This dairy free bread recipe is perfect for sandwiches, french toast, bread pudding and more. An easy recipe that should be in everyone’s book! It’s a completely vegan bread recipe that is allergy friendly! 6 ingredients and just one bowl!
Let’s preface this whole thing by saying, bread doesn’t have to be scary. Sometimes people hear homemade bread or yeast or rising, and immediately click the little X at the top of their browser. But wait! Please don’t leave. I promise you that I’m going to make this a really simple overall recipe. Sure, you’re going to have to wait a bit for rising and things, but as long as you will listen, you will have an amazing, perfect dairy free bread that you make again and again and again and again and again (ok, fine…you get the point).
This dairy free bread recipe is completely dairy free, but it’s also egg free making this a vegan bread recipe also. You can also try making this dairy free bread recipe with gluten free cup for cup flour. Doing so would make this a completely Top 8 allergen friendly bread recipe.
What ingredients do you need to make dairy free bread?
Surprisingly, you only need six ingredients to make this delicious dairy free bread. That’s right, just six! Crazy right? It’s one of the best breads that you can make and you need just a minimal amount of ingredients. The ingredients that you need are:
- water
- vegan sugar (cane sugar)
- active dry yeast
- olive oil
- applesauce
- flour
That’s all you need to make this amazing dairy free bread.
How do you make dairy free bread?
The first step, if you are nervous, is to stop, take a deep breath, and exhale. Homemade bread does not have to be difficult. I repeat, homemade dairy free bread doesn’t have to be difficult.
Start by mixing together a pinch of sugar with the yeast into a bowl of warm water (not hot, warm to touch). Let set for 5 minutes.
Preheat oven to 150 degrees.
In a large bowl, then mix together the rest of the sugar with the olive oil and applesauce. Mix until well combined. Then, add in the yeast mixture and one cup of flour. Using a dough hook, start mixing, scraping down as necessary. Add another cup of flour and combine. Add remaining cup and a half of flour and knead with dough hook for about 5 minutes. If there are any little pieces remaining that have not combined inside of the dough, lift up from the dough hook and knead those pieces in by hand. The dough should not be sticky at all. If it is, add a bit more flour until it’s not.
Turn oven off.
Rub oil over the dough and place it back inside the bowl. Wet a towel with water to make damp. Cover bowl with cloth. Place in oven and let rise for 60 minutes.
Once the time is up, remove the towels and separate the bread into three, even sized balls. Place instead a greased bread pan. Place back in oven (still off) for 20 minutes. The bread should be peaking over top of the bread pan at this time.
Remove from oven and preheat oven to 350 degrees. When oven has reached temperature, place in and cook for 30 minutes. When the timer goes off, the top of your dairy free bread should be a deep golden brown.
How can I use this dairy free bread recipe?
Now that you have this delicious dairy free bread recipe, you may be wondering what are some ways that you can use it. You can use the dairy free bread soft or toasted. Here’s some ideas I have for you:
Dairy Free Bread
Ingredients
- 1 cup water, warm to touch but not hot
- 1 tbsp active dry yeast
- 1/4 cup vegan cane sugar, (plus 1 pinch, divided)
- 1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
- 1/4 cup olive oil (+1 tbsp after dough has come together)
- 3 1/2 cups flour, divided
Instructions
- Start by mixing together a pinch of sugar with the yeast into a bowl of warm water (not hot, warm to touch). Let set for 5 minutes.
- Preheat oven to 150 degrees.
- In a large bowl, mix together 1/4 cup sugar, olive oil, and applesauce. Mix until well combined.
- Add in the yeast mixture and one cup of flour. Using a dough hook, start mixing, scraping down as necessary.
- Once almost together, add another cup of flour and combine.
- Add remaining cup and a half of flour and knead with dough hook for about 5 minutes. If there are any little pieces remaining that have not combined inside of the dough, lift up from the dough hook and knead those pieces in by hand. The dough should not be sticky at all. If it is, add a bit more flour until it’s not.
- Turn oven off.
- Rub 1 tbsp oil over the dough and place it back inside the bowl.
- Wet a towel with water to make damp. Cover bowl with cloth. Place in oven and let rise for 60 minutes.
- Remove the towel and separate the bread into three, even sized balls.
- Place inside a greased bread pan. Place back in oven (still off) for 20 minutes. The bread should be peaking over top of the bread pan at the end of the time.
- Remove from oven and preheat oven to 350 degrees. When oven has reached temperature, place in and cook for 30 minutes.
- Remove from oven and let sit for 20 minutes. Use as needed.
Notes
Nutrition
Let’s see your creations!
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I’m Cheryl Sava I’m lactose intolerant and have asthma your bread sounds so delicious I can’t find a nice yummy bread please if you have any other recipes to please send to my email
Hi Cheryl! We have tons of other recipes! Have a look around!
hai larisha… i am your new subscriber. i am glad that i found your web because i need non-dairy dishes for my daughter. i am interested with this recipe but since i am an asian who lives in asian country there are several things that i am not familiar with
1. applesauce, you said it is unsweetened. i never make one. so, from my online searching, it is just a mashed apple with some lemon right? do you happen have a recipe about this?
