Easy Homemade Light Rye Bread

If you’re just beginning your bread making journey, this no-knead light rye recipe is a great starting point.

We love rye bread, but I never thought it would be this simple. This coming from the girl who loves making sourdough, which involves quite the lengthy process. Of course, there are many different recipes and variations of rye, but this recipe is just perfect.

This homemade rye bread is soft and chewy inside with a nice crusty exterior. It’s tangy with a little sweetness from the honey — perfect as is with a little butter or cream cheese and strawberry jam, great for sandwiches and amazing for ooey gooey grilled cheese. The best part is it involves little work and requires no mixers or kneading — just proof your yeast, mix everything in a bowl, let it rise until double in size, move to greased loaf pans and once doubled again, bake it. It’s really that easy.

Rye is delicious and nutritious, but it has a reputation for being heavy and sour. That’s why I’m obsessed with this recipe because it’s the exact opposite: it’s light and fluffy, thanks to the combination of all purpose and rye flour, and the most flavourful rye bread you will ever try. If you want a denser bread, just up the amount of rye flour and lower the all purpose flour.

Measurements are in both grams and cups, but I weighed out all ingredients using a kitchen scale, something I’ve been doing with several recipes lately and it makes a big difference in the end result. So I’m not sure how it will work out using cups/metric system. But give it a whirl and see what happens.

I usually double batch this recipe or triple it so I can freeze some and it keeps well — not that it even lasts that long! It’s so good!

Homemade Light Rye Bread

Prep Time: 5 Hours

Cook Time: 35-45 minutes

Servings: 1 Loaf

Ingredients

384 g (3 cups) all-purpose flour

96 g (1 cup) rye flour

10 g (2 tsp) salt

5 g (1 tsp) sugar

12 g (2.5 tsp) dry active yeast

9 g (1 tbsp) caraway seeds, optional

395 g (1.75 cups) lukewarm water

52 g (2.5 tbsp) honey

28 g (2 tbsp) olive oil, divided

Description

In a large bowl, whisk together rye and all-purpose flour, salt, yeast, and, if using, the caraway seeds.

In a small bowl, mix yeast with about 60 g (¼ cup) lukewarm water and let bloom for about 10 minutes.

Once yeast is ready, in a medium bowl or large measuring cup, mix rest of water and honey until honey has dissolved. Add to the flour mixture, followed by 14 g (1 tbsp) of olive oil. With a rubber spatula, mix until liquid is absorbed and ingredients form a sticky dough ball.

Cover bowl with plastic wrap or a damp tea towel and place in a warm spot to rise for 2 to 3 hours, until dough has doubled in size.

Preheat oven to 375ºF. Generously grease a 9”×5” loaf pan cooking spray or softened butter.

Once dough has doubled, drizzle remaining olive oil over top and rub oil over dough surface to coat. Use your hands again to release dough from sides of bowl, then flip the ball over so oiled side is down. Roll dough into a coil or into a loaf shape and transfer to prepared pan seam side down.

Let the dough rise on countertop in a warm, draft-free spot for 45 minutes to an hour or until dough has risen significantly in pan. Dough should be doming above the rim of the pan by about one inch. (See photo below for reference.)