Irish Soda Bread Recipe Video

This is an easy Irish soda bread recipe with a 5-minute preparation and no kneading skills required! This yeast-free dough is perfect for beginner bakers and busy families!

Soda bread (Irish: arán sóide) is a traditional Irish bread. The dough for this bread doesn’t use yeast, but bicarbonate of soda (baking soda) which is the rising agent here.

No mixer and no proofing are needed to make a loaf of this brown soda bread. It’s so easy that it makes a great baking project for kids as well.

Skillet Soda Bread

It is a perfect choice for those who want to try and make homemade bread but are put off by the long process that needs to be followed for yeast based breads. This Irish soda bread is quick to make and tastes amazing!

We love this brown soda bread lightly toasted with butter and homemade preserves (Low Sugar Strawberry Jam is our favorite as well as Mixed Berry Jam).

But because it is not sweet, it goes also well with creamy soups like Zucchini Soup or Potato Leek Soup (which is so easy to make in a pressure cooker!).

Paul Hollywood's Soda Bread (no Yeast)

Wholemeal and all-purpose flour are combined with salt and baking soda in a large mixing bowl. I have a 4.25-quart (4-liter) Mason Cash Bowl (see the link below) that I love for making Irish brown soda bread.

It’s wide enough so you can form a dough easily by hands, without having to transfer it onto a worktop. Now that being said, if you end up with a softer dough, it will be easier to shape it into a loaf on a worktop rather than in a bowl.

Now, give all those 4 ingredients a good stir before you add buttermilk. Then, all you have to do is mix everything – start with a wooden spoon and finish it off with your hands.

Simple Irish Soda Bread Recipe And Video Tutorial

You don’t need to knead it. You want to shape it into a loaf. Then, place it onto a baking sheet lined with baking parchment and brush the soda bread loaf with egg wash.

Baking should not take long – only about 30 minutes so you can easily make a loaf of this Irish soda bread on a weeknight.

If you like this Irish brown soda bread recipe, you might also like other Irish Recipes on our blog like Full Irish Breakfast or Irish Colcannon.

Soda Bread Recipe

Note: This Irish Brown Soda Bread is an old post that has been updated with new photos and detailed instructions with lots of useful tips.Irish Soda Bread is a quick bread that does not require any yeast. Instead, all of its leavening comes from baking soda and buttermilk. This Irish soda bread recipe is my grandmother’s and has been cherished in my family for years. It’s dense, yet soft and has the most incredible crusty exterior. Buttermilk and cold butter are the secret to its delicious success!

Welcome to my favorite Irish Soda Bread recipe. I shared this no yeast bread recipe on my blog a few years ago and decided to revisit with fresh new pictures and a video tutorial. This recipe is my grandmother’s. She passed away in 2011, 2 weeks before I started this food blog. I dedicated my 1st cookbook to her. Full of energy and the creator of the best homemade pie crust on earth, she would be in her 90s today. St. Patrick’s Day is her birthday.

Does the thought of homemade bread send you running for the hills? Sometimes homemade bread feels daunting, but you’re in luck today. Irish soda bread is a quick bread made with baking soda, not yeast. Like my easy no yeast bread, this is a shortcut bread that doesn’t skimp on flavor. (If you want a yeast bread, I recommend my sandwich bread recipe!)

Irish Soda Bread With Raisins Recipe

My grandmother’s Irish soda bread contains some sugar, but it’s not overly sweet. It’s a wonderful companion for savory dinners like hearty stew or you can serve it with butter, jam, and/or cheese. The raisins are optional, but Grandma would never let you skip them.

The full printable recipe is below. Irish soda bread dough comes together in about 10 minutes. You need buttermilk, egg, flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, and butter.

Irish soda bread only requires a few ingredients, including buttermilk. Buttermilk reacts with the baking soda to provide the bread’s leavening. It also adds wonderful flavor! We use buttermilk for the same reasons in my regular no yeast bread, too.

Best Irish Soda Bread Recipe

Irish soda bread can be made with or without an egg. 1 egg adds richness and density. Feel free to skip it to make a slightly lighter loaf. No other changes necessary, simply leave out the egg.

