Easy Peasy Bread Sticks
I haven’t been feeling well, and I really wanted some comfort food for dinner last night.
Homemade bread sticks and easy tomato soup were just what the doctor ordered.
These bread sticks are so quick and easy, you only need a fork to mix them. And Lily, who is 7, loved to help me roll them out last night. This is the perfect recipe to get the kids involved in the kitchen. My kids have “helped” roll out bread sticks since they were toddlers and now at seven and nine, they are downright good at it.
Here’s the recipe:
- 1 1/2 cups warm water
- 1 Tbsp. sugar
- 1 tsp. salt
- 1 Tbsp. dry active yeast
- 3 1/2 cups flour
- 1/2 cup melted butter
- 1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
- lemon pepper (or seasoning of choice)
Mix together warm water, sugar, salt and yeast. Allow yeast to activate (about 10 minutes). Add flour and stir in with a fork until dough holds together. Turn out onto floured board. Knead lightly into a ball. Divide into 32 equal portions. On floured board, roll out into bread sticks. Dip into melted butter and then into Parmesan cheese. Place onto greased cookie sheet (16 per bakers half sheet.) Sprinkle with lemon pepper. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. This gives the bread sticks about 10 minutes to begin to rise. Cook at 400 degrees for 15 minutes.
May be made in the morning and kept in the refrigerator unbaked. Remove from the refrigerator about 30 – 45 minutes (depending on how warm your house is) before baking.
They can also be heated on a cookie sheet then next day at 400 degrees for about 5 minutes.
Mix together warm water, sugar, and salt. Add the yeast.
Give the yeast a gentle stir and set aside to activate (about ten minutes).
Yeast is active when it’s nice and bubbly.
I always start my yeast in my measuring cup. Once active, I transfer to the mixing bowl. Add the flour.
This is a low tech recipe. All you need is a fork.
Stir together until the dough pulls together into ball. It’s not going to be pretty. Don’t panic, it’s perfect.
Turn onto a floured board. Knead it lightly into a ball. It still will be a little imperfect. You’re right on track.
Cut into half, then quarters. Cut each quarter into eight pieces by halving, and then again and again.
That way your pieces are roughly equal. An you will have 32 little pieces of dough.
Roll each piece out into a bread stick roughly 8-9 inches.
Dip each bread stick into melted butter. If you want garlic bread sticks, you can add 1/2 teaspoon of garlic salt to the butter and mix it well. We love the bread sticks with lemon pepper which will be sprinkled on later.
Dip into grated Parmesan cheese. If you want to save on cheese, you can also sprinkle it on.
Line them up on a greased cookie sheet (2 pans/ 16 bread sticks per pan). And sprinkle with lemon pepper. (Or seasoning of your choice. Salad Supreme is popular, or you can use herbs… for garlic, it’s best to add garlic salt to the melted butter.) We love lemon pepper because of it’s peppery spiciness.
Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Set the bread sticks and allow to rise for about 10 minutes, while the oven preheats. Don’t let them over rise. If you want to make your bread sticks ahead, make them in the morning and refrigerate until ready. Remove from the refrigerator 30 – 45 minutes ahead of time to take the chill off and begin to rise slightly.
Bake at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes, until golden brown.
They are rustic and delicious. Don’t aim for perfection. It is their imperfection that lets you know they are homemade and wonderful. I love the ones my kids make… they are sometimes long and skinny or fat in the middle. It’s all good.
Served with a bowl of soup, chili or even pasta… these bread sticks are easy peasy and addictingly good.
What perfect timing Make It Do! I have one son off to college for his freshman year and my other sixteen year-old son still home. In any case, last night I tried a new chile recipe …
(I should send it to you because it’s made from ground turkey and has several unusual, super-healthy ingredients in it–turned out really good & flavorful except we like things with a little more spice “hot”–so next time I may throw in some red pepper flakes.)
…anyway, the recipe made way more than we could eat last night so we’re having it again tonight. And I was thinking I would have a different bread with it to change things up a bit.
The “good timing” is that this AM I was looking through some old pictures and I found a cute picture of my sixteen year-old, from a few years ago, cooking something at the stove and I realized that I haven’t had him help in the kitchen for a l-o-n-g time. So guess who’s gonna be making bread sticks tonight?! He’ll love it and I’ve been looking for more things for us to do together.
Thank-you! Hope you feel better soon :-) Let me know if you’re interested in that recipe …
YUM!!!! They look great. I will definately be making those for our dinner tonight. It’s Summer here in New Zealand so we’ll be having our bread sticks with a salad straight from the garden and some chicken breasts. I will have 4 little girls in the house this afternoon so they might get involved too. Thanks for sharing!
Those bread sticks sound fantastic! I will be putting those on the meal line-up for next week…athough I might try to sneak in a tiny bit of whole wheat flour to make myself feel healthier. Thanks for the recipe…always like what you write/make/do :)
these look absolutely delicious. I was planning on making spaghetti tomorrow…these are going to be perfect with it :) YUM!!!!
