No-Knead Crusty Bread

This is one of my favorite bread recipes. I use this for crusty artisan-style loaves, as well as for dinner rolls and bread bowls. The delicious No-Knead Crusty Bread recipe comes from King Arthur Flour.

This is a very basic dough. It only uses four simple ingredients: flour, yeast, salt, and water.

You might wonder what to do with so much bread dough. Here are some of my favorite ways to use it:

Basic artisan loaves
Round loaves for soup bread bowls – ideal for broccoli and cheddar soup!
Crusty dinner rolls
Crusty sandwich loaves

In the video, I mention that I love baking bread on my bread stone. The trick to using a bread stone is to heat it up with the oven and let it get really hot – like sitting in a preheated oven for at least 15 minutes – before you bake your bread on it.

Here is the bread stone I use: https://amzn.to/3cnaeWm

Also, to get the crusty texture on the outside of the loaf, it’s important to have steam in the oven. This can be accomplished either with using a water bottle to spray water in the oven just before closing the door or you can put a metal pan on the rack below the baking stone and let it also heat up with the stone. When you put the dough on the stone to bake, pour a cup of water into the hot pan and quickly close the oven door. That will generate a good amount of steam that will help produce that perfect crusty loaf you desire.

Get my No-Knead Crusty Bread recipe below

INGREDIENTS

7½ cup flour
1½ tbsp yeast
1 tbsp salt
3 cup water warm

INSTRUCTIONS

Mix ingredients well and form into dough. Cover and refrigerate overnight. (You can actually bake this No-Knead Crusty Bread the same day, but you need to let the dough rest for at least two hours before baking the first time.) When you’re ready to bake, oil your hands, pull off a lump of dough, maybe about 1/3 of the total amount, and let it sit at room temperature for 1-2 hours (until it comes to room temp).
Preheat oven to 450º. Put a pan on the rack below the rack where you’re going to bake your bread and let it get hot. You’ll be adding water to this pan when you put your dough in the oven.
Once dough has come to room temperature, cut a couple of slashes in the top, either parallel or a criss-cross shape.
Pour at least 1 cup of water in the hot pan at the bottom of the oven then quickly put your dough on your bread stone (or transfer your pan with the dough) in the oven to bake. The steam will help create a really nice crust.
Bake for about 30-35 minutes.
Remove from oven and (if you can wait), let the bread come to room temperature before slicing. Le, your No-Knead Crusty Bread is prepared. Enjoy!