Name: Rosemary Garlic Sourdough Sandwich Bread
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 45 min
Total time: 1515 min
Ingredients: 250 g White Flour; 125 g Whole-Wheat Flour; 250 g Water; 150 g Active Sourdough Starter; 10 g Salt; 1/2 tbsp Garlic Flakes; 1/2 tbsp Rosemary Leaves

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This Rosemary Garlic Sourdough Sandwich Bread is soft, flavourful, and perfect for everyday meals. Made with garlic, fragrant rosemary, and a bubbly sourdough starter, it’s a simple, homemade loaf that fills your kitchen with the smell of gourmet bread.

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Rosemary garlic sourdough sandwich bread is a frequent visitor in our home, and for good reason. The combination of rosemary and garlic is a perfect match, creating a flavourful loaf that’s perfect for sandwiches, dipping into soups, spreading with a generous layer of butter for toast, turning into croutons, grilled cheese or making garlic bread—all the good stuff!

This loaf was a later addition to my business’ bread offerings, but it quickly became a favourite. What’s not to love about the combination of garlic and rosemary? It’s garlicky, warm, with a hint of earthy rosemary flavour.

While garlic isn’t always the best companion for sourdough starter cultures, bringing them together is absolutely worth it for the incredible flavour and aroma it adds to the loaf!

Bronwyn’s Sourdough Notes

This is your loaf! I’m here to share my tips, experience, and what’s worked for me — but sourdough is wonderfully flexible. Whether you’re a seasoned baker or just starting out, feel free to experiment and make this recipe your own. There are a bajillion ways to make a great loaf of sourdough, and my goal is simply to help you find the methods and rhythms that suit you best.

Water: If you can drink it, you can bake with it. I’ve used city, tap, well, and filtered water — all with great results. Don’t overthink it.

Salt: Use whatever fine salt you have. Unrefined salts like Himalayan or Redmond Real Salt support fermentation beautifully, but table salt works fine too.

Sourdough Starter: Start bread with an active, bubbly starter for best results. Learn more about your starter here.

Temperature: Dough rises best around 23–26°C (73–79°F) dough temperature.
Colder = Slower fermentation (6-12 hours)
Warmer = Faster fermentation (3-6 hours)
Adjust with warm or cool water depending on the season.

Flour: I always do a blend of standard all-purpose flour and freshly-milled whole grain flour as my whole wheat flour. Use whatever flour works for you.

Hydration: In summer, I use cooler water and slightly less. In winter, warmer water and a touch more can help balance fermentation speed.

Autolyse: This step involves holding back salt and sourdough starter at the mixing stage. I prefer a simpler variation — I mix in the starter right away but hold back the salt for 30–60 minutes. This short rest gives the dough time to hydrate and relax, especially important when using whole grain flour, which takes longer to absorb moisture.

Where can I source freshly milled, whole-grain flour?

If you’re living in a city, you can mostly likely find a bakery or fancy grocery store that sells fresh-milled whole-grain flour. If you’re living in the country and you can source whole-grains, you may want to consider milling your own flour. You can start without making a large investment by using a powerful coffee grinder or blender that you already own. A step up would be purchasing a KitchenAid grain mill attachment.

If you’re really enjoying working with fresh-milled whole-grains and you have a reliable source of grain, you can also consider a Harvest NutriMill which is the one I use almost everyday and love both for its beauty and practicality.

Get your Harvest NutriMill when you’re ready to invest using this link and my discount code BRONSBREAD20 at checkout to get $20 off your order!

Scoring Your Rosemary Garlic Sourdough Sandwich Loaf

Scoring helps your loaf expand evenly in the oven and develop that beautiful golden crust. Many sandwich loaves don’t require scoring because enriched doughs (made with butter, eggs, or oil) naturally expand without tearing.

However, this sourdough is a lean dough—just flour, water, and salt. Its strong gluten structure can trap gas and create large pockets, also called tunneling, if not scored. A simple, shallow slash across the top will give you the perfect rise and texture.

Scoring the top of the loaf allows the gas bubbles inside the dough to release in a controlled manner, preventing the formation of large, uneven holes at the top of the loaf.

The Feud Between Garlic & Sourdough

Garlic and sourdough may be a delicious pairing, but they don’t always make the best team when it comes to fermentation.

Garlic is a potent spice with anti-fungal and anti-microbial properties, which are beneficial for health but can slow down the growth of wild yeast in sourdough. When added in large quantities, garlic can result in a loaf that rises slower or may even be stunted.

If garlic is used in your sourdough, it might require more time to double in size, leading to longer fermentation. This extended fermenting process can also cause the bread to become more sour than usual.

To avoid these issues, it’s best to use small amounts of garlic and ensure you allow enough time for the dough to ferment properly.

Dehydrated garlic is less potent which means it imparts the flavour without disrupting the fermentation process too much.

