This recipe for crusty no-knead oatmeal bread is my absolutely favorite way to make a quick, easy loaf of whole grain artisan bread at home!
This bread is -as the name suggests- hearty, crusty, fluffy, packed with oatmeal and whole wheat flour, and made without needing to do any kneading or complicated techniques. All it really takes is some wait time.
The ingredients get dumped into a bowl, stirred together, left to rise on the counter for an hour, then chilled in the fridge until you’re ready to bake your loaf (at least overnight, but up to 5 days), allowed to rise again for about an hour, then baked until golden and aromatic.
In terms of hands-on time, we’re talking 10 minutes, max. Including rising, resting overnight, and baking, you’re looking at a 12-hour commitment. But, rest assured, I’m not here to set you up for bread-baking failure. It truly is one of the most simple, no-stress recipes for bread out there.
And, while the promise of a loaf of bread in 1 hour may sound alluring to some, I actually prefer the long rest time of this recipe because my life is always busy and it gives me a little bit more flexibility. The long rest time also helps break down the enzymes in the flour and makes the loaf a bit more easily digestible, which is just an added bonus of this already killer bread recipe.
If you know you have an hour today to mix it up and let it rise, you can then just leave the dough in the fridge all week until you find another few hours to let it rise again and bake. You’re not tied down to this loaf of bread, even if you realize you need to run out to the store, get to work on another project, etc. It will wait for you until you’re ready; it’s cool like that.
Likewise, if you were dying for a loaf of crusty no-knead bread and happen to be an early riser, you technically could stir together the dough at, say, 5am, and be eating bread by dinnertime. I’m personally more into the laid-back, multi-day approach to this recipe, but I’m not going to show up at your house at 4:45am to stop you, should you be in the market to do some early morning bread work.
I’ve been baking versions of this no-knead bread pretty much nonstop since Jim Lahey popularized it back in 2006 (though I’ve tweaked the ratios and methods over time), and have, inadvertently, made lots of mistakes.
Adding a few ingredients out of order, forgetting about the dough for a few too many hours, and generally being the world’s laziest baker is really not a problem here at all. It’ll all work out in the end- promise.
If you make this recipe, let me know how it turns out! Leave a comment below, or take a picture of your bread and share it with me on Instagram! If you find yourself with issues other than the potential ones I’ve listed above, don’t be afraid to ask questions.
CRUSTY NO-KNEAD OATMEAL BREAD
Time: 12 hours
Yield: 1 small loaf
- 1 1/2 cups warm tap water
- 2 Tablespoons maple syrup, honey, or sugar
- 1 Tablespoon olive oil
- 1 teaspoon active dry or instant yeast (both work well here)
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 cups white whole wheat flour
- 1 cup oats
- 1/2 Tablespoon sea salt
- Put all ingredients into a large bowl and stir with a wooden spoon until combined. The dough will be sticky.
- Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a clean kitchen towel and let sit in a warm place at room temperature for 1-2 hours, or until about doubled in size.
- Once risen, stir the dough again to roughly form a ball, cover, and refrigerate overnight (at least 8 hours, and up to 5 days).
- When ready to bake, remove the dough from the fridge and use your hands to form it into a ball (I find this is easiest when I wet my hands first). Cut a 10-inch or larger square of parchment paper and sprinkle a small handful of oats in the center, then place the ball of dough on top of the oats. Add another few pinches of oats on top, and cover with a clean kitchen towel and let rise in a warm place for 1-2 hours (or until about 50% larger than it’s original size).
- When dough is nearly done rising, turn your oven on to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. If you have a large dutch oven or cast iron skillet, put it into the oven to get hot while the oven preheats. If you don’t have either of those, you can use a large oval or round oven-safe dish, or even a cookie sheet, which doesn’t need to be preheated.
- When oven is hot and dough is risen, remove the hot dutch oven from the oven, open the lid, and lift the dough up with the parchment paper to drop it inside. Put the cover back on and bake for 30 minutes, then remove the lid and bake another 10 minutes, or until loaf is golden and crusty. If baking in a pan without a lid, just bake the loaf for a full 40 minutes.
- Remove bread from the oven and wait as long as you possibly can before cutting into it (ideally until its just barely warm, or even until it’s fully cold, though, I rarely make it that long before cutting myself a slice). Store leftover bread in an airtight container at room temperature for 3-4 days, or slice and store in the freezer for several months.