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The BEST french bread recipe ever! I walk you through how to make this easy french bread in a way that is beginner friendly without sacrificing taste.

Watch this video to see exactly how easy this French Bread really is!!

With a thick, chewy crust and a fluffy tender inside, this french bread recipe is a keeper.

EASY French Bread

This is your step-by-step guide for easily making french bread and feeling like a rockstar while doing it! Homemade bread is one of life’s simplest pleasures, but people tend to overcomplicate the process. My recipe for french bread keeps it simple – without sacrificing the delicious taste of the finished product.

If you’ve never made bread before, this is honestly the best place to start! I’ll teach you how to whip up 2 quick french bread loaves that will impress you, your family and anyone else you break bread with. So if you’re looking for a way to avoid running to the grocery store *again* but still want a delightfully crusty bread to serve with dinner, let’s do this.

Why You’ll Love this Quick French Bread Recipe

This is the easiest French bread recipe out there- not only is it quick but honestly it’s the best recipe to start with if you’ve never made bread before. Plus, you get two large loaves from this one recipe so freeze one or gift it to a neighbor. Either way it is a win!

Easy French Bread Ingredients

  • Quick Rise Yeast – This will help the dough rise faster, which yields a faster French bread!
  • Warm Water – if you have an instant read thermometer, the water should be about 110°, if not, you’ll want it to just feel slightly warm when the water runs on the inside of your wrist.
  • Sugar – the sugar will initially help activate the yeast and then more sugar is added to the dough. The final bread is not sweet by any means.
  • Oil – the oil helps make the bread tender, without it the bread would be more heavy and tough.
  • Salt
  • Flour – all we need here is All-purpose flour. Nothing fancy needed!

How to Make French Bread in Instant Pot

  1. First you will combine warm water, yeast & a little bit of sugar and let it do its thing for 5 or so minutes. You’ll end up with bubbly yeast, this means that you yeast is active and working. If it hasn’t, your yeast is dead and you need to try again.
  2. Add the yeast, flour, sugar, salt, oil & water into your mixer. Using the dough hook, turn the mixer on low until the flour is incorporated. Turn the speed up just a tad and let the mixer kneed for about 5 minutes.
  3. When the dough is done kneading you should be able to pull off some dough and roll it into a ball. The dough will stick to the sides of the bowl a bit but it shouldn’t stick to your hands when you try to roll it.
  4. Add about 1 TBSP of oil to your Instant Pot and turn it on. Push the yogurt button and then adjust until the normal light is on.
  5. Dump the dough into the instant pot and coat the dough in oil so it will not stick.
  6. The dough will now rise for 40 minutes. Every 10 minutes you will want to come back and ‘knead’ the dough a few times.
  7. I found it easiest to use a spoon to push it down and move it around. The ‘kneading’ process should take about 30 seconds is all. Just push it down to release the built in air, cover and let it proof for another 10 minutes. So at 10 minutes, 20 minutes and 30 minutes you will ‘knead’ the dough. At 40 minutes you will dump the dough out onto a floured surface. Knead the dough in the flour a few times to soak up the excess oil.
  8. Divide the dough into the amount of loaves you’d like to make. Today I was taking dinner to a friend so I made 2 loaves. I’ve made one large loaf before as well as 4 small loaves.
  9. The best way to shape the loaves is to first roll the dough out into a rectangle.Then starting on the long end of the rectangle, roll & pinch the dough until you’ve rolled it into the desired shape.
  10. You can put an egg white wash on now if you’d like. It doesn’t change the taste, it just makes the crust shiny when finished. Then take a knife and score the top of the dough.
  11. Set the oven to 425°. Place the loaves of bread on top of the oven to raise while the oven preheats.
  12. Once doubled, bake at 425° for 10 minutes and then lower the temp to 375° (without taking the bread out) and bake for an additional 20 minutes. There you have it! Super yummy & quick french bread!
Quick & Easy French Bread
Quick & Easy French Bread

What to do with this Easy French Bread Recipe

I am a purist so I just love the warm french bread with the hard crust slathered in butter but my family loves to eat it with honey or raspberry jam. I also will never say no to dunking a thick slice of French bread into some stew.

Easy Quick French Bread FAQs

What makes French bread different?

French bread is always a longer and narrow loaf of bread with a crusty exterior. The inside should be light and soft.

What gives French bread its flavor?

The combination of the yeast and flour with that thick, hard crust gives French bread it’s classic flavor profile.

How long does French bread take to bake?

It will take about 30 minutes total in the oven to completely bake your loaf of French bread. There is more time involved with making a loaf at home, though. You’ll need to consider how long it takes to prepare the dough and let it rise.

What is the best flour for French bread?

I recommend using unbleached all-purpose flour or bread flour! These two flours have a higher protein content, resulting in the textbook structure and chewiness of french bread without becoming too dense.

How to keep french bread fresh?

Store your french bread in a paper bag at room temperature for up to 2 days! Whatever you do, you do not want to put this bread in the fridge or a ziplock bag as it will rob your loaf of moisture and make the crust unpleasantly chewy.

