Oatmeal Sourdough Bread

This oatmeal sourdough bread is lightly sweet, tender and earthy and features a soft crumb filled with oats. The addition of rolled oats to a classic sourdough loaf makes this bread packed in extra whole grain nutrients and it adds slightly more texture and character to your bread, too. All you need is a bubbly sourdough starter, oats, maple syrup, flour and water! Perfect loaf for breakfast or side bread for savory stews or soups.

I have the perfect breakfast sourdough loaf for you: oatmeal sourdough bread.

It is a simple loaf to prepare for your family that's very hearty and packed with goodness. I love how it looks like a classic white sourdough bread, but it hides a fair amount of nutrient-dense old-fashioned oats. The whole grain pretty much disappears within the crumb!

The raw oats are simply incorporated in the sourdough dough while doing your regular series of fold and stretch, so there is nothing complicated about the process. Plus, the only prep the oats need is a quick soak, no need to use cooked oats. So simple!

You will love its mild sweetness, fluffy and tender crumb, earthy notes and soft bite. Its subtle sweet flavor comes from the natural sugar from the rolled oats but also, the addition of a small amount of maple syrup, which pairs beautifully with a little bit of tang coming from the sourdough classic flavor. This recipe makes for such a delicious bread!

You won't need any commercial yeast to make it, only a strong and active sourdough starter. The sour flavor paired with the sweet maple and oat is addictive and will make you reach for seconds. 

If you already make sourdough bread at home, then I'm sure it is no surprise to you that this recipe involves a few steps. But, they all are easy and even though it will take a while for your loaf to be ready, most of the steps are hands-off waiting time. 

Let me know if you gave it a try! ❤️

Fermented sourdough oatmeal bread made without dry yeast

Making sourdough bread (also called fermented bread) at home is so fascinating and addictive, but it has its challenges. The more you bake, the more you will be able to refine your technique, learn how to adapt recipes to your environment and improve your bread.

As you probably already know, making sourdough implies using a sourdough starter that contains wild yeast ready to flavor, puff and rise your bread, on top of adding more gut-friendly nutrition to your loaf.

This recipe is made entirely without using commercial dry yeast and relies 100% on your starter! It makes for a long fermentation time, but that will totally be worth your time, I promise. But also, using wild yeast brings more variables that are subject to influence the shape, texture and flavor of your bread. 

One of the most important aspect of making this bread is the temperature of your house. It widely influence how quickly your bulk fermentation will go as well as how short your final proof can be. Having a kitchen at around 70-75º F will help the dough ferment within the 8-12 hours range suggested here. If your kitchen is typically colder, then you might want to plan for a longer fermentation process or even better, find a cozy spot somewhere else in the house (like your oven or microwave).

Overview of making homemade oat sourdough bread

There are a few steps to making sourdough bread recipes, but as mentioned before, most of them are hands-off steps! Here is an overview of the steps (keep reading to get all the details) with an example of a timeline you can use:

1. Feed the starter: make sure to have 100g. of fed and bubbly sourdough starter to use for the recipe. I like to feed the starter about 4-6 hours before I plan on mixing the dough. 
2. Mix the dough
3. Stretch and fold
4. Bulk fermentation
5. Shape
6. Final proof
7. Score + Bake
8. Cool down before slicing

You will need a whole 24 hours to make this bread: I like to feed my starter around lunchtime the day before I want the bread ready. Then, I mix + stretch + fold the dough in the evening. I let the dough ferment all night at a cozy room temperature. The next day, usually early morning, I shape the dough and then it can do its final proof (1-3 hours) in the morning. I'll score and bake the dough at around 10 am, then I can slice it around lunchtime. This is what works for me, but you might prefer a different schedule!

