Dinner rolls are delicious, and soft dinner rolls are even better! Get the recipe for these garlic chive potato rolls that stay soft for several days.
They freeze well and are full of flavor from the addition of freeze-dried chives and garlic.
Potatoes love yeast, so these guys rise relatively quickly with total rise time of under 2 hours.
Litehouse Foods sent me the freeze dried herbs, and the Idaho Potato Commission sent me a Spuddy Buddy! Thank you both, Litehouse and IPC friends!
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For ease of browsing, here are all of my bread and roll recipes. Thanks for stopping by!
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What Do Potatoes Do In a Dinner Roll Recipe?
Potatoes, especially starchy potatoes like Idaho® Russet Potatoes, soak up liquid once they reach a certain temperature, and they don’t let go. This keeps your breads and rolls softer longer and is very similar to the way Tangzhong method works.
Rather than cooking a portion of the flour and liquid together, you just replace a portion of the flour with cooked potato. As a bonus, you do get a bit more nutritional bang for you buck as well. Sweet!
See my other potato dinner roll recipe, this time flavored with garlic and Parmesan.
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Making the Rolls: Q & A
Here’s the breakdown: cooking potatoes, about 20 minutes including time to boil the water. Scaling out, mixing, and kneading the dough, about 30 minutes. First rise, about 75 minutes. Scaling and shaping the rolls, about 20 minutes. Second rise, about 40 minutes. Baking, about 25 minutes. Altogether, figure about 3 1/2 hours from start to finish.
You can. The crumb won’t be quite as even and the texture not quite as light, but you can make these with a single rise of about an hour. Then scale, shape, and pan your rolls. Let them rest while your oven preheats to 375F and then pop them in. If you have the time for the 2 rises, I’d go ahead and do it, but it’s not strictly necessary.
The potato adds bulk, moisture, and some nutrients. It also reduces the overall gluten content, giving you softer rolls that stay soft because the potato starches hold onto liquid.
Absolutely. Bread does very well frozen. I cool my rolls completely then freeze them in freezer bags, pressing out as much air as I can before sealing. Take them from the fridge as you need them and let them thaw naturally or pop them in the microwave for 20 seconds or so. Soft dinner rolls will be just fine in the freezer for a month or even two.
No you don’t. You can absolutely use a couple of cloves of garlic and mince them yourself or buy minced garlic in a jar and use a teaspoon or two of that. You can also use about a tablespoon or even 2 of freshly minced chives. The freeze-dried garlic and chives both have wonderful flavor and a very long shelf-life, so they are definitely a convenience but not necessary. You can even leave them out to just enjoy a lovely dinner roll minus the herbs.
What To Serve with These Rolls
Rolls used to be an essential part of Sunday dinner if not for every meal, but as people get farther away from making elaborate meals and bread making is seen as a chore, they have fallen a bit out of favor.
I propose we bring soft dinner rolls back, especially since they freeze so well. You can make a batch or two, freeze them and then bring out what you need. Scaled at a generous 3 oz, you’ll get 12 rolls per recipe and you can use them to sop up gravy, make small sandwiches, or just to enjoy between other bites of your dinner.
Here are some recipes for you to consider:
- Shepherd’s Pie with Stuffing Crust
- Sweet and Spicy Marinated London Broil
- Southern Chicken and Dumplings
- Instant Pot Brisket
- Baked Corned Beef
- Oyster Chowder
What Makes These Potato Rolls So Great
- Has tons of flavor from freeze-dried garlic and chives
- Stays soft for several days thanks to the addition of potato.
- Rises relatively quickly, again thanks to the potato.
- Potato adds bulk but no additional gluten which makes these rolls tender.
- Can be scaled out for slider buns (1 1/2 oz each), dinner rolls (3 oz each) or burger buns (4 oz each).
