When I couldn’t afford a $4 loaf of bread on my $10-a-day food budget, I turned to soda bread. I would make a loaf every morning, slice it, and top it with scrambled eggs, mashed avocado, or butter. I’d serve it as a partner in crime with simple salads and soups. I even used it on an episode of MasterChef (I competed on Season 3), and Gordon Ramsay loved it. This recipe is very easy to put together and incredibly budget-friendly. Get ready to put this one in heavy rotation!
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I made this for St. Patrick’s Day dinner, following the photo instructions and it was a great success! My family and I loved it! I have a history of messing up recipes, even easy ones, and this was foolproof.
Laura Weston
Soda bread is a quick bread with a hard outer crust and a dense, tight crumb. Quick breads are leavened with baking powder or soda instead of yeast. So, if you’ve had a muffin, cornbread, biscuits, or banana bread, you’ve had quick bread. Soda bread is leavened with baking soda, which gives it its namesake.
Many cultures worldwide make some form of soda bread, and it is thought to have been created by Native Americans. However, the most commonly known recipe is for Irish soda bread. It became a popular recipe in Ireland during the famine when bread had to be made from cheap ingredients: soft wheat flour, salt, baking soda, and sour milk.
Ingredients
You need just 4 ingredients to make soda bread:
- All-Purpose Flour: Gives the bread structure.
- Baking Soda: Reacts with the acidity of the buttermilk, creating tiny bubbles in the dough, and giving soda bread its signature texture.
- Salt: Enhances the flavor of the bread.
- Buttermilk: Adds acidity and moisture to the dough to help it rise and stay moist.
Why Don’t You Need To Knead It?
You knead bread to develop gluten strands, rubberband-like proteins that help bread rise. They create a net that traps all of the gas developed by bread made with yeast. Because soda bread is not yeasted bread, kneading it just makes it dense and hard. To develop its trademark soft crumb, you touch the dough as little as possible while shaping it. If you prefer a chewier kneaded bread texture but don’t want to put in all that work, try our easy No-Knead Bread recipe.
What Else Can I Add?
Traditionally, Irish soda bread is just four ingredients. But Irish Americans add currants or caraway seeds to the dough. You can also add a few teaspoons of citrus zest or your favorite fresh herbs. For a fun twist, try it with Everything Bagel seasoning. It’s truly a blank canvas, so don’t be scared to experiment with your favorite flavors.
Serving Suggestions
This soda bread is perfect for sopping up that last bit of sauce or stew. I especially like to serve it with Vegan Winter Lentil Stew, Pumpkin Soup, Vegetable Barley Soup, or Chunky Ham And Bean Soup.
Easy Soda Bread
Servings 8 slicesIngredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour ($0.27)
- 1/2 tsp baking soda ($0.01)
- 1/2 tsp salt ($0.06)
- 1 cup buttermilk* ($0.32)
Instructions
- Set a rack in the middle of your oven and preheat it to 450°F. Mix the flour, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl until they are fully incorporated.
- Form a well in the center of the flour mixture and fill the well with the buttermilk.
- Use a fork to incorporate the flour into the buttermilk little by little until a thick batter forms. Use your hands to incorporate the final bits of flour and gently shape the batter into a dough. Do not overwork the dough.
- Transfer the dough to a floured work surface and gently shape it into a round 6 inches in diameter and about 1 1/2 inches thick.
- Place the dough in a Dutch oven or cast iron skillet. Use a sharp knife to cut a large x into the top of the dough.
- Bake for 10 minutes at 450°F. Then lower the oven temperature to 400°F and continue baking until the bread is golden brown and crusty on the outside, about 20 minutes. Transfer to a rack and cool.
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Notes
Nutrition
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How to Make Easy Soda Bread – Step by Step Photos
Set a rack in the middle of your oven and preheat to 450°F. Mix the 2 cups of flour, the 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda, and the 1/2 teaspoon of salt in a large bowl until they are fully incorporated.
Form a well in the center of the flour mixture and fill the well with the buttermilk.
