My Favourite Sourdough Recipes
I first started my sourdough journey back in 2020 while in quarantine in Montreal. I lived there during the worst of the pandemic and restrictions were incredibly strict. Every time I travelled between the US and Canada I had to quarantine in my apartment 24/7 for two weeks upon returning back to Montreal, which left me with plenty of time to try lots of sourdough recipes!
After Dan and I got married, I took a long hiatus from sourdough, and I only recently picked it back up again. While we were in Phoenix I started a rye + all-purpose flour starter (25/75) and then while we’ve been in Charlotte I’ve been working with a whole wheat + all-purpose flour starter (50/50). These are some of my favourite sourdough recipes since picking it back up again!
Sourdough Banana Pancakes
These are so tasty and, depending how ripe your bananas are, often come out sweet enough that you don’t even need maple syrup! I love adding chocolate chips to half of the pancakes and keeping half plain. Typically I don’t tweak this recipe too much, I mainly use a bit less sugar (because they are so sweet already!), a bit less sour cream, and a bit less cinnamon. I haven’t done this yet, but adding a bit of lemon juice and/or lemon zest would brighten these up beautifully I think. Since university, I’ve loved making giant batches of pancakes to keep in the freezer for a quick, easy, and delicious breakfast or snack. Just pop it in the toaster oven and it will be almost as good as a fresh pancake!
Sourdough Sandwich Bread
This sourdough sandwich bread took me a few tries to get it…I don’t want to say perfect, but pretty dang good. Dan and I are both obsessed with this bread now, and turns out it freezes super well so I’ve started making two loaves at a time which is great! I started off halving this recipe because the full recipe makes two loafs and I only had one loaf pan in Phoenix. Gone are our days of buying bread every week (I love bread and Dan has a sandwich for lunch almost every day, at least every work day). This has definitely become one of my all-time favourite sourdough recipes.
Now, this will depend on a lot of factors like your sourdough starter, the climate you live in, and exactly how accurate your oven is at conveying what temperature it’s at. That said, these are the recipe modifications that have worked for me after multiple loaves that came out dense and dry.
my recipe tweaks
*Add less salt than the recipe calls for. I’m all for salt, but this is a LOT of salt and that can sometimes negatively effect your starter. It’s also just a lot of salt flavour-wise and I like it better putting about half the amount in (though I do use salted butter).
*The dough may seem very tacky/sticky at first, but work with it for a while before adding ANY extra flour. It’s ok if it stays a bit tacky, but it shouldn’t be sticking to the counter or your hands after you’ve been working it for a few minutes. If you have to add any flour, keep it super minimal, you may even be able to get away with adding slightly less than the recipe calls for initially and then using the remainder for while you’re working the dough.
*Bake the bread at 350°, not 375° and start with just 30 minutes. I’ve been able to get away with only baking it for ~35 minutes and it’s been nice and golden and hollow sounding when tapped on the bottom.
Try those tips if this bread is coming out dry and/or dense, it’s worked great for me since making those changes!
Sourdough English Muffins
Dan was over the moon for these English muffins, though I found them to be a bit dense and dry. The issue I had was that the dough came out SUPER sticky and wet so I had to add a bunch of extra flour just to make it workable. They were a lot of fun to make and Dan loved them, so I plan to try again and this time add less flour. The first time I made these I was using my rye/all-purpose starter, so I’m curious to see if my whole wheat/all-purpose starter does better. I also want to commit to a few minutes of working the dough even while it’s quite tacky to see if just that will help it to lose some of that stickiness.
Sourdough Pizza Dough
I love this pizza dough and have made it so many times now with both of my recent sourdough starters. In general, I find it freezes quite well, though the last time I froze it I was a bit disappointed with how it rose/baked after thawing. I’m wondering if I over or under-proofed it before freezing, but the half a dozen plus other times I’ve made it and frozen it, I haven’t had that problem. So I’m sticking with it!
This isn’t a fluffy sourdough pizza, it’s definitely better for nice thin crust pizzas. Sometimes I like to add a bit of Italian seasoning to the dough and/or some fresh minced garlic which is just delicious. I’ve had success making this dough and baking it right away, making it ahead of time and freezing the dough balls, and also par-baking it then adding all the toppings and freezing it so it’s just like a store-bought frozen pizza ready to bake from frozen. The options are endless and they all come out great!
*I try to minimize the extra flour I use for this recipe as well, and often take 10-15° off of the recipe baking temperature. When I’ve par-baked and topped the pizza then baked it from frozen I’ve found that baking it at 425° for about 15 minutes works well. If I’m making frozen pizzas this way I usually par-bake the crust for about 8-9 minutes.
Bonus Non-Sourdough Recipe That Could Be Made Sourdough
Three Cheese & Spinach Stuffed Breadsticks
These were so good and easy to make! I would love to make them again, but with a sourdough dough instead! The sourdough pizza dough I use doesn’t get nearly as fluffy as the dough this recipe explains how to make (it’s almost a bit cakey) so I would need to tweak it or find a different dough recipe to try. I could definitely see this becoming one of my favourite sourdough recipes once I make that conversion. That said, these are delicious whether you use yeast or sourdough for your dough base!
What I Would Love to Make Next
Bagels
I’ve made sourdough bagels before, but not it years, so I’d love to make them again and try some new recipes! I’m pretty sure this is the recipe I followed before when I made them a few years ago. They always came out delicious!
Cinnamon Rolls
I’d love to try out this recipe for sourdough cinnamon rolls sometime soon! If you have any recommendations for other sourdough cinnamon roll recipes, let me know!
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