Materials You’ll Need

Medium-Sized Mixing Bowl: A heavy set ceramic mixing bowl would work best.
Bowl Cover: Anything that covers and seals the bowl and covers your loaf for final proofing. I use these reusable elastic bowl covers.
Dough Whisk (optional): It is cleaner to get things started with a dough whisk but it’s definitely not necessary.
Plastic Bench Scraper: I find this tool very handy for cleaning and scraping the dough out of the bowl. It can also be used for dividing dough and pre-shaping.
Metal Bench Scraper: I use this tool for dividing dough, pre-shaping, and cleaning the table. Not essential though, as the plastic bench scraper can serve similar purposes, but I like using both.
Kitchen Scale: I prefer sharing most of my recipes in grams so there is less room for error as I’m not in the kitchen with you! Everyone scoops things differently.
Bread Pan: I really like 8″ x 4″ size for this recipe but you can use a bigger bread pan, your loaves might just be a little shorter. These are my FAVOURITE BREAD PANS. Don’t need to grease or line with parchment paper, they are truly truly non-stick. If you don’t have these pans, you’ll just have to flour and grease your pan or line with parchment paper so the loaf doesn’t stick.
Razor Blade, Bread Lame or Sharp Knife: I haven’t found a bread lame I really like so I just use razor blades as is.
Deep Metal Baking Tray or Muffin Tin (optional): This vessel is placed at the bottom of your oven to hold water to produce steam.
Cooling Rack: For cooling down your loaf.

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Ingredients

White Flour: I use Rogers all-purpose flour, nothing fancy.
Whole-Wheat Flour: I use fresh-milled organic whole-grain flour but any whole-wheat flour from the store will get the job done.
Active Sourdough Starter: An active sourdough starter is bubbly with large bubbles, a domed top, double to triple in size, sweet and sour smelling, and floats in water. A perfectly active starter is essential for the perfect loaf but it’s not essential to make sourdough bread. You can work with the starter you have even if it’s not perfectly active, just expect inferior results.
Salt: I use Himalayan sea salt but any salt is good. Avoid highly processed table salt. The more mineral content, the better.
Water: Any drinking water can be bread-making water.
Garlic: Dehydrated minced garlic works, tastes, and looks the best.
Rosemary: Fresh is also best but whole leaf dried rosemary works great too.

How To Make Rosemary Garlic Sourdough Sandwich Bread

Mix the Dough: In a sturdy mixing bowl, combine lukewarm water and active sourdough starter. Break up the starter into small, shaggy pieces using your hands or a spatula.

Add Flours: Add white flour, whole wheat flour, garlic and rosemary. Mix until all ingredients are incorporated, and there are no dry bits. Cover the bowl and let the dough rest for 1 hour.

Add Salt: After the rest period, add salt with a splash of water and squish into your dough until dissolved and fully incorporated. Let rest for 1 hour.

Stretch-and-Fold: After the rest, perform the first round of stretch-and-folds, gently stretching the dough and folding it over itself until the dough becomes tight (4-8 times).

Second Stretch & Fold: After 30 minutes, repeat the stretch-and-fold process, making sure the dough becomes tight. This makes a total of 2 rounds of stretch-and-folds.

Bulk Fermentation: Let the dough rest until it has doubled in size. This could take anywhere from 4-12 hours, depending on the temperature of your house. If your house is cold, it will take longer, and if it’s warm, it will take less time.

Shape the Dough: After bulk fermentation, turn the dough onto the counter. Shape into a round ball and let it rest for 30 minutes. If the dough still feels tight after 30 minutes, let it rest for an additional 30 minutes.

Prepare Loaf Pan: Use either a non-stick pan, grease with butter and flour your pans, or line with parchment paper.

Final Shaping: After resting, flip the dough ball over so the smooth side is down. Gently shape the loaf by folding in the sides and creating tension to form a strong oval loaf. Place the shaped dough seam side down into loaf pan.

Cold Proof: Cover the loaf pan. Let the dough rise on the counter for another hour and then place in the fridge for 8-24 hours for a cold proof. The longer the cold proof, the more complex the flavour.

Preheat the Oven: After the cold proof, preheat your oven to 500°F (260°C). Place a metal baking tray or muffin tin at the bottom of the oven to pour hot water into later to generate steam (this is optional but highly recommended for a crisp crust).

Score the Loaf: Once the oven is preheated, take the loaf out of the fridge. Lightly flour the loaf and score them with a sharp knife or lame.

Bake the Bread: Open the preheated oven and carefully place the loaf inside. If you added a steam tray, pour 1 cup of hot water into the vessel at the bottom of the oven immediately after placing the loaf in. Close the oven door to trap in the steam.

Lower the Temperature: Drop the oven temperature to 375°F (190°C) and bake the bread for 40-45 minutes, or until the crust is golden and crispy.

Cool the Loaves: Once baked, remove the loaf from the oven and place it on a cooling rack. Let it cool for at least 1 hour before slicing.

Enjoy: Once cooled, slice your garlic and rosemary sandwich bread and enjoy with a generous amount of butter, or use it for sandwiches, toast, or any other delightful dish!

Rosemary Garlic Sourdough Sandwich Bread Video Tutorial

Recipe

Rosemary Garlic Sourdough Sandwich Bread

Bronwyn Case

This rosemary garlic sourdough sandwich bread recipe is one of my favourites. It uses only simple ingredients but gives you a gourmet-tasting loaf of bread.

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Ferment 1

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1 Loaf