Just wanted to point out that when you talk about keeping them in the fridge you say to “take them out of the oven” to take the chill off. Did you mean fridge? I hope there’s no chill in the oven! Thanks for the recipe, I love simplicity!
Thanks for sharing this recipe today! Hubby came home from work saying he needs to bring “something” to Food Day at work tomorrow. The theme is Italian, so I’m whipping up some of these and a batch of biscotti. Very timely! :-)
Was wondering if you have made these with cinnamon sugar and if so what is the best way?
I haven’t made them… but I think they would be delicious. I would dip them in the butter and then in cinnamon/sugar mix. Bake them as the recipe suggests.
You make a yeast, roll out recipe when you are feeling under the weather??!! What do you make when you feel great? JK I will be making this recipe. It sounds great
Those look yummy!!! So does the tomato soup had with it! Was that homemade as well, because it look really good!
It was homemade and so so easy. I am still looking for a favorite homemade tomato soup recipe, but I like this one and have made it several times. It is from Michael Chiarello from Food Network. http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/michael-chiarello/homemade-tomato-soup-recipe/index.html I double all the ingredients but the olive oil when making the soup. It calls for a whopping 3/4 cup olive oil! I also use milk rather than cream.
Made these last night to go with our baked ziti. I sprinkled them with parm and italian seasoning. I should have sprinkled on a little garlic pwd too but they were AWESOME. Thanks for the quick recipe that can be done while waiting for water to boil.
Just made your bread sticks to have with our homegrown/homemade leek and potatos soup. They really are incredible!! Thanks. I’ve just made another batch to take to a family get together tonight. I adjusted the recipe slightly. Recipes seem to work differently in different countries. I’m going to blog about them and will link back to your page if that’s okay with you?
You are more than welcome to. cheers, Calli
Thanks! It’s up on my blog now. http://www.cottonkiwi.blogspot.com
They really are delicous. Thanks again for sharing.
Fabulous idea. They look delicious.
I just made these bread sticks, they were AWESOME! This was my first time making any sort of bread that calls for yeast, so I thought I’d mess them up, but nope! They came out perfect. I made them with fresh garlic, rosemary, romano cheese, and a pinch of kosher salt. They pair perfect with the roasted chicken I made using the same herbs. My boyfriend and I gobbled them up (and have plenty for the rest of the week!) Thanks!
I just made bread sticks for the first time and my three year old helped me – what a FUN recipe and a FUN activity! Thanks so much! As I am typing my daughter is enjoying one proudly for her afternoon snack! :)
http://nicholejeffeve.blogspot.com/2011/01/just-nearly-perfect-day.html
My three year old and I made these today. YUUMMYYY!!
Thanks for the recipe and gorgeous photo of the sticks in a mason jar. That jar coupled with the rustic look of the bread sticks did me in. :) Beautiful.
I made these and they were fabulous! Thank you!
Thanks a lot for sharing this recipe! My first attempt making any kind of bread and this was a great start!
Thank you very much for this recipe!!! It is super!!!
I just made these tonight to go with our spaghetti! I know my boys are going to love munching on these!
wow amazing so ez and so good! I used bread flour and very very litely sprinkled with salt afer they cooked…then I thought wow pretzels…so many ideas..poppy seeds, rosemany yum thanks was so good.
I have made these many, many times and they get rave reviews each time. They really are easy to whip up too.
My long lost search for quick and easy dinner bread sticks is over. Thank you so much! The lemon pepper is a wonderful addition.
I stumbled across this recipe today after a google search for a quick bread stick recipe. Delicious! My family loved them. I made half of the recipe a parm and garlic bread stick for our lasagna dinner (which was already in the oven when I found you!) and the other half, I made cinnamon and sugar bread stick twists. I just dipped in butter, with a simple sugar and cinnamon mix, topping them off with a generous sprinkle of remaining sugar mix. I made a basic powdered sugar and milk dipping sauce. Total crowd pleaser! Thank you for sharing this brilliant recipe! I am checking out your page now!
Omggggg…..soo thankful for Pinterest for leading me to your site! My kids are crazy for breadsticks! Now instead of buying them at the pizza place, I now can make my own batch for the kiddos! They wil love em’ while I save money….Win Win for both! Thank you for sharing!
God Bless,
Hillary
omg! these are amazing my daughter loves then we do them with cheese ..
we also roll them into like a scroll and put ham and cheese..Spinch and Fetta !! there amazing so glad i came across then you make a 3 yr old from melbounre a very happy girl :D
Wow, these were perfect! I needed bread sticks for dinner quickly, and this recipe was perfect! I love that I can change them up with whatever seasoning’s I have on hand as well. My favourite so far is black peppercorns, rosemary, rock salt, and garlic. I grind them all up, then do just as you instructed with the parmesan.
Thank you for the wonderful and inspiring recipe!