An easy, homemade sub roll recipe, which produces soft and light buns that are also sturdy enough to hold any fillings. Quick and easy and freeze well, too!
Why you’ll love this sub rolls recipe!
- These sub rolls are soft and light, but also sturdy enough to hold anything you’d like to put in them!
- These rolls are quick and easy to make! Using extra yeast means these rise quickly and are ready in less than 2 hours.
- These buns freeze beautifully, so stock up the freezer and you’ll have sub rolls at the ready any time.
Step-by-Step Photos
- Mix together the dough ingredients. The dough will be very moist at this point.
- Cover the bowl and let the dough rest 15 minutes.
- Remove to a floured work surface.
- Knead briefly, adding a bit more flour only if it is sticking to your hands or the work surface.
- Weight the dough ball and divide by 4 (for 4 buns).
- Weigh out 4 pieces of dough.
- Form each piece into a ball by pinching together underneath.
- Flip over with the smooth side up.
- Repeat with the remaining dough pieces.
- Roll a dough ball into an 8×8-inch square.
- Roll up jelly-roll style.
- Pinch the seam together.
- Using the palm of your hand, roll and gently stretch the dough.
- Roll until the dough is even and is 11-12 inches long.
- Place on a baking sheet and brush lightly with water.
- Repeat with remaining dough pieces.
- Cover the rolls and allow to rise 20-30 minutes.
- Brush rolls with water again.
- Close up of risen rolls.
- Sprinkle with seeds, herbs and/or cheese, if using. Bake.
Baking Tips
- If you have a kitchen scale (and you should!), be sure to weigh the flour amount, for best accuracy. If you don’t, be sure to measure the flour using the stir, spoon and level method.
- The mixed dough is very wet. It will absorb some of the liquid as it rests for the 15 minutes at the start, so resist the urge to add anymore flour at the start. If necessary, add a bit more flour on the work surface if the dough is sticking.
Making ahead, storing and Freezing
These are best enjoyed within 24 hours of baking. Freeze for longer storage.
These buns freeze beautifully! I like to wrap individually, first in plastic wrap and then tightly in foil. The will keep well in the freezer up to 3 months.
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Get the Recipe: Easy Homemade Sub Rolls
An easy, homemade sub roll recipe, which produces soft and light buns that are also sturdy enough to hold any fillings. Quick and easy and freeze well, too! Makes four 12-inch long sub rolls.
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups (360 ml) water, lukewarm about 105F
- 2 Tablespoons active dry or Instant yeast, Yes! It is Tablespoons not teaspoons
- 3 1/2 teaspoons sugar
- 1 1/2 teaspoons fine salt
- 3 1/2 teaspoons vegetable oil
- 4 cups (500 g) all-purpose flour, spooned and levelled
Instructions
- Add lukewarm water to a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the kneading hook. Add the yeast and 1/2 teaspoon of the sugar. Let stand 5 minutes, then add the remaining sugar, salt and vegetable oil. Mix briefly to combine.
- Add the flour, one cup at a time, mixing between additions. When all the flour has been added, continue mixing for a 3-4 minutes, to develop the dough. The dough may be quite wet and sticky. That's fine. It will tighten up as it rests and you can add additional flour later, if needed. If using a mixer, remove the kneading hook and cover the top of the bowl with a clean tea towel. Let stand 15 minutes.
- Remove dough to a floured work surface. Knead dough a couple of minutes, adding additional flour as needed, only if the dough is sticking to your hands or the work surface. Divide dough into 4 equal pieces. *I like to weigh the entire piece of dough, then divide that amount by 4, to weigh out identically sized pieces.
- Form each piece of dough into a ball, cover with a clean tea towel and let rest 15 minutes.
- Roll each piece of dough into an 8x8-inch square. Starting with the edge closest to you, tightly roll the dough up, jelly-roll style and pinch the seam together. Using your palms, roll the dough log on a work surface, gently and evenly stretching it out longer, until it is 11 to 12-inch long. Be sure that the dough is even thickness along the length of the dough. Remove the dough to a large, un-greased baking sheet. *You can lightly dust the baking sheet with a bit of flour or line the baking sheet with a sheet of parchment paper, if your baking sheet is prone to sticking.
- Repeat with the remaining dough pieces.
- Brush the top of the rolls with water, cover and let rise 20-30 minutes, until puffy.
- As the rolls are rising, preheat the oven to 375F (regular bake/not fan-assisted), so the oven will be hot and ready when your rolls are ready.
- Brush the dough with water again and sprinkle with any toppings at this point (seeds, cheese, dried herbs etc.)
- Bake 18-22 minutes, or until deep golden. Remove from the oven and immediately transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.
- Wrap and store at room temperature or in the fridge, to extend the freshness time. For longer storage, wrap well and freeze for up to 3 months.
Notes
Recipe can be doubled to make more, but do note that it makes a large amount of dough, so be sure your mixer can handle that much dough at one time!