If you’re baking for St. Patrick’s Day, you’ll love my Guinness Brownies, Baileys and Coffee Cupcakes, Guinness Chocolate Cake, Guinness Chocolate Cupcakes, and shamrock St. Patrick’s Day Cookies, too.

Irish Soda Bread is a quick bread that does not require any yeast. Instead, all of its leavening comes from baking soda and buttermilk. This Irish Soda Bread recipe is my grandmother’s and has been cherished in my family for years. It’s dense, yet soft and has the most incredible crusty exterior.

Real Irish Soda Bread Recipe

Sally McKenney is a professional food photographer, cookbook author, and baker. Her kitchen-tested recipes and thorough step-by-step tutorials give readers the knowledge and confidence to bake from scratch. Sally has been featured onQuick and easy, this Irish soda bread recipe is a classic. Our version is made with flour, baking soda, buttermilk, raisins, egg, and a touch of sugar and salt. Don’t let the simplicity fool you — it’s a real keeper and takes less than 45 minutes.

Elise founded Simply Recipes in 2003 and led the site until 2019. She has an MA in Food Research from Stanford University.

It appears everyone has their favorite Irish soda bread recipe. Some with caraway seeds, some with raisins, some with both, some with neither.

Mum's Traditional Irish Soda Bread Recipe (brown Bread)

The essential ingredients in traditional Irish soda bread are flour, baking soda, salt, and buttermilk. The acid in buttermilk reacts with the base of the baking soda to provide the bread's leavening. This leavening from buttermilk and baking soda is what gives the bread its name: soda bread.

This soda bread is a slightly fancied up Americanized version of the Irish classic, with a little butter, sugar, an egg, and some currants or raisins added to the base. You can bake it in a cast iron frying pan (now that's traditional!) or on a regular baking sheet.

You can also make a simpler version without eggs or currants, with some caraway seeds, or you could turn your soda bread dough into biscuits.

Grandma's Irish Soda Bread

Soda bread dries out quickly so it really is only good for a day or two. It is best eaten freshly baked and warm or toasted. Keep it wrapped in plastic wrap or foil.

That said, you can make it ahead and freeze it (let it cool to room temperature first). Wrap it tightly first in plastic wrap, then aluminum foil. It will last up to 2 months frozen.

Traditionally, bread in Ireland was made in a skillet because the wheat that grew there was what's called soft wheat, which contained less gluten than its counterparts in America. The domestic Irish wheat didn't interact well with yeast and did not rise very well.

Sweet Irish Soda Bread Recipe (video)

Hence, the introduction of baking soda as a leavening agent, which reacts with the buttermilk to form small carbon dioxide bubbles, approximating the chemical reaction of yeast.

What we consider traditional Irish bread came about because of the Native Americans, who used a sort of wood ash as a leavening agent to make bread without yeast. This method of making bread was introduced to Ireland in the 1830s.

Different types of soda bread are popular throughout Ireland, but all of them are pretty simple, everyday breads. They were found in every household to mop up stews or to enjoy with a cup of tea. The Northern Irish divide their dough into 4 triangles, while the Southerners made theirs round with a cross shape on top. Here in America, we like to put in add-ins like caraway seeds, currants, raisins, or honey. Modern Irish soda breads might contain nuts, orange zest, or even Guinness.

Traditional Irish Soda Bread Recipe With Buttermilk

There are only a few ingredients in this soda bread recipe, so it's best if made with real buttermilk. However, there are a few buttermilk substitutions that work well and will still react with the baking soda to make the bread rise. Kefir works especially well, or you can thin yogurt to the consistency of buttermilk using plain milk.

You can also acidify milk with lemon juice or white vinegar. Add 2 scant tablespoons to a measuring cup and top with whole milk to make 1 3/4 cups total. Stir and let sit for a few minutes until the mixture curdles, then proceed with the recipe as written.

*The % Daily Value (DV) tells you how much a nutrient in a food serving contributes to a daily diet. 2, 000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice.

The History Of Irish Soda Bread (st Patrick's Day Favorite!)

Nutrition information is calculated using an ingredient database and should be considered an estimate. In cases where multiple ingredient alternatives are given, the first listed is