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Prep time
14 hours
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Cook time
50 minutes
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Makes
1 large loaf
Author Notes
A riff on Jim Lahey's popular no-knead method, this bread uses a sourdough starter instead of commercial yeast. You can adjust the fermentation (rising) time to make a tangier, more sourdough-forward loaf. If you have a Dutch oven or pot that you can preheat empty, do that! You'll get an even better crust on your loaf. But if you can't (and check, not all pots are safe to preheat empty), it'll be deliciously crusty and chewy regardless.
Helpful tools for this recipe:
- Food52 x Staub Round Cocotte
- Mason Cash Cane Mixing Bowls
- Five Two Airtight Silicone Lids
—Posie (Harwood) Brien
Test Kitchen Notes
This recipe is shared in partnership with Miele. Posie, who developed this amazing no-knead sourdough bread recipe, shared some more tips and tricks to get the best results from this baking project. She writes, "No-knead bread is a fantastic place to start experimenting with your sourdough starter, because it’s relatively easy to execute. Jim Lahey popularized this technique in the 2000s, and it’s won over many a baker. I fell for it five years ago, and have been baking it ever since.
"At its core, the original no-knead bread recipe requires you to do little more than mix together your flour, water, salt, and commercial yeast (which you can find at the grocery store, and is what many bread recipes call for). Once mixed into a shaggy dough, you let it rest and rise. After a long rise, you plop the dough into a Dutch oven and bake it.
"The recipe creates an artisan-style loaf with a chewy-crispy crust and a soft interior. You can easily adapt it to use other flours (like spelt or rye) or flavors (like herbs or cheese). So naturally, I turned to sourdough. To create a sourdough version, I used the same technique as the original Lahey recipe, but skipped the commercial yeast and used ripe sourdough starter instead.
"So feed your sourdough starter (or get started by finding one!) and give it a shot. This is one of the most accessible recipes for embarking on your journey of sourdough baking, and I suspect you’ll fall in love with it just as I have." —The Editors
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No-Knead Sourdough Bread
Ingredients
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4 cups
(480 grams) all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
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1 3/4 teaspoons
kosher salt
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1/2 cup
(100 grams) ripe sourdough starter
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1 1/3 cups
(303 grams) room-temperature water
Directions
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In a medium bowl, whisk the flour and salt.
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In a large bowl, whisk the sourdough starter and water until no bits of starter remain.
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Add the flour mixture to the starter mixture and stir (a wooden spoon is helpful here) until it just comes together. You don’t want to see major dry spots, but don’t worry about getting everything perfectly combined; it’s okay for it to look shaggy and not smooth.
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Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a reusable bowl cover and let it sit at room temperature for 1 hour.
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After 1 hour, uncover the bowl and fold the dough over onto itself a few times. The best way to do this is to grab the dough with your hand (or use a dough scraper), starting at the top of the bowl furthest from you, and pull it over onto itself toward the bottom of the bowl closest to you. Turn the bowl 90 degrees and repeat, doing 4 folds in total.
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Cover the bowl again and let it rest at room temperature overnight (aim for 8 to 10 hours).
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After this rise, scoop the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Using your hand or a dough scraper, repeat the four-time folding motion, shaping the dough into a ball as you go, leaving it seam-side down. Cover the dough lightly with a flour-dusted tea towel and let it sit for 1½ hours, or until puffy and almost doubled in size. (It’s nice to let the shaped dough rise on a piece of parchment paper or another floured towel, as this will make it easier to move into the pot.)
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Just before the end of the rising time, heat the oven to 450°F. Once risen, carefully transfer the dough to a Dutch oven or other heavy pot; arrange seam side up.
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Using a very sharp knife or bread lame, slash the top of the loaf once, making a ½-inch cut down the center. (Feel free to get fancier if you like!)
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Cover the pot with the lid and bake the bread for 20 minutes, then remove the lid and bake for another 25 to 30 minutes, until the crust is a deep golden brown all over. If you have a digital thermometer, the internal temperature of the loaf should register 210°F. Remove from the oven and flip out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
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