The BEST Dinner Rolls (2024)

FAQs

How do you make store bought dinner rolls taste better? ›

Use fresh herbs. Brush melted butter onto your dinner rolls and add your choice of fresh herbs—I like fresh thyme leaves. Bake until the herbs and rolls are toasted, then sprinkle on some flaky sea salt. Now you have herby rolls that pair wonderfully with that holiday lasagna.

Soft rolls and hard rolls are yeast breads, but quick breads are chemically raised doughs (with baking powder or baking soda). Soft rolls would be dinner rolls or sandwich buns which are usually enriched with dairy, butter or some other fat, and normally are sweetened to some degree.

A sweet, tropical take on the dinner roll

According to Baked By an Introvert, the secret to the flavor of authentic Hawaiian rolls lie in some sweet add-ins. These rolls use a combo of vanilla extract, honey, and pineapple juice to imbue the distinct flavor that sets these rolls apart from their European cousin.

Too much flour, or not the right kind, could be to blame. Dough made only from flour with a high or even average amount of protein (like bread flour or all-purpose flour) can become tough from overmixing. Protein gives bread structure in the form of gluten—the more you mix and move the dough, the more gluten you get.

If you don't have bread flour, use the same amount of all-purpose flour – but your rolls may just be slightly shorter and less chewy, and may take longer to knead and rise.

Texas Size rolls are 50% larger than our Dinner Rolls. The only difference is the roll size.

Rolls that are not light and fluffy can be the result of using too much flour (not measuring the flour correctly, as we mention above), or not using the type of flour your recipe calls for. Another reason for dense tough rolls is overmixing, which will produce too much gluten.

The recipe combines milk, sugar, yeast, flour, and sometimes pineapple juice to add that delightful sweetness to the roll, and reflects the strong Portuguese influences in Hawaiian cuisine.

What is Aloha rolls? ›

At their core, they're sweet, fluffy dinner rolls, like the love child of a chiffon cake and a Martin's potato roll. And they're an all-but-ubiquitous supermarket staple these days, not just in Hawaii but across the continental US.

Final answer: A dinner roll is smaller and softer, a slider bun is slightly larger and used for mini hamburgers, and hamburger buns are larger and sturdier to hold a regular-sized patty and toppings.

Flour isn't going to make the difference. In fact, use a high-protein flour for both, i.e. a “bread” flour. The secret to soft, light rolls, if you're looking for something like a dinner roll, is an enriched dough that contains butter or other dairy, eggs, or both.

Potato Flakes or Potato Water

Starch helps the dough by trapping the gas from the yeast in the dough and makes the bubbles stronger. This helps the bread to rise and be lighter and fluffier. If you are boiling potatoes, you can use the unsalted water in place of the water in your bread recipe to help out the yeast.

Adding sugar weakens the gluten structure, absorbs water, and eventually makes the bread lighter and softer. As a result, sugar improves the bread's taste, structure and texture. Yeast also eats up sugar to produce carbon dioxide, which raises the dough and makes bread fluffy.

Salt adds flavor to bread. If none or too little is used in a recipe, the bread will lack the right flavor and taste "bland." If you reduce the amount of salt, try adding some dried herbs to increase the flavor. Too much yeast in bread will give bread an off-taste.

Arrange a rack in the middle of the oven and heat to 350°F. Place rolls in a baking dish or arrange on a baking sheet, brush with melted butter and sprinkle with coarse salt, if desired. Bake until warm, 7 to 10 minutes.

Preheat oven to 200°F. Then turn the oven off. Boil 2 quarts water and put in a pan on the lowest rack. Put rolls in the oven and let thaw and rise until double in size.