How to make Sourdough Bread (Dutch Oven Method)

Crusty, tangy, and perfectly stretchy, there’s nothing quite like a piece of freshly made sourdough. In this informative post, I’ll walk you through how to make Dutch Oven Sourdough Bread from scratch using nothing more than 4 ingredients – sourdough starter, bread flour, salt, & water. Baking bread in a hot oven and cast iron dutch oven yields a perfect loaf every time, even if you’re new to the world of homemade breadmaking, making this my go-to method. Now, on to the kitchen!

⭐ Why You’ll Love This Recipe 

 Each time I pull a fresh sourdough loaf out of the oven, I am still humbled and amazed at what Mother Nature can do with just 4 ingredients and a little human input. This recipe for from-scratch sourdough bread yields the most gorgeous, golden, crusty loaf with a soft, stretchy, and perfectly irregular crumb you could ever want, all using just 4 simple ingredients (one of which is water!).

While this rustic sourdough bread is indeed a lengthy recipe (you’ll need about 24 hours from start to finish), most of the time is spent waiting. None of the steps are particularly difficult, aside from having the patience and willpower to avoid cutting into your delightfully sweet-sour-yeasty smelling ball of goodness before it has cooled entirely.

And despite what you may think, you don’t need much in terms of special equipment or serious kitchen know-how to make your own homemade bread. I like to bake my sourdough in a dutch oven, which is one of my favorite kitchen staples. Once your bread is baked, whip up a batch of homemade soup to accompany it. What a delicious way to spend a chilly day!

🍴Ingredients

It’s kind of shocking how few ingredients there are in sourdough bread. Here’s what you’ll need to gather:

• Active Sourdough Starter - Feel free to make your own using just flour and water, or purchase (or borrow!) some pre-made starter online, in specialty stores, or from your bread-making buddy in town. Trust me, once you have your fermentation process and starter started, there will be a LOT that you can gift or turn into other sourdough bread recipes like flatbread, cinnamon rolls, cookies, pancakes, and crackers, to name a few!

Head on over to my Ultimate Primer On Making Sourdough Starter to make your own jar!

• Water - If possible, use filtered water. Your sourdough will end up tasting better for it!
• Bread Flour - While you technically can swap in all-purpose flour here, I prefer using higher-protein bread flour for most of my homemade bread recipes. More protein = more gluten, which means you’ll get a better structure.
• Salt - I use regular kosher salt for basically everything in the kitchen, but sea salt will also do. If possible, avoid using iodized table salt as it leaves behind a bitter flavor.
• Olive Oil - This is just for greasing the bowl, so don’t bust out your bottle of expensive cold-pressed finishing oil until after the bread is baked and ready for dipping.
• Rice Flour - You’ll want rice flour for dusting your banneton because it is gluten-free, unlike your sourdough. Other flours like AP or bread flour will absorb moisture from the dough, which can cause it to stick to the proofing basket. Rice flour will not.  If you don’t have rice flour on hand, be super heavy-handed with your AP or bread flour to create enough of a barrier.

⚒️ Equipment

Dutch oven sourdough bread doesn’t require a ton of kitchen equipment, either. Here’s what I suggest you use:

• Heavy Cast Iron Dutch Oven -  Baking sourdough in a hot dutch oven provides the perfect humid environment for the loaf to become golden and crusty. If you don’t have one, you can swap in a heavy pot with a tight-fitting lid. That said, do yourself a favor and invest in a pretty one — you don’t have to spend hundreds of dollars to get a quality dutch oven these days!
• Banneton Basket- Also known as a bread-proofing basket or a brotform, bannetons come in basically every size and shape imaginable and they help to impart a pretty design on your bread dough crust. 
• Razor - While you can totally get a specific bread scoring knife known as a lamé, you don’t need one if you’re just giving breadmaking a try. Just grab a fresh, clean razorblade instead to slash the dough.
• Parchment - I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: parchment is a non-negotiable in the baking world! In this instance, it’ll allow you to carefully lower your sourdough bread into a preheated dutch oven without burning yourself or dropping the loaf.

📖 Step by Step Instructions

If you're a visual learner like I am, I've added a recipe video that goes through the entire process of making sourdough bread here to accompany the following directions. Let's get started!

Mixing and Folding the Sourdough Dough

Step 1: Make Levain. Mix active starter and water together before adding bread flour and mix until homogenous approximately 12 hours before you start the process of making your sourdough loaf. Place in a covered container at room temperature. 

