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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!!
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
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Dump the dough into the instant pot and coat 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Set the oven to 425°. Place the loaves of bread on top of the oven to raise while the oven preheats.
- 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!
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
French bread is always a longer and narrow loaf of bread with a crusty exterior. The inside should be light and soft.
The combination of the yeast and flour with that thick, hard crust gives French bread it’s classic flavor profile.
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.
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.
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.
More like this Easy French Bread Recipe
Fast French Bread Recipe
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
Amazing recipe and do easy. Loved your video tutorial, that helped so much. Loving all your videos. Thanks so much for putting out such great content.
I am so glad that you found the video tutorial helpful!! Thank you so much, Elizabeth. 🙂
Karli,
I have made hundreds of recipes with my Instant Pots over the years. I only recently starting using my IP to proof bread with OK results. As I and my family do our best to social distance and limit our shopping trips (no more ad hoc shopping trips), I was making dinner for our family when I thought how great it would be to have one of our supermarket French breads to go along with it. I wasn’t going to go shopping just for 1 loaf. I came across your recipe and made it. The video was very helpful. Damn if it did not turn out perfect. I’ve made it two more times over the course of the last week much to my family’s delight. Thank you so much for providing something to us that we have taken for granted prior to these times. Thank you again. Much gratefulness.
George, thank you so much for this comment! Made my whole day. Enjoy that bread and enjoy your family time. 🙂
My dough mixture turned soupy instead of being kneaded….any suggestions?
Hi Danielle, are you certain the correct amount of water and flour were used? It sounds like either one of those measurements may have been off.
If you don’t have a mixer, could you give directions for mixing and kneading by hand?
Hi Debbie, stir everything together using a wooden spoon until it is too thick. At that point, turn it out onto the counter and knead until all of the flour has been added and the dough is smooth and elastic. Then you can proceed with the rest of the ingredients. Hopefully this helps!
My IP doesn’t have a yogurt function. Any suggestions?
Hey J, this is a very common question. Unfortunately there is not a substitute for the yogurt button on the Instant Pot. The Instant Pot Duo and Ultra are the ones that have the yogurt button. Amazon sometimes has sales on these Instant Pots. I hope this helps!
Hi Karli,
I recently discovered you and your recipes look delicious! I’m interested in making a bunch of your breads in my Instant Pot, however I don’t have a yogurt button. Do you know if there is any substitute setting I could use instead of the yogurt button?
Thanks
Hey Adrienne, thanks for the question. Unfortunately there isn’t a substitute for the yogurt button. I wish there was! The Instant Pot Duo or ultra both have the yogurt button.
My bread was not crusty on the outside. I used a convection oven cooking with a bit lower temperature. Could that be the problem? Or did I put too much oil in the instant pot. The inside and taste are great, but it’s not crusty.
Hi Vivian- it was the lower temperature that did it. The hard crust is created when we bake at a high temperature first and then decrease the temperature for the rest of the baking. Give it another try!
Been making this recipe over the last week and sharing on Instagram …. turns out perfect EVERY SINGLE TIME. Recipe is soooo good! Trying it to make buns tonight, eeek! Thanks for a great recipe!
Hi Megan! I have loved seeing your posts over on IG! Keep up the baking, you rock!!
This was amazing! I kneaded the dough by hand for about 10 minutes. I needed to add a little bit of flour during kneading to make it easier otherwise the dough would have been too sticky. The loaves were super tasty with a nice crunch both on top and on the bottom. Thanks for this recipe! Can you refrigerate half of the dough and make it a day or two later?
Hi Andrea- I haven’t ever tried refrigerating the dough, but I have frozen the dough before! If you are planning on baking it within 2 days, I think you’d be fine refrigerating the formed loaf!
Trying this recipe right now as I type this! I have made a few of your recipes from your blog….. Can one of these loaves be froze once cooked?
Thanks for the comment Jenna. They can be frozen, although I have found that they aren’t as good as when they are fresh. Happy baking Jenna!