Ingredients you will need

(See below in the recipe card for the measurements)

• Sourdough starter: you will need a bubbly, mature, fed and active starter. Your starter is ready to use once it doubles in height in your jar after you feed it. The strength of your starter is essential for baking sourdough! Check out this guide to learn how to make your own sourdough starter from scratch!
• Bread flour: I tested this recipe with bread flour. Bread flour is higher in protein (usually around 12.7%) compared to all-purpose flour (11.7%). The higher amount of protein can tolerate longer fermentation and helps the development of gluten in your sourdough loaf.
• Rolled oats: I used thicker old-fashioned rolled oats for making this recipe. Do not use steel-cut oats!
• Maple syrup: it adds a mild sweetness to this loaf, which is a delight paired with the oats and sour flavor.
• Water: I recommend using filtered water at room temperature for making the bread.
• Salt

How to make oatmeal sourdough bread

(See below in the recipe card for the full recipe)

Feed and prepare your sourdough starter

You will need 100g of bubbly sourdough starter. What I like to do is to weigh about 50g. of my starter and feed it 50g. flour + 50g. water. This will give me a little extra that, once I used what I need, I can re-feed to make another bread later.

Mix the dough (+ soak the oats)

Once the starter has doubled in size in your jar, then you can mix the dough. This can be 4-8 hours after you feed it.

In a medium bowl, weigh 100g of rolled oats and add 100g of water (this is the soaker). Combine and set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, add the sourdough starter, water, maple syrup and salt. Stir until mostly uniform.

Then, add the bread flour and combine. It should be looking like a shaggy dough. Let both the dough and the soaker rest at room temperature for about 20 minutes.

Stretch and fold (+ incorporate the oats)

Do your first round of "stretch and fold" while also incorporating the soaked oats. You can add about half of the oats to start with, do maybe 2-4 stretches of the dough while pushing the oats into the dough, then add the rest of the oats before finishing the first folds. I have a quick video in the recipe card showing how I did it.

To stretch, grab a corner of the dough right into the bowl, pull it up without tearing it, then fold it over the dough in the middle. Turn the bowl about 90º and do another stretch grabbing another corner. Go ahead and keep going around the dough until it is too tight to stretch. Then, cover and let it sit on the counter for about 30 minutes. The oats should be roughly in incorporated at this point, but not yet uniform. It will keep mixing in the dough as you do more stretches and folds.

Do 2-3 more stretch and fold sessions, leaving about 30 minutes of resting time in between.

Bulk fermentation

Cover the bread dough very well and place the bowl in a warm place in the kitchen or anywhere in your home where it is cozy. Allow the dough to ferment for about 8-12 hours (depending on the temperature). A warm temperature will ferment the dough quicker and a cold temperature will ferment it slower. 

The dough is done fermenting once it has about doubled in size, it "wiggles" when you gently shake the bowl and might have 1-2 large bubbles on top. It will also look puffy or not as dense anymore.

Final shape 

Lightly flour a clean work surface and scrape the dough out of your bowl while letting it fall on the floured counter. You can pre-shape into a ball, then place the bowl over the dough upside down. Let the dough rest for about 20 minutes (bench rest).

Remove the bowl, lightly cover the dough with flour and flip the dough (I like using a dough scraper).

Stretch the dough roughly into a rectangular, then fold the bottom part over the dough in the middle. Fold both sides over the dough. Then fold the top part of the dough up by grabbing both corners, pulling gently and crossing over each other creating an X. Then rolling the dough from top to bottom to expose the smooth part on top (see video). Use your fingers to seal the edges.

Dust flour over the ball and in your proofing basket as well. Use your dough scraper to lift and flip the dough and place it in your basket seam side up.

Final proof

This is also called the second rise. Cover the dough in the basket and let it rest for 1-3 hours, which will depend on temperature. The dough won't double in size this time, but will puff and get ready to be baked.

Bake

When almost ready to bake, then transfer a large Dutch Oven dish to your oven and preheat to 450º F.

Allow the empty Dutch oven to preheat for at least 30 minutes, this is important.

Check out this guide on how to bake sourdough bread without using a Dutch oven!

Then, flip the dough over a large piece of parchment paper, score the dough and transfer into the preheated Dutch oven, then cover.

Bake covered in the preheated oven for 30 minutes.

Then, uncover and bake for an additional 5-10 minutes to add coloration on top of the bread and finish up the crust (watch closely).

Cool down and slice

Once done baking, remove the loaf of bread from the Dutch oven and let it cool completely before slicing (about 2 hours). Then you can slice the bread using a sharp knife.