Serving: 1bun, Calories: 475kcal, Carbohydrates: 100g, Protein: 14g, Fat: 1g, Saturated Fat: 0.2g, Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g, Monounsaturated Fat: 0.2g, Sodium: 880mg, Potassium: 153mg, Fiber: 4g, Sugar: 4g, Vitamin C: 0.01mg, Calcium: 23mg, Iron: 6mg
Tried this recipe?Leaving a review! is always helpful and appreciated by fellow cooks!
Hi! I’m Jennifer, a home cook schooled by trial and error and almost 40 years of getting dinner on the table! I love to share my favourite recipes, both old and new, together with lots of tips and tricks to hopefully help make your home cooking enjoyable, stress free, rewarding and of course, delicious!
My family and I loved these sub rolls! The only problem I found was that they were really dry. I baked them for 18mins, should I try shortening the bake time?
Hi Mikayla, you could try a slightly shorter baking time, but my guess is that you’ve maybe used too much flour (which is easy to do :) Try reducing the flour when mixing the dough. You can always add a bit more on the counter. Keeping the dough very moist should help.
These came out really good! Have you tried using butter in place of oil to enhance the flavor?
Glad to hear Mike and no, I haven’t tried it with butter. I feel like butter might make them a touch heavier, but I could be wrong. If you try it let me know how it worked.
I can never get the dough to blend together perfectly. There are all these folds that rise in weird shapes. Is there a secret to this? What am I doing wrong?
Hi Miranda, it sounds like your dough is too stiff, meaning that you have added too much flour. Also, how are you mixing the dough? By hand or with a mixer? Mixers make the process of building the dough easy. Hand stirring/kneading requires more effort to bring the dough together. In short, a proper dough shouldn’t have “folds”, so it is either too much flour or inadequately mixed and kneaded.
Could you use bread flour instead of all purpose? I’m still VERY new to making bread so I don’t quite understand the difference between bread flour and all purpose.
Hi Shiloh and technically yes, you could use bread flour instead of all-purpose flour. That said, for this bake, I don’t think that bread flour is necessary and may not even be desirable. Bread flour is fabulous for bagels, pretzels and pizza dough as it brings extra chewiness to those bakes. Bread flour is also the flour of choice for high-hydration “artisan” breads (think the ones with the holes in the crumb) as it makes a great crispy crust and a stronger structure to the crumb, which helps to form and hold those holes. Bread flour can also make a good loaf of bread when a strong crumb structure is desired for thin slicing, for example.
For these soft sub rolls, though, with a soft crumb and crust, I’m just not sure you would see any benefit from using bread flour and using it may even make the rolls a little more chewy than we want for this type of sub roll. So all that is to say, I can certainly understand the confusion as it seems reasonable to think that Bread Flour would always be the preferred flour for any “bread” bake, but that is definitely not the case.
One final note for you as a beginner bread baker would be to always use the flour recommended in the recipe to start, as that is the flour that the recipe was tested with. Bread flour tends to absorb a bit more liquid than all-purpose flour, and that, in turn, may alter the total amount of flour that needs to be used. It’s a small difference, but it’s one of those things that can result in a dough that is too dry if not adjusted for. As you get more experienced, you’ll learn to adjust for that small difference, but it can trip up a beginner baker. Once you’ve tried it as written, you can certainly experiment with different flours to see the difference it makes, but you’ll only appreciate the difference if you’ve made it with the all-purpose flour first. Hope all that makes sense :)
I’ve made these twice with the same issue (two different types of yeast used cause I thought that might have been the problem). They seem to rise fine during those rising periods, but they do not really gain any size while baking and come out rather thin, and not like the photos at all. I’m using avocado oil. Could this be the issue? Not sure what I might be doing wrong..
They taste great, they just aren’t growing like I expect them to.
Hi Aaron, first, avocado oil shouldn’t be an issue. You seem to have some other issue going on. If I had to guess, I’d say you are over-rising the buns and they are collapsing at the end. The second rise of these buns is very short. If your kitchen is warmer, it can be even shorter yet. Is it possible they were left too long before baking?
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Easy and a nice recipe. I like that a few different flavors can be added. I made 2 batches and made garlic bread too
So glad you enjoyed them, Michelle. Thanks!
My picky eater decided he liked Subs a few months ago. I decided to try this recipe as a part of my attempt to stop buying storebought bread and WOW. So soft, chewy and delicious! Everyone in my family loves it. Baking five 8-9 inch buns works best for us and I bake pepperoni into 2 of the rolls for my kids. Thank you!!
So glad to hear, Melissa :) Thanks so much!
OH MY!
These were amazing!
I did change one thing, though. Instead of doing a second brushing of water, I brushed with egg.
Thanks so much, Heather! So glad you enjoyed them :)
Wow! What a great recipe…so delicious and easy to follow. Thank you!
Thanks so much, Diana. So glad you enjoyed them!