Crusty Bread Recipe

This easy (and we mean EASY!) homemade French bread recipe is sure to be a hit! Homemade dutch oven bread that's readyin just a few hours - no overnight rise. Crispy crust on the outside and soft, airy bread on the inside! Vegetarian.

The instructions may look a little long, but they'reall basically just notes on technique - so don't let the number of steps intimidate you!

If you're serious about homemade bread, you may enjoy using a proofing basket (it's one of my favorite kitchen tools!) to help the bread keep its shape while it rises. You also end up with beautiful flour rings on the crust! We like to use an 8- to 9-inch proofing basket for a single loaf of bread.

Crusty Bread Recipe With Soft Interior

If you don't have a proofing basket, no worries! Just use a medium-sized (8- or 9-inch diameter) mixing bowl to let the bread do its final rise before you bake it. Flour the bowl well to prevent sticking!

The crackly brown crust here is theresult of baking this bread in a Dutch oven. By keeping the lid on while the bread bakes, you create a nice steamy atmosphere inside the pot - and the steam is what gives the bread that crispy, magical crust. (Read more about the importance of steam in bread baking here!)

This section is LONG - but we wanted to cover the most frequent questions we get! Feel free to skip right to the recipe, but please do utilize this section if you run into questions while you're baking. For additional training videos, tips, and recipes, check out Everyday Artisan Bread!

Perfect Crusty French Bread Recipe (in A Dutch Oven) » Chicken Scratch Diaries

How to measure flour: If you have a kitchen scale, please use it! Measuring by weight is MUCH more accurate than measuring by volume (with cups) and will give you more consistent bread. That being said, you can certainly make great bread without a kitchen scale! To measure flour in cups: If you measure flour by dipping your cup straight into the bag or bin and shaking off the excess, plan to use about 2 ½ cups of flour. If you measure by stirring the flour with a spoon or scoop before scooping it into a measuring cup and leveling it off, plan to use about 3 cups of flour. You can always add more flour if you need to - just be aware that this is a relatively slack (wet) dough, so it will be a bit shaggy and sticky at first (but it will smooth out and become more elastic as it rises and again as you shape it!)

Equipment. We recommend a 4- to 6-quart Dutch oven for best results. Le Creuset and Staub are our favorites, but Marquette Castings and Lodge also make solid options that are more budget-friendly. If you don't have a Dutch oven, see this post for alternative baking methods (you can still make great bread without fancy equipment!) Please make sure that your Dutch oven is fitted with a metal (rather than plastic) knob on its lid for best results, and please check the care instructions on your individual equipment before baking. We use this 8.5-inch proofing basket, but an 8- or 9-inch banneton or medium-sized mixing bowl also work well for the final rise.

PLEASE READ THE POST ABOVE FOR OUR COMPLETE FAQs, TIPS, AND ADVICE. We've gotten so many amazing questions from you - we wanted to be sure to answer as many as we can as 

Easy Dutch Oven Crusty Bread Recipe

As we can, but if we put our answers here in the recipe it would make it very annoying to print. Please check the FAQ section in the post above if you have a question or run into a problem! 

Love this recipe? We'd love to see you in our online course, Everyday Artisan Bread, where we share exclusive training videos, worksheets, and ad-free recipes!

I'm Jessie, and I like to talk about food. Tag your recipes # on social media to share your creations! Learn about our team!We thought we’d landed upon the simplest yeast bread recipe in 2007, when Mark Bittman wrote about the no-knead approach of Jim Lahey, owner of Sullivan Street Bakery. It quickly became (and remains) one of our most popular recipes because it made bakery-quality bread a real possibility for home cooks. But then we heard about Jeff Hertzberg, a physician from Minneapolis, who devised a streamlined technique for a crusty loaf of bread. Mix flour, salt, yeast and water. Let it sit a bit, refrigerate it, take some out and let it rise, then bake it. The crusty, full-flavored loaf that results may be the world’s easiest yeast bread. —Nick Fox

Dutch Oven Crusty Bread

Must have done something wrong. Most of the dough wound up attached to me and half the kitchen. I think it could be weaponized and used to subdue the enemy or large rioting mobs in thick, inescapable goo.

I reduced this recipe by 1/3 and it makes a loaf just the right size for a family of 4. 1 1/2 tsp yeast 1 1/2 tsp salt 2 cups + 3 tbsp flour 1 cup water I also used a cast iron dutch oven to bake in the oven. Preheat the oven and dutch oven to 450 for 30 minutes. Put the dough in the dutch oven and bake for 30 minutes covered. After 30 minutes, remove the lid and bake for 5 more minutes. Works beautifully without need for pizza stone or water.

I divided the recipe by three and made a single loaf. Didn't have a pizza peel, a baking stone, or cornmeal (the student life), so I put the dough on parchment paper and added a pan of hot water to the oven. Turned out just fine. Perfect crust, big air pockets. Super easy. Will make again.

Artisan Bread Recipe

To those who found the dough too loose, and anyone else who questions how much flour..... flour absorbs moisture from the air. I can make the same recipe every month and have to adjust the flour for the humidity. The rule to follow is the dough should feel like a babies bottom soft, pliable, but not sticky. Whatever amount of flour it takes on that day is the amount you use. Go by feel, your judgement is the best guide..

I made this today, and OMG it is so good, and easy! By far the simplest bread recipe I've made. I made two very slight changes. First, I added a teaspoon of sugar to the yeast/water and let it proof for 10 minutes. Second, I added a cup of flour before I added the salt (I read somewhere a long time ago that yeast doesn't like salt, so adding a cup of flour first insulates the yeast). It turned out amazing. This is a keeper!

Corrected weights are: 681g water 16g salt 923g AP flour 14g yeast The values from Cedric and terryslo are incorrect. Sources: - The Food Lab - Red Star yeast

Quick, Crusty Bread

This bread was a great accompaniment to a pot of escarole soup I made tonight with its nice crispy crust. I was a little apprehensive as I took a few shortcuts with the time I let it rise (I used quick yeast) and I didn't have a pizza peel or baking stone. I omitted the cornmeal, greased a cookie sheet with olive oil, and threw a little casserole dish with some water on the bottom rack for steam. It turned out awesome and came together in a little over an hour and a half start to finish.

This has been my go-to bread recipe since the day that Obama won his first Presidential election. I saved the local newspaper announcing his victory and this recipe was in the food section. After refrigerating the dough overnight, I divide the dough into three portions and I make baguettes, rising on an olive-oiled baguette tray. Follow all the normal baking instructions. The baked loaves are perfect for appetizers—just have plenty of butter and cheese on hand!

I find an iron frying pan to be a great substitute for a pizza stone. I put it in the oven and heat it just as you would a pizza stone. Make your loaf and let it rise on a piece of parchment. When risen pick up the parchment and place parchment and loaf into the frying pan. Carry on as if you were using a stone. I started doing this even though I have a stone when I was developing a sourdough bread recipe for someone who didn't have a stone.

Small Crusty Bread Recipe

I made this for the second time last night. For a fast bread that you need in a hurry you can't beat this one. I didn't feel like fooling with the stone so I used my cast-iron skillet, which is much easier to get in and out of the oven. I wonder if the people that say this bread is too salty are using regular table salt and not the big Kosher salt. That would make a big difference on how salty it is.

I found even with the water in the oven that I didn’t get the sort of crust I get on regular