Whole Wheat Oatmeal Sandwich Bread

Thick, hearty homemade sandwich bread is hard to come by. I’m talking about rustic, yeasty bread that makes amazing toast, but can also turn into a mean PB&J. The type of bread you have to force yourself to save for sandwiches because the desire to eat it all warm from the oven slathered in Kerrygold is almost too hard to resist. Almost. 

Let me start by saying, I love sandwiches, but I’m usually underwhelmed with my options for sandwich bread at the grocery store. I’ll usually settle for pita or lavash to make wraps instead because the bread is either so full of mystery ingredients it won’t spoil for a month, or is going to cost me $6 for a loaf.

I’m more than willing to pay extra when the trade off  is a high quality product, but if I know It can be easily made at home for, like, $1, there’s no way I’m shelling out my hard-earned cash every week for an expensive loaf of bread. 

The problem is, Kevin and I have very different tastes in sandwich bread. When it comes to pizza or artisan loaves we can always agree. But sandwich bread?

He wants soft, fluffy store bought wheat bread. Just the sight of a seed sends him running for the hills. To me, all the extra grains, nuts, and seeds in a loaf of bread are what make it great: I want all the flavor and texture! 

This bread is our compromise, but only if he’s too lazy to drive the 20 minutes to buy his favorite store-bought wheat bread.

The dough starts with steel cut oats that get soaked in boiling water to soften up a bit. Whole wheat flour, honey, butter, salt, and yeast get mixed in to form a sticky dough. The finished product is a loaf of whole wheat bread that’s both dense and fluffy, and is studded with little bits of oats. The oats aren’t too crunchy, but they add that extra texture I crave in bread. 

This bread can be made, start-to-finish, in less than 4 hours, with really only 4 hands-on steps:

Soak the oats

Mix the dough

Shape the loaf

Bake the bread.

In between all those steps is down time, where you’re just letting the dough rise or bake. If you have a big family, this recipe can easily be doubled or tripled to make multiple loaves for lunches all week. I usually make it in my Kitchen Aid mixer with the paddle attachment, and don’t even bother with a dough hook. You can also just mix & knead it by hand, if you need a little dough therapy. 

If you’ve never made your own sandwich bread, this recipe is a great place to start! There’s minimal work, and nearly no room for error. You can even customize it to suit your family’s needs with a multigrain hot cereal mix instead of steel-cut oats, some all-purpose flour instead of all whole wheat, or switch out the honey and butter for agave and coconut oil to keep it completely vegan. If a handful of seeds magically dropped into the batter, too, you’d hear no complaints from me. 

Lets start a new tradition where we bake a loaf of sandwich bread every Sunday morning. I can’t keep up with Man Crush Mondays or Throwback Thursdays, but #sandwichbreadsunday? I can get behind that. If you make a loaf of sandwich bread this week, find me on Instagram so I can see!!

Whole Wheat Oatmeal Bread

Chelsea Colbath

A simple homemade sandwich bread that's the perfect balance between dense and fluffy. Double this recipe to make 2 loaves in the same amount of time!

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Ingredients

  

• 1/2 cup steel-cut oats
• 1 cup boiling water
• 2 Tablespoons butter
• 2 Tablespoons honey
• 1 teaspoon instant or dry active yeast
• 1/2 Tablespoon salt
• 2 cups white whole wheat flour can sub any or all with all-purpose or regular whole wheat, if desired
• 2 Tablespoons rolled oats for topping

Instructions

 

• 1. Pour steel-cut oats and boiling water into the bowl of a stand mixer. Let soak for 30 minutes, or until warm to the touch.
• 2. Add butter, honey, and yeast to the water mixture, and stir to combine. The warm water should start to soften/slightly melt the butter.
• 3. Add all remaining ingredients (yeast, salt, flour) and mix with the paddle attachment for 3-5 minutes, or until dough is sticky, but holding together in a ball. Cover and let rise at room temperature for 1-1/12 hours, or until dough has doubled in size.
• 4. Dump dough onto a lightly floured surface and pat it out with your hands to make a rectangle, about 6x10" or so. You want the short end of the rectangle to be the same size, or slightly smaller than, the length of a loaf pan. Starting at a short end, tightly roll up the dough into a log. Sprinkle oats on the counter and roll the dough in the oats to get them to stick.
• 5. Grease a loaf pan with nonstick spray, and put your shaped loaf into the pan. Cover and let rise for at least 45 minutes, but up to 1 1/2 hours, until the loaf has risen to the top of the pan.
• 6. When the loaf has risen, turn on the oven. Preheat to 375 degrees Fahrenheit, and bake the bread, uncovered, for 30-40 minutes. A finished loaf of bread will be golden brown and feel hollow, not squishy, when you push/tap it.
• 7. Let bread cool, then cut and use for all your sandwich needs. Bread is best stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 4 days. Pre-sliced bread freezes well, and slices can be removed from the freezer as needed to make sandwiches.

Notes

If you don't have a stand mixer, this bread can be made by hand. Follow all instructions the same, except you will stir the dough with a wooden spoon for 5-8 minutes, or if you're comfortable kneading dough, you can stir just to combine and then knead it on the counter for 4-5 minutes. Proceed with all other directions as written.