Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread

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100% whole wheat sandwich bread that kids will love? Yes please! This is our go-to sandwich bread for everything sandwich. And toast.

When I started baking bread I started with a typical sandwich bread that uses all bread flour. It’s delicious. I mean, it’s homemade white bread, how could it not be heavenly?!

But whole wheat bread, on the other hand, gets a bad rap. Why? Well, it’s usually kinda hard and dry. It always has seeds or oats or something in it that my kids can see, and therefore, complain about/pick at/refuse to eat.

Because my girls loved the white sandwich bread I was making, I started to incorporate some wheat flour into my recipe to kinda of ease them in…that’s code for “subtly trick them into eating it”.

I created this whole wheat recipe which uses about half whole wheat flour and sourdough discard. It was my go-to bread for a while. And the girls loved it. Sooooo, I figured let’s go all in and make it 100 percent whole wheat flour. And guess what? They love it! It’s my new go-to sandwich bread. I haven’t made white sandwich bread in months…100% whole wheat sandwich bread is just that good!

And what’s not to love? It’s soft, delicious, and has a similar texture to white bread. My girls love it and I can feel better about their PB&J breakfast knowing that at least they consumed some nutrients with homemade whole wheat bread.

Tips to Make Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread

• Make sure you are using whole wheat flour. The ingredient list should read “whole wheat flour” and that’s it.
• You can use butter straight from the refrigerator. Cut it into roughly 1/2″ pieces so it can be broken down and incorporated into the dough in the mixer. Vegan butter works great. That’s what we use.
• Don’t substitute the butter for oil. That will make the dough too wet. And coconut oil is just too strong a flavor for sandwich bread.
• After the first rise, place your dough on a clean counter…do not flour. Too much flour leads to a dry loaf of bread.
• You can use spray or butter on your loaf pan to keep it from sticking.
• Leave your bread in the pan after it cooks for about 10 minutes. I find that helps the interior cook while avoiding an overcooked crust. Overcooked whole wheat bread will be dry.
• Let your whole wheat bread loaf cool on a wire rack and don’t wrap/store until completely cool. It could take over an hour to cool. Wrapping a warm loaf will lead to soggy/moldy bread.
• If you don’t like the ends of bread, or if you don’t finish the bread before it gets hard (about 3-4 days), cut it up and let it dry out for a few days. Then pulse it in a blender or Ninja for bread crumbs. Store the bread crumbs in a sealed container for your next recipe! If you and your kids don’t eat bread ends, you’ll never have to waste bread or buy bread crumbs again!
• When the bread comes out of the oven, take a stick of butter and run it over the top of the loaf. It uses only about 1 gram of butter and gives the bread a nice soft crust.

Step by Step: How To Make Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread

I always recommend making bread with a scale. Set it to grams and let’s go! If you don’t have a scale but plan to make a lot of bread, get one! My scale is super cheap and has worked great for 2 years. It’s worth the few dollars. If you’re still a scale hold out, I’ve included the measurements in the recipe card.

Making the Dough

1: Using the bowl from your mixer, zero out the weight on your scale (press the “zero” or “tare” button to get the weight back to 0 grams.

2. Add 258 grams of warm water, 7 grams (1 3/4 tsp) of active dry yeast, and 32 grams of honey to the bowl and give it a quick stir.

3: Zero out the scale and add 400 grams of whole wheat flour and 11 grams of salt to the bowl.

4: Using your dough hook, mix the above until it’s shaggy, about 1 minute. You can use a spoon to scrape the sides of the bowl if there is loose flour that hasn’t been incorporated yet.

5: Add 46 grams (3 T) of cut up butter to the shaggy dough. Turn the mixer to speed 3 or 4 and mix for about 5 minutes, or until the butter has been fully incorporated, and the dough is no longer sticking to the sides. It should be smooth and shiny when it’s done.

6: Form the dough into a ball while in the bowl (it’s easier to see how much it’s risen when it’s a ball versus the weird figure 8 in the picture above), and then cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a damp towel.

Allow the Dough to Rest and Rise

7. Let it rise until doubled, about 1 hour. Grease a bread loaf with butter, oil, or spray.

7: When the dough has about doubled, dump it out onto a clean surface. Flatten the dough out with your hands and then roll the dough into a log and pinch the ends in together in the center of the log.

8. Roll the dough back and forth to seal the ends. Place the dough into your greased loaf pan and cover with greased/sprayed plastic wrap.

10. Let rise about 1 hour, or until the dough has risen above the rim of the pan.

11: Bake at 400 degrees F for about 20 minutes. After 20 minutes, cover the bread with foil and cook for an additional 5-10 minutes. This helps cook the inside of the bread without overcooking the top crust.

12: Remove the bread from the oven and let it sit in the pan for about 10 minutes while it’s hot to cook a bit more in the pan. Then carefully slide it out onto a wire rack to continue cooling.

Homemade Bread Recipes to Try

Homemade bread is so much easier than we think. It’s fast, easy, and cheap!

If you love making homemade bread, you may want to try out Sourdough Bread (heavenly), Discard Pizza Dough, or for a delicious treat, Chocolate Cranberry Bread.

If you try this whole wheat sandwich bread, let me know what you think! Thanks for stopping by!

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