Quick & Easy French Bread has the classic chewy outer crust with a soft, chewy inside. Thanks to the Instant Pot, two beautiful loaves of French Bread are hot out of the oven in under 90 minutes! |Cooking with Karli| #frenchbread #proofing #instantpot #easy #fast #yeast #recipe

More like this Easy French Bread Recipe

Breadsticks

Cinnamon Rolls

Soft Pretzel Recipe

Ciabatta Rolls

Asiago Cheese Bagel

Frozen Dinner Rolls

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4.56 from 146 votes

Fast French Bread Recipe

Quick & Easy French Bread has the classic chewy outer crust with a soft, chewy inside. Thanks to the Instant Pot, two beautiful loaves of French Bread are hot out of the oven in under 90 minutes!
Prep Time: 1 hour
Cook Time: 30 minutes
Total Time: 1 hour 30 minutes
Servings: 2 loaves

Ingredients 

  • 1 1/2 tbsp quick rise yeast
  • 2 1/2 cup very warm water, divided
  • 1 1/2 tbsp sugar, divided
  • 2 tbsp oil
  • 2 1/4 tsp salt
  • 6 cups flour

Instructions 

  • Combine 1/2 cup of warm water, the yeast and 1/2 tsp sugar. Let the mixture sit for 5-10 minutes until nice and bubbly.
  • Add the bubbly yeast and all other ingredients (2 cups of water, remaining sugar, oil, salt and flour) to the bowl of a stand mixer. Using the dough hook, combine the ingredients. Once ‘dough’ has formed, turn the mixer’s speed up a little and let the mixer knead for 5 minutes.
  • The dough will stick to the sides of the bowl a little but you should be able to roll the dough into a small ball in your hands easily without it sticking.
  • Pour 1 Tbsp of oil into the instant pot. Place the dough into the Instant Pot and push the yogurt button, adjust it to the normal setting. Roll the dough in oil so it will not stick. 
  • The dough will now rise for 40 minutes. Every 10 minutes you will want to come back and ‘knead’ the dough a few times. Cover with a lid while you are not ‘kneading’. So at 10 minutes, 20 minutes and 30 minutes you will ‘knead’ the dough. At 40 minutes you will dump the dough out onto a floured surface
  • Divide the dough into the amount of loaves you’d like. Use a rolling pin and roll the dough into a large rectangle. Shape the dough by starting at the long rolling and pinching the dough until you have achieved the desired shape. Score the top of the dough with a knife. You may do an egg white wash at this point if desired.
  • Set the oven to 425°. Let the dough rise until double while the oven is preheating.
  • Bake at 425° for 10 minutes. Without taking the bread out, turn the oven down to 375° and bake for an additional 20 minutes.
  • ENJOY!!

Video

Nutrition

Serving: 1slice | Calories: 97kcal | Carbohydrates: 19g | Protein: 3g | Fat: 1g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g | Sodium: 165mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 1g
Like this recipe? Rate and comment below!

 

About Karli

This blog is a little glimpse into my kitchen, family & life. I hope you’ll giggle the days away with me and enjoy the craziness that goes on at my house. If you are Cookie obsessed like I am, check out my Sister Site, Cookies for Days.

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241 Comments

  1. I have done that before too!! Waiting for bread to rise is the worst. I have no patience when it comes to fresh baked bread. ? Thanks for stopping by, Kat!

  2. I was thinking about doing this as well. I don’t have a mixer with a dough hook. Let us know how it turned out.

  3. What you’re calling “kneading” (in quotes in your recipe) is usually just called ‘punching down’. If you have people who are at all familiar with making bread, that will make much more sense to them. And if someone isn’t familiar with making bread, it’s a nice descriptive term that tells you pretty much exactly what you’re supposed to do – smush down the risen dough.

  4. 5 stars
    Karli, I made your french bread recipe and it was delicious and came out beautiful, one thing that tripped me up though was the sugar amount, in the ingredients list it has 1 1/2Tbsps. divided, in the instructions it says mix 1/2 tsp with the yeast and water, I know it’s not that big of a difference so I just used 1/2Tbsp. instead of trying to remove 1/2tsp sugar from 1 1/2 Tbsp. Like I said the bread tasted delicious so I am not complaining by any means I just wondered if that was a typo or that is the correct amounts! Thanks, Crystal

  5. Hi Crystal! I just went over and reviewed that recipe and I see how that could be confusing! So the 1/2 tsp is meant to be taken out of the 1 1/2 tbsp of sugar. So where it says to add all other ingredients, that includes the remaining sugar. (I will go in and change the wording. I’ll put it on my to do list. ?) the 1/2 tsp is just used to give the yeast a little something to get started with. I usually measure out 1 1/2 tbsp and then just shake a little bit into the water and yeast and call it good. Then I add the remaining sugar to the mixing bowl with the oil, extra water etc. does that make sense? I hope this helps!! Let me know if you have further questions!

  6. 5 stars
    Karli that makes total sense and my instincts said to take the 1/2tsp out of the 1 1/2Tbsp. but like I said the 1/2 tbsp. worked great and it made awesome french toast for breakfast? Thank you!

  7. 5 stars
    I made this bread today and it turned out so good! I told my husband when I was puttIng the second loaf away after dinner that it may sound silly, but I am so proud of this bread! It made me think of my grandma and how she made her yeast rolls. Thanks for the great recipe!

  8. Oh, French toast would be delicious!! So glad it still worked for you!!

  9. Oh, Tammy! You should be proud of the bread! I am proud every time I make it. ? I am glad it was a hit!