Homemade Soft Dinner Rolls

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These homemade soft dinner rolls are fluffy, buttery, and only require seven ingredients that you probably already have at home.

Need more Thanksgiving Side Dishes? Here you go:

• Baked Mac & Cheese
• Cranberry Sauce with Pineapple
• Cranberry & Prosciutto Whipped Ricotta Crostini

Soft Dinner Rolls Ingredients

Here’s everything you’ll need (which literally isn’t a lot):

King Arthur AP Flour: This high protein flour is perfect for these dinner rolls. I’ve also tested this recipe with Trader Joe’s All-Purpose Flour and it came out great!

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Milk: Warmed

Unsalted butter: Melted

Active dry yeast: To help the dough rise

Granulated sugar: To feed the yeast

Egg yolks: For richness

Kosher salt: For flavor

How to Make Soft Dinner Rolls

Here’s how to make these delicious rolls:

Step 1: Make your dough

To the bowl of a standing mixer add the warmed milk, melted butter, 1 tablespoon of the sugar, and the yeast. Mix together and let sit for 5 minutes.

Once the 5 minutes are up, add the eggs, salt, remaining sugar, and ⅓ of the flour. Mix on low, until the flour is incorporated, and then add the remaining flour. Turn the speed up to medium and continue to mix for ~2–5 minutes, or until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl. It should be slightly tacky. If the dough looks too wet, you can add a TBS of flour at a time until it’s supple, but not wet.

Step 2: Let the dough rise.

Oil a bowl and set it aside. Pour the dough onto a lightly floured work surface and knead it just a bit so that you can form a ball. Add it to the oiled bowl, seem side down, and drizzle a bit of olive oil on the top, rubbing it all around the dough. Cover with plastic wrap and a kitchen towel and let rise in a warm area (I use the inside of my oven with the light turned on) until doubled in size (about 3 hours). It should look like this:

Note: Because this dough is “heavier” (meaning it has eggs, butter, milk, etc.) it takes longer to rise than you may be used to. Keep this in mind when planning (and I always use multiple kitchen towels to keep it warmer).

Step 4: Make the dough balls.

Now punch the dough down to deflate it a bit and add it to your clean work surface. Make sure to have a 9×13 pan lined with parchment paper ready to go.

Working relatively quickly, measure out 1.5oz dough and form it into a ball, then add it to your baking dish. If you don’t have a scale, no worries, just divide the dough into ~20 balls.

Step 5: Perform the second rise.

Now cover the dough balls loosely with plastic wrap and a couple of kitchen towels. Let rise at room temperature for a second time. The balls should just about double in size and touching. This should take about an hour or two. In the meantime, preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Step 6: Bake the dinner rolls.

Now bake the rolls for about 20 minutes or until the tops are nicely browned, rotating the baking sheet halfway.

Step 7: Brush the rolls.

Once the rolls are out of the oven, brush them with your topping of choice! For this I did 2 tbs of butter with a pinch of salt and some honey, but you can get as creative as you’d like (I think butter with some finely chopped herbs with be delicious!).

How to Make These Dinner Rolls Ahead of Time

If you want to make these in advance, you can go through to the second rise. So, perform the first rise, then roll out the dough balls and add them to the baking dish. Now, cover tightly with plastic wrap and leave in the refrigerator. In the morning, take the rolls out to rise about 3 hours before you want to bake them. Once risen, bake as directed!