take them out 60 minutes before I cook them? I need some guidance here.
Thank you ChefBilly we need smell a thon when you cook yep eee 😁🤩👋🤩
my pleasure!
smells so good bread out of the oven yum oh 😋😁🤩👋
so good!!
Could I sub out cows milk for coconut cream or coconut milk? I want to make this but we don’t drink cows milk
No
Third time, wonderful and perfect !!!
Best dinner rolls I’ve ever made. I made them to roll Kolachi’s. My daughter said best bread ever.
Glad she enjoyed them, thank you for trying this!
What a wonderful recipe ! As written, these turned out perfect !!!! Bravo !!!!!
my pleasure
I’ve had a fear/fascination with making breads but never worked with yeast. Your recipe and video helped me conquer that and I made the bread rolls! They turned out perfect and tasted amazing! Making this for Thanksgiving this year! No more brown and serve rolls for me! Thank you Billy, for making baking seem effortless for me!!
my pleasure!
Made these last night to go with chicken and noodles. I thought I had done something wrong initially because I didn’t have much of a rise the 1st rising. The 2nd however proved to be successful. These rolls were delicious and the recipe easy. Went great with the chicken and noodles and I can only imagine how great these are going to be dipped into my thanksgiving gravy! Thanks Billy!
Easy and delicious. Loved the proofing oven tip for your bread recipes.
This recipe was e z Pezze to make. It came out so good I shocked myself. These are definitely going on the table for Thanksgiving and Christmas
My family couldn’t get enough
love it!
These were easy to make and delicious!!!!
excellent!
Best dinner rolls my family loves them!
awesome!
These were the perfect rolls for my sliders on the griddle! It was the cherry on top that put them over the edge!! Thank you Billy!
Ecellent!
Fabulous recipe, and delicious warm from the oven. Definitely making these again!
awesome
Great recipe. Will use it again and again!! Thank you!!
Oh my word. This was so fun to make in my stand mixer while watching the video! Easy peasy to follow and they turned out terrific!
Perfect!
Just wondering about the small amount of salt in this recipe. Seems most recipes use more salt.
Feel free to add more
You are a awesome chef I’ve cooked so many times behind your videos and everything always turned out wonderful. Let’s continue to cook
They were so good. I highlight of Christmas dinner. You did a great job explaining how to make it. thank you!
Amazing rolls! They are just delicious. I have 2 questions.
1. I know that serious bread bakers weigh their flour. I converted the flour to 18 ozs. of flour, but it was not nearly enough. I wound up adding about another cup as it kneaded, as it seemed more like a thick pancake batter than bread dough. How many ozs. of flour are required, if weighed?
2. We did not want to eat all of the rolls, so I wanted to freeze the remaining ones. They would not come off the buttered parchment paper! I decided to use scissors to cut the paper into individual squares (with the rolls still firmly attached to the paper). How could I have done this better, to get the rolls from the second rise into the freezer, for later use?
Thank you! I love your recipes. I will definitely make this one again.
I have quite a bit of salted butter, will it be alright to use this?
yes, just don’t use salt.
Can I use 2% milk instead of whole milk?
Yes
On the make ahead..can I make the dough and form the rolls the day before? Thank you for all your help and absolutely loved your Q&A. I was glued to my screen 😌 God Bless!🙏
Yes you can.
Can I use I different brand of white flour?
yes!
Only two people in home can this recipe be cut in half? Or do you have smaller recipe?
it absolutely can be cut in half. Place your cursor over the serving amount and slide up and down for servings and the ingredient amounts will change.
Can you suggest an adjustment if I want to use wheat flour. Thanks!
You want to use 100% wheat flour? I would suggest cutting it a little with regular white flour.
I wondered if you have a recipe with a poolish for intensifying the French taste in French Bread Dinner Rolls. I’m a new baker but an older French bread taste lover.
Thank you!
I have a poolish recipe at https://www.billyparisi.com/classic-french-boule-recipe-with-poolish/. You would just have to scale it into the current recipe based on baking percentages.
Not sure I understand your make ahead directions. Can I make and freeze these ahead of time, thaw in fridge; then bring to room temp before baking? Thank you for the recipes and videos–you are very easy to watch, and your dishes are both easy and delicious (French Silk Pie is a stunner!)
Yes, make and freeze ahead of time. Bring to room temperature before reheating.