20 Bread Recipes That Will Make Your Home Smell Like a Bakery

Whether you're a weekend baker or want your home to smell like freshly baked bread every day of the week, we have a recipe for you.

By
Mimi Young
Mimi Young
Mimi Young
Editor
Mimi Young is an editor and pastry chef. She has also curated and written numerous recipe roundups for Serious Eats.
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Updated May 04, 2025
Entire loaf of plain woven challah on a plate, surrounded by smaller plates, salt, honey and a cup of tea

Serious Eats / Debbie Wee

My favorite memory of working as the executive pastry chef at a hotel restaurant in downtown San Francisco is of opening the door to the pastry department and feeling the blast of warm, yeasty, toasty, faintly sweet air envelope my entire body with the endorphin-boosting aroma of freshly baked bread. For a woman who dedicated her life to carbs, this was heaven! So even though I'm no longer greeted with racks and racks of fresh bread every morning, I still want to recreate that experience at home.

I've rounded up some of our favorite homemade bread recipes—including classic brioche, pillowy Japanese milk bread, crusty sourdough, no-knead focaccia, and bagels—that are guaranteed to make anyone's home smell like a bakery. Whether you're a beginner starting on a baking journey, a weekend baking enthusiast, or a seasoned baker looking for new ideas, we've got a time-tested, editor-approved homemade bread recipe for you to try.

  • Classic Brioche

    Overhead view of sliced brioche loaf on a cutting board next to jam

    Serious Eats / Debbie Wei

    In the world of enriched breads, classic brioche reigns supreme with its airy and tender texture and deeply rich and buttery flavor. While the process might seem somewhat intimidating at first, we've developed a step-by-step recipe to help you produce a bakery-worthy loaf that you'll want to slice up for a grilled cheese sandwich or an indulgent French toast-meets-almond croissant bostock.

  • Shokupan (Japanese Milk Bread)

    Side view of milk bread loaf on cooling rack

    Serious Eats / Debbie Wee

    The bread of choice for Japanese sandos, shokupan is ultra-soft, squishy, and impossibly light, with a fine, pillowy crumb and mild but distinct sweetness that's a perfect foil for savory fillings like chicken katsu. While most recipes call for a yudane that's made by cooking wheat flour and water over a stove until thickened, ours is made with glutinous rice flour, which comes together by simply whisking it with boiled milk, and keeps the bread from going stale longer.

  • New England Anadama Bread

    Sliced loaf of anadama bread on a wooden board, with two slices on plates, with grey striped napkin, mug of coffee, plate, butter, and breadknife behind it

    Serious Eats / Debbie Wee

    Great as a table and sandwich bread, this hearty New England staple starts with a base of cooked cornmeal, which hydrates and slightly softens the baked loaf and keeps it from having a sandy or gritty texture. Molasses provides a bit of sweetness, while a brushing of melted butter when it's still warm softens the crust and gives it a glossy sheen.

  • Pillowy Soft Challah

    Entire loaf of plain woven challah on a plate, surrounded by smaller plates, salt, honey and a cup of tea

    Serious Eats / Debbie Wee

    While challah is traditionally made and eaten on Shabbat and Jewish holidays such as Rosh Hashanah, its pillowy soft texture and rich flavor also make it an excellent bread for French toast and bread pudding. We employ a technique similar to the one for incorporating butter into brioche dough, swapping in an oil and egg yolk paste for an easy and mess-free way to enrich the dough without making it too sticky and hard to handle. Don't worry, we'll also guide you through the braiding process.

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  • Chocolate Babka

    2 babkas on a parchment paper, one sliced and one whole

    Serious Eats / Debbie Wee

    If you're a Seinfeld fan, then you know that a chocolate babka is the "superior" babka and definitely worth baking a home...unless you feel like waiting in line to score a fresh one from the bakery. Our recipe produces a tender, rich babka that has the perfect amount of chocolate. While the intricate layering of chocolate and dough might appear daunting, our method of cold-proofing the dough overnight makes it easier to fill, roll, and shape, and helps it develop more flavor.

  • Hoagie Rolls

    Overhead view of hoagie rolls with sandwich fixings

    Serious Eats / Debbie Wee

    To build a deli-level hoagie, you need to start with a sandwich roll that has the structural integrity to support all the meats, cheeses, condiments, and toppings you're going to be piling into it. We tested and tasted innumerable rolls to come up with a recipe for the quintessential hoagie roll that's crisp and flaky on the outside yet soft and chewy on the inside, with a tight and even interior texture to hold all your favorite sandwich fillings.

  • Bánh Mì Khong (Bánh Mì Bread)

    Overhead view of 6 banh mi bread loafs

    Serious Eats / Debbie Wee

    The defining characteristics of a báhn mì roll are its thin, shatteringly crisp crust and light and tender interior. Bread flour helps develop a stretchy, gluten-rich dough that can hold all the air bubbles created through multiple proofs. Spraying the exterior of the shaped loaves with oil and water gives the baked rolls their signature crackly exterior.

  • Sourdough Bread Loaf

    sourdough bread loaf on a marble surface

    Serious Eats / Tim Chin

    Even if you live in an area with access to exceptional pain au levain, there are many reasons to make your own. For one, there is something deeply satisfying about pulling a freshly baked loaf out of the oven, with its heady, yeasty aroma and audibly crackling well-browned crust—not to mention it's way cheaper than an $8 artisan loaf. We've come up with a straightforward recipe that uses all-purpose flour, so you don't even have to stock bread flour in your pantry if you don't want to.