Helpful tips

• If you wonder if the levain or starter you used was ready enough to bake with, then I would suggest leaving your dough to ferment for longer.
• Make sure to distribute the oats as evenly as possible into the dough. Doing a few rounds of stretch and fold will help this process.
• I recommend covering your bowl containing the dough with plastic wrap during the long bulk fermentation. Otherwise, an undesirable hard crust can form over the ball of dough! 
• You can add some extra rolled oats to the bottom of your basket (banneton) to cover the top of your loaf with oats for a nice presentation.
• If you prefer a thinner crust under the bread, then you can place a baking sheet under the Dutch oven.
• It can be hard to wait before slicing the bread, but try to be patient as the cooling down process is part of the crucial steps into making sourdough! If you slice it too early, the crumb might be gummy.
• You can shape your bread into a boule or batard, depending on the basket (or banneton) that you have. Have a peek at my short video to see how I shape mine.

Variations

You can add extra ingredients depending on what you feel like. Here are some variations to try:

• Nuts: you can fold in some walnuts into the dough alongside the oats.
• Dried fruits: try adding a handful of raisins or cranberries to add more character and natural sweetness (about 75-100g.). Just soak them in the water with the oats before folding them in the dough.
• Spices: I think this sweet sourdough bread with oatmeal would work well with some cinnamon. Simply add about 1-2 teaspoons to the dough when adding the flour.

Serving suggestions

This healthy oatmeal sourdough bread makes for a perfect everyday loaf that goes well with a wide variety of meals. Here are some ideas:

• Morning toasts: this oat porridge sourdough bread makes for a yummy treat in the morning. Toast a slice and top it off with peanut butter, jam, or simply butter and serve with a cup of steamy coffee.
• Soup or stew: perfect side bread for spiced or bold-in-flavor soups or stews, especially curries or fragrant Indian dhal. The natural sweetness from this loaf helps balance strongly flavored recipes and is perfect to dip in gravy or broth.
• Open-faced sandwiches: this hearty bread makes for an amazing base for savory spreads and toppings. Try making avocado toast, top it off with hummus or cream cheese and garnish with roasted vegetables.

Storage tips

Once the bread is done cooling down (about 2 hours), then you can slice it. Remember, if you slice it too soon, the crumb might be gummy.

Then, once you take what you need, then keep the unsliced part of the load against your cutting board with the sliced part down to prevent drying for up to 1-2 days at room temperature.

For longer storage, you might want to completely cover the bread by using a large plastic bag. You can also keep the bread tightly sealed in the fridge for up to 4 days.

This bread also is freezer friendly! In that case, you can pre-slice the whole loaf for easy grab-and-go of individual slices. You can use a small toaster oven to speed up the defrosting process.

Check out this guide on how to store sourdough bread for more tips!

FAQs

What if I don't have a Dutch oven?

A Dutch oven is the perfect vessel to bake sourdough bread as it holds and traps all the moisture from the bread as it bakes. This helps create a perfect crumb! It is also a small closed environment that gets very hot when preheated, which helps provide a more constant heat for the dough and support a nicer oven spring (how the bread rise up vs spread aside while baking).

That being said, Dutch ovens are not cheap! Rest assured, even though Dutch ovens make baking sourdough a little easier, you don't absolutely need it. If you want to bake your bread without it, then you can use different methods to help retain that extra moisture and hold on the heat. Here is something you can try:

• Add about 2-3 inches of water into a metal pan (such as the one you use to cook brownies). 
• Place it in the oven on the bottom rack while leaving a second rack above about in the middle of the oven to place the bread.
• Preheat the oven with the water-filled dish (make sure to preheat the oven for long enough so it is very hot, at least for 30 minutes).
• Once the oven is done preheating, then check if the pan is steaming. If yes, then you can add your bread (just place your bread on a parchment-covered baking sheet or better, over a baking stone) and bake as directed.
• You can add more water to the pan while baking or directly spray water into the oven using a spray bottle.

Can I ferment the bread in the fridge?

Yes, you can. This is especially helpful if you need more time before baking your bread. You can do a slower fermentation during the final proof: once you shape the dough, place it in your basket, cover and transfer it into the fridge for up to 8-10 hours (instead of 1-3 hours). You can bake the bread straight from the fridge!

Can I mix the dough using a stand mixer?

I haven't tried it, but I don't see why it would not work. You can also use the dough whisk to incorporate the soaked oats.

I hope you like this sourdough oatmeal bread recipe as much as we do! If you try it, please leave a comment below and rate the recipe to let me know how it was. Your feedback is so helpful!

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