This Easy White Sandwich Bread is the easiest homemade bread recipe that turns out perfectly every time. It’s hearty and tender and it’s perfect for sandwiches or for dipping in soups or stews!
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It’s almost time for back-to-school and that means a 180-degree turn in my cooking and baking routine. Pretty soon I’ll be leaving behind all my favourite grilling recipes and fresh summer salads and embracing meal prep dinners for busy weeknights and lots of kid-friendly lunch recipes for school. This Easy White Sandwich Bread is my favourite stand-by homemade sandwich bread recipe for school lunches and I know you’re going to love it!
I’ve been making homemade bread for over 15 years and this Easy White Sandwich Bread Recipe is a simplified version of my grandma’s original sandwich bread recipe I enjoyed growing up. It’s a simple combination of water, yeast and honey, mixed with all purpose flour and salt, made into basic loaves and baked to crispy crust perfection!
How to Shape Sandwich Bread
There’s one trick I always use when making sandwich bread that makes it SO easy to shape the loaves to look just like sandwich bread from a bakery. When you punch down the dough after the first rise, flour your work surface and let the dough rest on the work surface in a ball for about 5-10 minutes. This will allow the gluten in the dough to relax, and it’ll make the dough SO much softer and easier to shape! It’s a simple trick that works every time!
To shape the loaf perfectly for sandwiches, follow these steps:
- After letting it rest, shape the dough into a rectangle (with the short end about the same length as the long side of your loaf pan).
- Fold one short end into the middle and press with your fingers to seal.
- Fold the other short end into middle and press with your fingers to seal.
- Pinch the sides and pull them in slightly.
- Flip the whole thing over and tuck the ends under again.
- Place the loaf into the greased loaf pan and let rise a second time.
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After making homemade bread for so many years I’ve learned that using the right loaf pan makes all the difference. This large loaf pan from Jamie Oliver is my favourite loaf pan of all time (affiliate link). It’s non-stick, easy to clean, and it has high sides which creates the perfect loaf shape for sandwiches. It’s the best loaf pan I’ve ever used and I can’t recommend it highly enough!
Looking for more delicious bread recipes? Try my Easy No Knead Artisan Bread or this Easy No Knead Cinnamon Raisin Artisan Bread!
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I hope you love this Easy White Sandwich Bread as much as we do! Let me know in the comments below, what’s your favourite sandwich to make with classic sandwich bread? I’d love to know!
KITCHEN TOOLS I RECOMMEND:
Looking for even more delicious bread recipes? You’ll LOVE these:
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Garlic Butter Dinner Rolls
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Healthier Cornbread
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Pumpkin Cornbread Muffins
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Easy No Knead Artisan Bread
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Easy No Knead Cinnamon Raisin Artisan Bread
Recipe Video
Watch the video below to see exactly how I make this recipe. You can find more delicious recipe videos on my YouTube channel
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Easy White Sandwich Bread
Recipe: Ingredients
- 2 1/2 cups lukewarm water
- 1 tablespoon instant yeast (or use active dry yeast)
- 1 tablespoon honey or other vegan honey substitute
- 6 1/4 cups all purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
Egg Wash (optional):
- 1 egg
- 1 tablespoon water
Recipe: Instructions
- Add the water, yeast and honey to the bowl of your stand mixer and mix with a fork just until the yeast is moistened and the honey is dissolved.
- Let sit for about 4-5 minutes.
- Add the flour to the bowl of the stand mixer on top of the water and yeast mixture and then add the salt.
- Turn the mixer on low speed and mix until a soft dough forms.
- Continue mixing on medium-low speed and let the mixer knead the dough for about 4 minutes. The dough should have formed a soft ball and the sides of the bow should be clean. Only if the dough is too wet and sticking to the side of the bowl, add a tablespoon or two more flour as it kneads.
- Shape the dough with your hands into a ball and place it back into the bowl (oil the bowl, if you wish). Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let rise for 60 minutes in a warm, draft-free place.
- Grease 2 loaf pans with butter or a high-quality non-stick baking spray.
- After the dough rises, punch it down and turn it out onto a floured work surface and divide it in half.
- Roll each piece of dough into a ball with your hands, eventually shaping it into an oblong round shape.
- Place each piece of dough into one of the greased loaf pans and cover the pans with a clean kitchen towel.
- Let them rise again in a warm, draft-free place for about 20 minutes.
- Preheat your oven to 400℉ (200℃).
- Whisk together the egg and water to make the egg wash (if using).
- Brush the egg wash over the tops of the loaves and bake at 400℉ (200℃) for about 25-35 minutes until the tops of the loaves are a deep golden brown colour.
- After baking, remove from the pans and place the loaves on a wire rack to cool completely.
- Slice after the loaves have cooled completely to room temperature and use to make your favourite sandwiches or serve alongside soups or stews.
Recipe: Notes
To shape the loaf perfectly for sandwiches, follow these steps:
- After letting it rest, shape the dough into a rectangle (with the short end about the same length as the long side of your loaf pan).