Use a fork to incorporate the flour into the buttermilk little by little until a thick batter forms. Use your hands to incorporate the final bits of flour and gently shape the batter into a dough. Do not overwork the dough.
Transfer the dough to a floured work surface and gently shape it into a round 6 inches in diameter and about 1 1/2 inches thick.
Place the loaf in a Dutch oven or cast iron skillet. Use a sharp knife to cut a large x into the top of the dough.
Bake for 10 minutes at 450°F. Then lower the oven temperature to 400°F and continue baking until the bread is golden brown and crusty on the outside, about 20 minutes. Transfer to a rack and cool.
Enjoy the warm, cozy soda bread with a thick smear of butter and your favorite bowl of soup!
I planned on baking yeast bread today but ran out of time. I found this recipe and 45 minutes later my family was enjoying two loaves of this simple yet delicious bread! Thanks for sharing! Our veggie soup would have been lonely without it.
I can’t understand the problems some people have had with this recipe. It’s perfect! Maybe some of those who have found the dough crumbly aren’t measuring their flour correctly, so their cups are far too compact. I like to use a scale (120 grams per cup of AP flour). It’s quick, easy, and accurate. If the dough is too sticky, add a little flour. Easy peasy. I nearly always use a milk/vinegar substitute for the buttermilk, so I truly always have the ingredients on hand. Each fall, I start making a pot of soup or stew and a loaf of this bread nearly every night!
Can you use whole wheat flour as a substitute in this recipe?
Whole wheat flour soaks up a lot more liquid and you would likely end up with quite a dry loaf. You can always experiment with it and add more buttermilk as needed, but it can already tend to be a drier bread so I would be cautious.
I’ve tried this three times and it failed to turn into a dough every time, just a sticky mess. It would be helpful to indicate about how long it takes to turn from batter to dough. Telling me to be careful to not overwork the batter leaves me afraid to keep working it until it actually might become dough. I’ll likely just spend the money to support my local baker.
Nope… didn’t rise. Followed recipe to the letter and it’s just time wasted. Added a touch more buttermilk to the recipe because it was way too dry.
Too dry like eating crackers. Need butter or margarine, and sugar.
I forgot to buy bread and don’t have yeast!
This took minutes. The sink filled faster than I could make the loaf.
Fantastic recipe for the single guy with a very small kitchen!
This base recipe is fantastic. I’ve also recently had great results by making jalapeno-cheddar and bacon-cheddar variants. Left a loaf out at a gathering and it was all quickly eaten.
Can you make with whole wheat flour instead?
Other readers have done this with success! Whole wheat flour tends to be drier than AP, so just watch the texture of you dough, you may need a bit more moisture to hydrate it properly.
I’ve made this many times and it is loved by all! I’m wondering if I could bake it in separate pieces to make it more like biscuits? How would you adjust the cooking temp and time?
Thanks for the recipe!
Made today. Followed directions making my own buttermilk with whole milk. Turned out perfect. Now trying to think of more variations to this basic recipe. Um dried cranberries and nuts sounds good. Use a bread knife to cut through the crusty crust. Works fine.
This is literally a biscuit, not a soda bread. You need the soda and acid to combine to create a chemical leavening, which this doesn’t seem to have going on
Did you not read the recipe? It has baking soda, and buttermilk acts as the acid.
Just pulled it from the oven and it’s Perfect! Next time I will add fresh garlic cloves.
My husband and I love this recipe! He grew up in Europe and he said it’s very nostalgic for him.
I do have a question though. I’ve made this bread three times and every time, the dough gets very, very dry and crumbly, unlike your picture. Like, it barely holds together in some places. Do you think I’m overworking the dough? I feel like if I work it any less, it won’t even be a loaf because so much of it is falling apart. I have to sort of mush it backwards together again for it to have any shape. TIA!
It’s possible that you might need a touch more liquid! Some flour brands are dryer than others, so it can definitely vary bag to bag and make a dryer dough.
Made this to go with our Irish stew this past weekend. Did the milk and vinegar sub for buttermilk and my family DEMOLISHED it. I bought buttermilk powder to try next time as I have a feeling this will get made a lot here now.