Delicious Sourdough Dinner Rolls Made with Sourdough Discard

These delicious sourdough dinner rolls are the perfect way to use up your sourdough discard. Light and fluffy with a mild sourdough tang, they’re perfect for fancy meals or even for leftovers. Best, they freeze well so you can make them ahead of time for on demand rolls!

Sourdough Dinner Rolls

After jumping on the sourdough bread bandwagon, it became apparent pretty quickly that I would need to find someway to use up the discard I manage to collect during the bread baking process. Luckily, there are lots of great ways to use sourdough discard, and these sourdough dinner rolls are just one example. 

What I love about these rolls is that they aren’t hard to make and they freeze well, so I highly recommend doubling or quadrupling this recipe and keeping them in your freezer. 

Ingredients for these sourdough dinner rolls

Time: 20 minutes prep + 3 hours rising + 24 minutes to bake
Yield: About 16 small rolls or 8 large rolls

• 113 grams sourdough discard, room temperature (~1/2 cup)
• 227 grams milk (~1 cup)
• 345 grams all-purpose unbleached flour (~2  1/2 cups)
• 1 ½ teaspoons salt
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
• 2 ¼ teaspoons active dry yeast (or less if your starter is quite strong)
Egg Wash
• 1 large egg
• 1 tablespoon water

How to Prepare these Sourdough Dinner Rolls

Preheat oven to 350F a half hour before baking. 

Combine all ingredients from discard through yeast and mix well (either by hand or with a stand mixer) to make a soft, smooth dough. You may need to add a bit more flour or water to get the right consistency. Then, place dough in a greased bowl, cover, and let rise for 60-90 minutes, until it’s nearly doubled in size.

Gently deflate the dough and divide it into 16 equal pieces. It helps to measure the pieces with a food scale to get a consistent size.

Divide rolls between two 8” round greased cake pans. The rolls should not be touching. Cover and let rise until the rolls are puffy and touching, another 60-90 minutes.

Combine the egg and water and brush on top of rolls. Bake in preheated oven for 24-26 minutes, or until the rolls are light golden.

How to Freeze & Reheat Sourdough Dinner Rolls

A lot of people wonder how to freeze and reheat dinner rolls. It’s actually quite easy as long as you remember to take the out of the freezer the night before you want to serve them! To freeze these sourdough dinner rolls: simply bake rolls as directed, and then allow them to cool completely. Wrap them tightly in aluminum foil, then place inside a freezer bag. Freeze for up to one month.

To reheat these dinner rolls: take them out of the freezer the night before. Preheat oven to 300F. Loosen the foil around the rolls and place them directly on the rack. Allow to heat for 20 minutes, or until they are warm all the way through.