Soft Dinner Rolls Recipe
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 medium Idaho® Russet Potato
- 1 teaspoons kosher salt
- Cold water to cover
- 2 oz barely scant ¼ cup fruity olive oil
- 1 ½ Tablespoons granulated sugar
- 1 ½ teaspoons Litehouse Freeze Dried Garlic
- 1 Tablespoon Litehouse Freeze Dried Chives
- 1 ½ teaspoons kosher salt
- 10-20 grinds fresh black pepper depending on how much pepper you like
- 9.5 oz by weight buttermilk (about 1 cup plus 2 Tablespoons)
- 1 large egg
- 1 pound about 3 ¾ cups bread flour
- 1 Tablespoon active dry yeast
- melted butter for finishing about 4 Tablespoons
Instructions
- Wash, peel, and cut the potato into 1″ pieces.
- Place in a saucepan with 1 teaspoon kosher salt and water to cover. Bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer and cook for about 15 minutes or until potato pieces are easily pierced with a knife. Drain, cover, and return to low heat for 5 minutes to dry a bit.
- Crush the freeze dried garlic just a bit with the back of a spoon and place in the bowl of your stand mixer along with the chives.
- Use a kitchen scale to measure out 6 oz of cooked potato and place in the bowl of your stand mixer along with the oil, sugar, salt, and pepper.
- Fit your mixer with the paddle attachment and mix on medium low speed until the potato mixture is smooth.
- Add the buttermilk, egg, flour and yeast, in that order.
- Fit your mixer with the dough hook, and mix on low speed until the flour is evenly moistened and the dough is starting to come together, about 2 minutes..
- Knead on medium speed for about 10 minutes, until the dough is smooth, shiny, stretchy and clears the sides of the mixer bowl. The dough is soft, so some will stick in the bottom of the bowl. That’s just fine.
- Scrape the dough into a rough ball in the mixer bowl, spray with a bit of oil or pan spray, and set aside in a warm place to rise until double. Since yeast loves potatoes so much, this will only take about an hour or an hour and 15 minutes.
- Scrape the risen dough out onto a lightly oiled surface and press out the gases.
- Divide the dough into 12 or 24 even pieces. If you have a scale, weigh the entire amount of dough and then divide that weight by the number of rolls you want. Now you have a weight for portioning. I scaled 12 large rolls at just over 3 oz each. If you make small rolls, you’ll be scaling at 1.5 oz for 24 rolls. You can also make burger buns, scaling them at 4 oz for 9 buns.
- Stretch each portion of dough to find a smooth side and then tuck the rest of the dough under to form a smooth ball. Tighten up the ball by rolling it between your palms on your work surface.
- In a 9” x 13” nonstick pan, evenly space the rolls in 3 rows of 4 for large rolls or 4 rows of 6 for small ones. If making burger buns, place on a parchment-lined half sheet pan, leaving enough space so the buns won’t touch after rising.
- Preheat oven to 375F.
- Cover the rolls with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place until almost double, about 30-40 minutes.
- Bake for about 25 minutes for large rolls and 20 minutes for small rolls. Rotate the pan if browning unevenly. The rolls are done when the internal temperature reaches 195-200F. They will be deeply golden brown on top and golden brown on the sides. If the rolls seem to brown too quickly, tent loosely with foil.
- As soon as you take the rolls out of the oven, brush them with melted butter.
- Allow the rolls to cool in the pan for 15 minutes. Then carefully ease them out onto a cooling rack to cool completely.
- Wrap loosely in foil and reheat to serve. They’re great cold, too, but you will really love them warm. Enjoy!
Did You Make Any Changes?
Video
Notes
Nutrition
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Oh my GAWD!! These rolls look so fluffy and incredible! Potato and garlic rolls?! I could eat every single one of these babies.
They are pretty delicious! Thanks, Laura!
These rolls look so light and fluffy, they make me miss eating gluten 🙂
The flavor is really great–I am sure you could make a gluten-free version. But I totally get missing gluten, I’d be very sad if I had to give it up. xo