2. for the oven temperatur, is it with fahreinheit or celcius?
3. do you ever experience using a bread maker for this? what do you say about that?
thank you
Hi Rathi! I’m so happy that you found us! Let’s see if we can help you out!
1. You can use this homemade applesauce recipe – if you do not have a food mill, then remove the skin, seeds, and core prior to boiling and then you can just mash the apple once cooked. You don’t need 12 apples for this bread recipe, so you could just do half that amount.
2. the temp is in F, so 177 C
3. we have not tried this ourselves in a bread machine, so I can’t answer that
What is the purpose of the applesauce. I have made bread before, never with applesauce. Sounds interesting…
fat replacer, texture and freshness
Hi. I just made this recipe and the bread did not raise. In step 2 you have preheat to 150 degrees which I did, however did you mean 350 degrees Fahrenheit? The bread raised some during the initial 60 minutes but when placed back in the oven in the bread pans for 20 mins the oven was no longer warm and the bread did not raise. Thanks.
Hi Janet! Thanks for your comment. I’m sorry that it didn’t seem to work for you. We did mean 150 degrees F. If you did 350F before the rise, you would cook the bread and we just want the oven warm to foster a good environment for rising. You preheat to 150 and turn it off. Place it in for 60 mins to rise in the bowl, then split into 3 balls and into a bread pan for 20 more mins, back into the oven (heat still off). Then in Step 12 – you’ll see that it says remove the bread from rising in the oven and preheat to 350F and then cook it.
I left the oven on at 150F after I shaped the dough into three balls and placed it into the pan to rise a second time and I got some nice height in my loaf. You should try that next time and see if it works.
thanks, glad it worked out for you Chris!
What is the flour used
Hi,
I really want to make this but I am confused. Where do I put the wet towel during the first rise? Just straight into the oven? Over the bowl?
Over the bowl
What flour did you use thanks Karen
Regular all purpose flour
Oh I thought it was gluten free too
Wow, the bread turned out so fluffy! I am totally one of “those readers” who turn tail when yeast is introduced into a recipe, but you talked me down – thanks! With this pandemic going on, we can’t keep getting out to pick up things we can make at home. Bonus: this bread is much softer than the expensive bread I used to have to get at the health food store!
What a blessing from God that I came across your website. I’ll check out your other recipes!
You totally just made my day! We are so happy that you tried and liked our recipe. We hope you find even more that you love. Thank you for taking the time to leave a review, stay safe!
Hi Larisha,
Thank you for posting this recipe. I found it by literally typing in only the ingredients I lacked and “Making bread without…”. I followed your recipe but instead of making a loaf, I used large muffin tin to make one large bun each for my family. Half the quantity and the addition of that well greased muffin tin gave us a perfect hearty bun to use open faced for barbeque. Really tasty, crispy edged and perfectly balanced in flavor.
Thanks again
Jo
I love that idea Jo! Thanks for sharing. We are so happy that you found our recipe and that it worked well for your family. You may also love our 3-5 ingredient dough too, here’s the link: https://makeitdairyfree.com/how-to-use-vegan-everything-dough-recipes/
Have a great week.
Hey, have you tried doing this gluten free? The only reason I ask is because I have tried converting other recipes to gf and have come out with less than desirable results. And the stuff isn’t cheap, so to try it and have it flop, especially right now is hard to swallow.
Thank you in advance!
Briana
Hi Briana, We have and it works but it’s very dense. We are working on trying to make it less dense but ingredients are hard to come by right now so it’s taking us longer than normal.
I don’t have a dough hook. Can I use something else?
You can knead by hand until not sticky 🙂
What all purpose flour you used?
Any brand would work
What flour would you suggest I use for making this gluten free?
We’ve always had good luck trying to make things GF with King Arthur Measure for Measure
ABSOLUTELY Loved this recipe! Soo easy peasy. Recently went dairy free due to health issues and this bread is the bomb! My hubby al aus looks forward when I make a new loaf! I also love to bake and give away and have given a few of these bad boys with toasted sesame seeds on top to a few unsuspecting friends. Thanks for the recipe. I highly recommend it.
So happy to hear that, thank you for taking the time to leave a review! Hope you find other recipes here that you love
The bread came out beautiful however my only comment is I wish there was just a little salt in it. Next time I make this recipe I will add a pinch
Totally understand! Thanks for the feedback, glad you enjoyed
Straightforward and easy recipe with delicious results!!! I’m very happy that I found this site and I can’t wait to try more recipes.
We’re so happy to hear that you found us as well! Thanks for much for leaving a review, we’re so happy you loved the recipe
Can I use instant yeast for this recipe?
Yes, it will rise faster
I don’t have applesauce and don’t feel like stepping out to get some. Can I omit it or replace with something else?