Dutch Oven Herb Bread

This bread is so versatile it can be baked up as bread, used as biscuits, or made into pizza dough. What comes through is the flavor of the herbs making it ideal for a meze platter with prosciutto, olives, roasted peppers, pesto, and parmesan cheese.

A fun trick for the herbed bread is to roll small bits of the dough into dinner rolls and place these in the Dutch oven.

Brush the tops with herbed butter (melt some butter and add your favorite seasonings), and then, about 10 minutes before they are done, add some shredded cheese to the tops of your Dutch oven herbed bread rolls.

A tip for more flavor is to use garlic salt instead of plain salt.

herb bread
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5 from 1 vote

Dutch Oven Herb Bread Recipe

Prep Time 20 minutes
First Raising 2 hours
Total Time 3 hours 25 minutes

Ingredients

  • 1 cup scalded milk
  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • 2 teaspoons Italian seasoning you can substitute this with other herbs if you prefer
  • 1 teaspoon pink Himalayan sea salt
  • 3 tablespoons local honey or sugar if preferred
  • 3 cups flour or gluten free flour
  • 2 tablespoons yeast
  • more Italian seasoning …to sprinkle over the top just before baking. Again, you can substitute Italian Seasoning with other herbs if you prefer

Instructions

  • Make sure that the milk has cooled sufficiently to not kill the yeast then start by adding the milk, butter, Italian seasoning, salt, honey, and yeast to the bowl.
  • Allow this to sit for about 10 minutes until the yeast softens and the mix begins to foam.
  • Gently blend in the flour until you can knead it. Knead for around 5 minutes or so until it’s a nice dough ball and place this into a well-oiled bowl.
  • Oil the top of the dough and place plastic wrap loosely over the top and a warm dishtowel over the top of that.
  • Allow the dough to rise for about 2 hours.
  • After the dough has completed the first raising, you can shape your dough into bread, biscuits, or pizza. We’ve included photos of just the bread here in the Dutch oven but you can spread the dough into a pizza pan or put it into biscuit tins if desired.
  • For the bread, we warm the Dutch oven in the preheated oven. We then place the dough into the Dutch oven, oil the top and sprinkle the rest of the Italian Seasoning over the top of the dough.
  • Allow the dough to rest inside the warmed Dutch oven with the lid on, on top of the stove for about 20 minutes. If making biscuits, pizza or rolls you would also leave for around 15 -20 minutes for the second raising to take place.
    dough at second rising in Dutch oven
  • Place the Dutch oven into the oven at 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
  • Allow the bread to bake for around 30 minutes then remove the lid to the Dutch oven and continue baking for another 15 minutes or so until the bread is well browned. At this stage stay keep an eye on the bread in the oven to ensure the top doesn’t burn.
    sliced hot bread

Notes

  • Preparation Time: 20 minutes
  • First raising: 2 hours
  • Second raising: 20 minutes
  • Baking time: 45 minutes
  • Total time: 3 hours 25 minutes

If you liked this dutch oven recipe, you should also try one of these delicious food dutch oven recipes.

dutch oven herbed bread pinterest
Photos by Jeanie Beales

2 thoughts on “Dutch Oven Herb Bread”

  1. 5 stars
    Great article! In my younger days I was a sour dough starter guy! It seems now a days we have lost a lot of what we used to have time to do! I will be trying this one in the near future I hope!

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