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  • Parker House Rolls

    Tray of Parkerhouse Rolls, on a brown textile, with a side dish of butter and small serving dishes to the side.

    Serious Eats / Fred Hardy

    The Parker House is our platonic ideal of dinner rolls: golden top on with a glossy, buttery sheen, a sprinkling of sea salt, and a fluffy, plush, melt-in-your-mouth interior. Our version is surprisingly easy to make, so even newbie home bakers can yield impressive results. It just might become your go-to recipe for dinner parties and potlucks.

  • Pandesal (Filipino Rolls)

    a few pandesal on a light blue background, one in the back split open to see inside

    Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

    Reminiscent of the American-style dinner roll, this pillowy, plush, slightly sweet roll that's dusted with breadcrumbs is a Filipino breakfast mainstay—delicious slathered with a copious amount of butter or stuffed like a mini sandwich. While it's typically not something that's baked at home, we would argue that pandesal is exactly the kind of bread you should bake at home and enjoy fresh out of the oven.

  • Yeast-Raised Angel Biscuits

    A cast iron skillet of golden brown yeast-raised angel biscuits beside a blue and green striped dishcloth

    Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

    Raise your hand if you'd like to start your day with buttery, fluffy biscuits. These beauties are made like other buttermilk biscuits, except with instant dry yeast instead of baking powder. Once the dough has undergone its initial proof and been shaped and cut, you just let them slowly rise again overnight in the fridge, then pop them into a preheated 400° oven in the morning. And voila...breakfast!

  • Homemade Bagels

    Homemade bagels on a wooden surface

    Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

    Okay, hear me out. Yes, you can pretty much buy bagels everywhere, but a fresh, home-baked bagel just hits different. Stella's ingenious recipe, which uses a Japanese technique similar to the one for milk bread, ensures that your tender and chewy handmade bagels stay fresh for days. I can attest from personal experience that this recipe is a keeper.

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  • Easy Roasted-Garlic Focaccia

    Roasted-Garlic Focaccia on an oval platter

    Serious Eats / Julia Estrada

    Kenji's riff on the classic garlic bread doubles down on the garlic—roasted garlic inside and garlic butter spread over the top—for maximum flavor. The no-knead dough only requires an overnight proof in the fridge to produce a focaccia with the signature airy, open texture and great crumb. You'll want to make this for your next Italian-American feast.

  • Real Irish Soda Bread

    Irish soda bread sliced and buttered

    Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

    If you want to make a quick and easy no-knead bread, then look no further than real-deal, old-school Irish soda bread. All it takes is four ingredients—flour, salt, baking soda, and lots of buttermilk—and a Dutch oven to produce a gorgeous golden brown boule you can slice up like a regular loaf of yeast-raised bread and slather with butter.

  • Easy Garlic Naan

    Garlic Naan on a white plate on a lime green tablecloth

    Serious Eats / Kanika and Jatin Sharma

    The main challenge of making naan at home is that, unless you happen to have something like a pizza oven that can mimic the blazingly intense heat of a tandoor, it's difficult to achieve the requisite charring. The way to work around this in a home oven is to add a bit of sugar to the dough and slap the shaped naan onto a preheated baking stone (or inverted rimmed baking sheet) to promote instant browning. Kneading raw garlic into the dough and brushing the baked bread with a garlic-butter mixture ensures a bold garlic flavor throughout.

  • Homemade Pita Bread

    A stack of home-baked pita bread on a wooden surface

    Serious Eats / Yvonne Ruperti

    It should go without saying that a homemade pita beats the store-bought variety any day of the week. What we love about this tried-and-true recipe, aside from the chewy and delicate texture and irresistible yeasty aroma wafting out as you open up the pocket, is that you can bake and stuff them in less than two hours.

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  • Johnny Cakes

    Overhead angle of Platter of Johnny Cakes on a blue platter, with a cake on a smaller plate in front, ripped open. 2 glasses of sparkling water and blue tablecloth

    Serious Eats / Amanda Suarez

    Johnny cakes are a staple across the Caribbean, eaten at practically every meal. They're soft and fluffy with a chewy texture and just a hint of sweetness that makes them ideal for sopping up sauces and curries. Our recipe includes a bit of cornmeal and butter, which adds to the crispy exterior and keeps the interior moist.

  • Kenyan Chapati (Kenyan Flatbread)

    Transferring chapati onto a silver tray

    Serious Eats / Michelle Yip

    One of the many great things about unleavened flatbreads is that they come together quickly and generally don't require baking at all. This griddled Kenyan chapati, which has flaky layers similar to an Indian paratha, is made with a minimal amount of oil in the dough, so layers are soft and tender. Using oil instead of lard or butter in this recipe also lets the earthy flavor of the whole wheat flour shine through.

  • Cuñapes/Pão de Queijo (South American Cheesy Bread)

    Side view of Cuñapes/Pão de Queijo (South American Cheesy Bread) on a blue plate

    Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

    This South American iteration is unlike any other cheesy bread. For one thing, it's made with fermented tapioca starch, which gives the bread a distinctive crisp crust and chewy and light interior. They require no kneading or proofing—just a bit of hand-mixing and an overnight rest in the fridge to allow the starch to fully hydrate.

  • Easy Banana Bread

    Overhead view of a loaf of banana bread sliced

    Serious Eats / Amanda Suarez

    Banana bread is perhaps is many people's favorite quick bread, and our version packs six ripe bananas into one loaf for over-the-top banana flavor and a moist, tender crumb. We brown the butter and caramelize some of the bananas to pump up the flavor and cook off any excess moisture that can lead to a soggy bread. Skipping the usual warm spices also puts the natural banana flavor front and center.

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