I got a Dutch oven recently because I wanted to try my hand at making bread with one, and it didn’t disappoint. This recipe for easy sourdough Dutch oven bread is fast and will give you a result that looks like a loaf from a professional bakery.
This article includes affiliate links that will pay a commission if they’re used to purchase something. As an Amazon associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
Using sourdough starter or commercial yeast.
I used my sourdough starter for this and made a sponge the night before, but you can use commercial yeast if you prefer. The sourdough sponge has to be made ahead of time for this recipe, so if you forget, just go with the fast-acting yeast that you can get at the grocery store. (You can see it on Amazon, here: https://amzn.to/4lG00Do #ad)
Get the recipe for the sponge in this article: Simple Sourdough Bread Recipe For Beginners. The recipe is the same as this one, the Dutch oven is the only real difference!
Shop for Dutch ovens on Amazon. This is the one that I bought #ad
Bread recipe.
This is a pretty simple recipe…
Sourdough version.
- 1/2 to 1 cups of warm water
- 2 to 2 1/2 cups of unbleached flour (bread flour or AP flour)
- 1 tsp salt
- Sourdough sponge
To make the sponge, mix 1/2 cup of sourdough starter, 1 cup of warm water, and 1 1/2 cups of flour and let it sit for at least 12 hours but not more than 36.
When you’re ready to make the bread, add 2 cups of the flour, 1/2 cup of water and the salt to the sponge, stirring for a couple of minutes with the wooden spoon. Stir until the dough forms a ball and pulls away from the sides of the bowl, adding more flour or water as needed. Put a little flour on the counter and pour the dough ball onto the floured countertop. Knead the dough ball until it’s a stretchy texture and has a blistered-looking surface, adding more flour as needed to keep it from sticking to the counter.
Commercial yeast version.
- 1 1/4 cups of warm water
- 3 1/2 – 4 cups of unbleached flour (bread flour or AP flour)
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 1/2 tsp fast acting yeast
Put the yeast into the water to soften it. Put the flour and salt into a bowl and whisk to combine them. Add the water and yeast to the flour and stir well, stirring for a couple of minutes with the wooden spoon. Stir until the dough forms a ball and pulls away from the sides of the bowl, adding more flour or water as needed. Put a little flour on the counter and pour the dough ball onto the floured countertop. Knead the dough ball until it’s a stretchy texture and has a blistered-looking surface, adding more flour as needed to keep it from sticking to the counter.
Prepping the dough for baking.
When you bake your bread in a Dutch oven you have to preheat the pot, so you can’t let the dough rise in the pan you’re also baking it in. That’s the one tricky thing to navigate, as I learned the hard way with one loaf that I made. (More about that below.)
After you’re done mixing the dough and kneading it (I didn’t do the stretch and fold method for this loaf) You should put it in the bowl to rise, but put a large piece of parchment paper in the bowl to rest it on.
You’re going to transfer the parchment to the Dutch oven with the dough inside it when you’re ready to bake it.
When the dough has doubled in size, you can either punch it down to do a second rise, do that but put it in the fridge to slow the proofing, or just bake it right away. Whatever option you choose, you’ll need to be careful not to deflate the dough ball before baking it.
The amount of rise that you’ll get from each method is going to vary based on the temperature of the room and how fast the dough rises, but no matter what you do you’re going to get a good loaf that you can eat, don’t worry about that. The texture might be different, but who cares, you can still eat it.
Heat the pot.
Here comes the part that you have to be careful with…You have to heat the Dutch oven BEFORE you put the dough in it. The high heat will help to make the inside of the Dutch oven humid when you put the dough in, and it will create a crispier crust.
So turn the oven on to 450F or so, and put the Dutch oven into it to heat it up. I can’t turn my oven on to anything higher than 400F because the way my house is set up the heat will funnel down the hallway and set off the heat sensor on the smoke detector, so I use 400F and it works just fine.
When the pot is hot (give it an hour or so) CAREFULLY take it out of the oven with oven mitts or potholders, and take the lid off. Put the potholders on the top of the lid to remind yourself not to grab it because you’ll burn yourself pretty badly. (I have a lot of burn scars from my years of baking, don’t be like me.)
Now…This is what to watch out for that I mentioned earlier. CAREFULLY lift the parchment paper out of the bowl where the dough was rising, and place it GENTLY into the Dutch oven. DO NOT drop it in, because it can deflate!
I made that mistake once and I screamed a little as I watched the dough ball slowly deflate in the Dutch oven…It ended up being pretty dense, so I don’t know if that was the reason, but try not to dislodge the gases in the dough that have formed during the rising process.
You should also slash the top of the dough ball to let gases escape as the bread cooks!
Put the lid back on the pot and put it in the oven to bake for 30 minutes. USE POTHOLDERS.
Bake it for 30 minutes covered, then take the lid off of the pot and bake it for 15 minutes more uncovered.
Cooling the bread.
When you take the lid off of the Dutch oven, you’ll be treated to the sight of a beautiful loaf of bread…I’ve been testing it for the right temperature for done-ness after removing it, but the Dutch oven seems to give a pretty good, consistent bake at 400F for 45 minutes, so I don’t think you really need to worry about that with this method.
Take the bread out using the parchment paper (and being careful not to touch the hot pot) and put it on a cooling rack until it’s TOTALLY cooled off. If you store it when it’s still warm, the moisture that hasn’t left the inside of the loaf can soften up the crust and you’ll lose that crispness.
You can cut it to eat some after ten minutes or so, but really try to wait longer until it’s a little cooler, you’ll get a better texture.
The Dutch oven gives you a really fast bake on the outside of the loaf, which makes the crust crustier, but it also makes the loaf very evenly baked, and it looks great.
Seriously, this bread is pretty.
I kneaded this loaf, so the bread was pretty dense, and it was good for cutting to use for sandwiches. If you used the stretch-and-fold method to develop the gluten it adds a little lamination, so that could add more holes in it if you like that. I personally don’t like that as much as a good solid bread surface that isn’t full of gaps, but that’s me.
This was an easy loaf to make, the hardest part was remembering not to burn myself when I was moving the Dutch oven around. Make sure to wear oven mitts if you’re afraid of burns, that’s the safest way to go!
