Grandma’s Easy Homemade Dinner Rolls (With Fresh-Milled Flour)

These homemade dinner rolls were destined to be shared. Light, fluffy, with the perfect combination of spelt and all-purpose flour, then slathered with butter hot from the oven, what's not to love? These will certainly be your go-to dinner rolls for all your holiday meals.

When grandma wasn't able to do all the holiday baking anymore, the responsibility of making her incredible dinner rolls got passed down to me. (No pressure, right?)

Truthfully, I didn't mind one bit because grandma's recipe is the best there is! Over the years I've even tested and adapted it to where they're the perfect combination of fluffy and nutty (from the fresh ground spelt flour), and then made irresistible with the freshly melted butter slathered all over the top as they come hot from the oven.

This is one recipe you'll definitely want on your holiday tables this year, but you will certainly want to give them a try before then!

If you have my book, The Made From Scratch Life, then you're already familiar with this recipe. But if this is your first time making homemade rolls, or maybe your first time using fresh-milled flour, then be sure to read through this post for all my best tips and tricks.

Why I Love This Recipe

When you think of homemade dinner rolls you think of steaming hot soft bread that's slathered with butter, am I right? But far too often people think whole wheat can't be light and fluffy like white flour. And though I do use white flour in my kitchen (albeit organic and unbleached), I like to use it in combination with fresh-milled flour so we're still getting the great health benefits of the whole grains.

This recipe has been adapted throughout the years, and now my family literally gets mad at me if I don't bring them to our holiday meals! In fact, one year I opted to make homemade croissants (as in, takes three days to make them!) and my family let me know the rolls needed to be included for all future holidays.

Lesson learned, I will now come with rolls, even if I decide to bring something extra!

Ingredients Needed

This recipe may look very similar to other homemade dinner rolls, but there are a few key ingredients that are major players.

• Yeast – This recipe calls for yeast, of course I do love me a good sourdough bread (especially this best beginner sourdough sandwich bread), but sometimes there's no stand in for yeasted breads, so you'll always find a bag of yeast in my pantry (PRO TIP: If you won't use up all your yeast before it goes bad, store it in the freezer to prolong the shelf-life!).
• Cultured buttermilk – the buttermilk does something magical in bread products. In fact, that's why I love it for buttermilk biscuits, buttermilk muffins (and even buttermilk fried chicken!). If you don't have buttermilk, store-bought plain or homemade yogurt is a decent stand in and will work for this recipe. If you don't have either, you can take 1 tablespoon lemon juice or apple cider vinegar and add it to two cups milk, let it sit for 5-10 minutes and use that instead, though this is never a replacement for true homemade cultured buttermilk!
• Softened butter – you don't have to let the butter melt completely as I did in the video above, however if you get distracted, melted butter works just fine, too! You could sub canned coconut milk for a dairy-free option.
• Honey – I prefer using honey in my baked bread goods over granulated sugar. The honey helps turn these rolls a nice golden-brown and add just the perfect amount of sweetness (not too much, but just right!).
• Fresh ground spelt flour – If you've never baked with freshly milled flour before, let me be your biggest encourager! It adds so many health benefits and an incredible flavor profile that can't be beat by any rolls from the grocery store! (Read more on the health benefits of home-milled flour here.) You can also check out this post for more info on griding your own grains at home, and check out this post if you're thinking of buying your own grain mill.
• All-purpose flour – If you don't have access to fresh-milled flour, you can use just all-purpose flour, or a combination of all-purpose and whole wheat flour. Normally I like to bake without all-purpose flour, but I've also noticed that spelt flour tends to make flatter loaves of bread or rolls, so doing a combination here gives us the best of both worlds. Read more here for picking the Best Flour for Baking- Home Baker’s Flour Guide 101 and Where to Buy Grains in Bulk – My Favorite Sources based on what you're baking.

How to Make Homemade Dinner Rolls

1. Mix warm water and dry yeast together in a bowl and stir to combine with a whisk.

2. Set aside and allow the yeast to bloom for a couple of minutes.

3. Add buttermilk, egg, softened butter, and honey into the bowl and stir to combine.

4. Add flours and salt and mix by hand using a dough whisk until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl (can use a stand mixer for this step if desired).

You're looking for a wet and tacky dough to start. When using fresh ground flour, it will continue to absorb moisture for 10-15 minutes (unlike store-bought flour that absorbs very quickly).

To know if your dough is tacky enough, grab a ball of dough and press it between your fingers. It should want to stick to your fingers, but if you move them quickly enough, it will pull away and stay in a ball.

5. Using the kneading attachment to your stand mixer, mix your dough on low for about four minutes, then turn the mixer off to give your dough a rest.

6. The dough should now form a nice ball. Test the dough by pinching off smaller than a golf-ball size piece of dough, then stretch it out between your fingers into a “windowpane”. If you can stretch it enough to see light through the dough without it tearing, then your dough has been kneaded enough.

If the dough tears before you can get it thin enough to see light through it, then let it rest for about four minutes, then knead it on low for another two minutes and do the windowpane test again.

7. Remove the dough from the bowl, add some oil to your bowl to keep the dough from sticking, then place the dough back into the bowl, giving it a quick turn so all sides are coated in oil.

Cover the bowl with a tea towel and place in a warm, draft-free area of your kitchen to rise for one hour (or until doubled in size).

This may take more or less time depending on the temperature of your kitchen.

8. Remove dough from the bowl and place it on the countertop. Divide the dough into 15-16 equal portions. You can get precise and weigh out your dough to ensure equal-sized rolls, but I just eyeball it!

9. With each ball of dough, you want to create surface tension by pulling the dough in and around itself (much easier to watch the video at minute 15:50).

10. Place each ball of dough, seam side down into a greased pan (or well-seasoned cast iron skillet) leaving adequate space between each roll to allow the rolls to double in size.

11. Cover rolls with a slightly damp tea towel and allow them to rise until doubled in size.

Keep in mind when the rolls hit the hot oven they will rise a little bit more!

12. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F and bake rolls for 12-15 minutes.

Rolls should be just starting to turn golden brown on top when they're done.

13. When they're fresh out of the oven, take a stick of butter and rub it over the tops of the rolls generously.

If you can, it's best to let the rolls cool for 30 minutes before eating, otherwise, the centers may turn a bit gummy!