Step 2: Autolyse. Mix your levain and warm water together until combined in a large bowl. Then mix in the bread flour until little to no clumps remain with a spatula, wooden spoon or your hands and cover with a tea towel, plastic wrap or damp kitchen towel for 45 minutes. 

Step 3: Add Salt. Add 2 teaspoons of kosher salt to your dough mixture and mix with a spatula or your hands until the salt granules have dissolved completely into the dough. Place in a bowl greased with one tablespoon of olive oil, cover, and set aside to rest for another 45 minutes.

Step 4: Folding The Dough. Gently stretch the dough in an upwards motion before placing back onto itself - do this four times every 30 minutes rotating around the dough as you do so. Repeat for a total of 4 times over 2 hours. Once you’ve folded the dough 4 separate times, let the dough rest for 45 minutes before continuing. 

Step 5: Pre-Shape. Shape the bread into a boule or circle by turning it out onto a work surface or wooden cutting board greased with a touch of olive oil. Gently stretch 6 sides of the dough into the center to create a circular shape. As the dough rises, air bubbles have formed due to fermentation - stretch gently so we don't deflate the dough. Then, place dough upside down and drag the dough gently while creating friction towards yourself about ten times. Allow the dough to rest, covered by a towel for 30 minutes before continuing. 

Step 6: Final Shape. Once again, follow the instructions above to build surface tension on the top of the bread before placing the dough seam side up into a banneton dusted with rice flour for best results. Place in the fridge for an overnight rest and the final rise.

Scoring and Baking your Sourdough Loaf

Step 7: Preheat. The next day or next morning, preheat the oven to 450 degrees with your dutch oven placed inside while preheating - turn on your timer for 45 minutes. After turning on your oven, remove your sourdough from the fridge. 

Step 8: Score. Grab a piece of parchment paper larger than the diameter of the dough and flip the cold dough onto the parchment paper. Using a lame, razor blade sharp knife or kitchen shears, score the top of the loaf from top to bottom. 

Step 9: Bake. Once your 45-minute timer has gone off, place the loaf into your preheated Dutch oven. Bake for about 25 minutes or until you start to see a hint of browning on the edges and top of your loaf. Once you see the top start to brown, you can remove the dutch oven lid completely. Bake for an additional 20 minutes or until the loaf of bread is a rich, dark golden brown with a crispy crust formation.

PRO TIP: Be careful not to burn yourself or drop in your sourdough! The parchment paper is your friend here - use the parchment paper as grips to gently lower the loaf into the dutch oven and place the lid on top.

Step 10: Remove Loaf & Cool. Remove the dutch oven from the oven and carefully remove the sourdough from within - I usually use a small spatula to coax one side of the bread from the bottom of the dutch oven, allowing me to remove the hot sourdough loaf and place it on a cooling rack for a minimum of 1 hour.

👩🏻‍🍳 Expert Tips

• Do a float test. You want to make sure your starter is at 100% hydration, which you can check with a simple float test.
• Keep a bowl or glass of water nearby. When you are first starting to make the sourdough dough, it will be very sticky. Dipping your hands into a bowl of water before mixing will help immensely!
• Wait an hour before cutting. It will be very challenging to wait before cutting into the artisan bread, but I promise you it’s worth it! Cutting into your bread when it is too hot could ruin its structure, though it will still be tasty!
• Use the parchment as your guide to get it into the Dutch oven. You want the dutch oven to be 450F before gently placing the boule inside, which is a tricky endeavor if you want to avoid burning yourself. That’s where the parchment comes in handy — use the corners to help you gently guide the loaf into its snuggly, warm room. Just make sure you DON’T DROP THE LOAF IN. This will totally deflate your last rise, leaving you with a dense result. 
• Make a proofing drawer in your oven. Bread likes a warm place to rise (unless you’re leaving it overnight in the fridge, which slows the process down). If your house is under about 75F, you can easily create a warm, cozy spot for the sourdough to rise by placing a cake tin or bowl in the bottom of your oven that is turned off. Fill it with some boiling water, then place the proofing bowl on a rack situated in the middle of the oven. The latent heat and humidity from the water will provide a perfect place for the dough to rise.

💭 Recipe FAQs

📏 Tips for accurate measuring

When it comes to the science of bread baking, it is imperative that us bakers are measuring your ingredients as precisely and accurately as possible. This is why I highly recommend that you invest in a kitchen scale!

Dry ingredients in particular can vary widely in terms of weight vs. volume depending on how you measure them. I know it can be a challenge if you are a beginner, but using a scale will also save you time; cut back on cleanup; and will allow for more consistent baking success - a total win!

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