- Fold one short end into the middle and press with your fingers to seal.
- Fold the other short end into middle and press with your fingers to seal.
- Pinch the sides and pull them in slightly.
- Flip the whole thing over and tuck the ends under again.
- Place the loaf into the greased loaf pan and let rise a second time.
Recipe: Nutrition
Notice: Nutrition is auto-calculated, using Spoonacular, for your convenience. Where relevant, we recommend using your own nutrition calculations.
Hii! I’m new to bread baking and only have a glass bread dish. How should I adjust the cooking temp and time?
No, you should be fine using it. Happy baking 😊
Just baked 2 loaves. They are delicious! Thank you for the recipe and the video. I will make this again.
This recipe is amazing. I make break almost daily for my toddlers, i LOVE that this recipe is automatically for two loaves, i swapped honey for maple syrup and it is SOOO good!! i’ll be using this recipe from now on
Yeah, great, except not everyone has a stand mixer….
Good news! This bread absolutely can be made without a mixer, kneading by hand. While this recipe doesn’t include the directions for such, our Easy Whole Grain Sandwich Bread does in the recipe card! Those directions will transfer over to this recipe Easy White Sandwich Bread.
My husband has stopped buying bread. He says he likes mine better. This is a typical pair for me. One pretty and one Frankenloaf. 😆
Love how easy the recipe is, it’s currently baking and I just realized I forgot the salt! Hopefully it’s not too damaging. I’m excited to try it though. The house smells amazing!
Thanks for your feedback Hannah!
How long is the bread good for in an airtight container on the counter?
It keeps well for 3-5 days.
Perfection. So fast and easy amd absolutely delicious. This will be a new staple.
Thanks so much for the comment, so happy to hear you like the recipe!!
Pretty happy with this as it was my first try at making bread.
That’s so cool! Welcome to the homemade bread universe! Thank you for taking the time to leave your feedback.
Fantastic recipe, lovely fresh bread for absolute minimal effort.
My first loaves turned out well, but I decided to make a few adjustments for my second batch.
1 – I multiplied the recipe by 1.5 quantities still for 2 pans, as I noticed in my first batch that a standard sweet loaf pan (which I feel are more widely used in home kitchens than bread pans) widens out much more than a standard bread pan, so my first loaves turned out shorter despite rising well and having a soft crumb.
This adjustment made the loaf nice and tall and proportional.
2 – Bread Improver. I normally pass up on this if I don’t have it but had it on hand. I added half a tablespoon to my 1.5X batch. The crumb in this batch turned out denser and softer again, very similar to bakery loaves.
3 – 1 tablespoon of oil. There’s no particular reason I did this, mostly instinct as most of my other bread recipes use a tablespoon or so of oil 🤣 I did notice it came away from the sides of the bowl faster and was very supple.
4 – Loaf pan of water in the oven. I put an extra loaf pan in the bottom of the oven when preheating it. I prefer a softer crust so this is personal preference.
Hopefully this is helpful if any of my adjustments fixes an issue someone else has! Happy baking ❤️
Wow, that’s very insightful! Thanks Kayla. I must try some of those ideas for my own baking. Thanks for taking the time to leave your feedback.
First time making sandwich bread. This bread is amazing! I cheat and use dough setting on my bread machine.
My house smells so good too!
Thanks so much for the comment Eileen, so happy to hear you like the recipe!!
My first time baking sandwich bread so I was nervous. It turned out amazing. Easy for a beginner, beautiful, soft and delicious! Will be checking out your other recipes!
Thanks so much for the comment Lyndsey, so happy to hear you like the recipe!!
We tried it with both Bread Flour and AP Flour. The Bread Flour one is the winner for perfect airy goodness and rises at least a quarter higher than the AP Flour and also turns out with a beautiful golden brown crust (it’s the one on the left). They both were delicious though! One tip: Make sure your bowls that you rise in are at room temp or a little warm when you add the ingredients, it will really help the first rise. For the second rise in the bread pan, make sure the bread pans are warm – not hot.
Thanks for your feedback, Jen! The loaves look amazing.
I can’t seem to get this right… This is the second recipe I’ve tried and it’s the same problem. I don’t have a stand mixer. I have to mix by hand. The dough comes out tough and Its so hard to kneed. The dough rips instead of stretching. When I bake it, the bread comes out so dense. What am I doing wrong? It’s hard to think I’m over kneading if it’s hard to do that right from the start. I’m using bread flour and Fleischman rapid rise instant yeast. When I test the yeast it only foams a little bit. Is my yeast bad? I just bought it and it’s well within the expiration date…
Typically a dense bread and a tough dough are a result of not enough kneading, which is explainable if you’re kneading by hand. The dough is not really stretchy before the first raise . However, you might want to try our no knead bread recipe https://thebusybaker.ca/quick-and-easy-no-knead-crusty-bread/ Hope this helps!☺️