Start making these Olive Oil and Rosemary Rolls in the early afternoon and you’ll have warm and buttery rolls for dinner.
This is a good homemade roll recipe to include for a holiday meal. They are easiest to make if you have a stand mixer, but you can knead by hand too if you don’t mind getting messy. Though there are a few “rising” steps involved, the actual time involved in making these olive oil and rosemary rolls is pretty minimal.
How to make Olive Oil and Rosemary Rolls:
Combine olive oil and fresh rosemary. The longer you can let the rosemary infuse the olive oil, the better. This will be so yummy mixed into the dough.
Mix yeast and warm water and give them a few minutes to interact. Foaming and bubbling is good. If it doesn’t foam and bubble, your yeast is not active and needs to be tossed. Pour the yeast mixture into the bowl of your stand mixer and add a little bit of your flour and salt.
Keep adding flour a little at a time until all is incorporated. By the way… do you have one of these beater blades pictured above?? I just ordered one on Amazon and it has changed my (baking) life. I no longer have to stop my mixer to scrape the sides. The beater blade does that for you!
Switch to the dough hook and pour in the rosemary-infused olive oil. Let the hook do its kneading work for a couple of minutes. (You can do this by hand too… just knead the dough in a bowl so you don’t get olive oil all over the place).
Take the dough out of the bowl and place it onto a lightly floured board. Form a nice round blob (I take the sides of the dough and kind of fold it underneath so the top looks nice and neat).
Lightly dust the blob with flour and place it in a large zip bag. Press the air out and seal. Let rise in a warm place for about an hour. I don’t ever seem to have a warm place so I use my oven. I turn it on very briefly and then turn it off and leave the light on. It’s then warm enough to let my bread rise. I place the bag on a wooden board and then just place it on an oven rack.
Punch down the dough and then let it sit to rise in the zip bag for another hour.
Take it out of the bag and punch the dough to deflate. Let it rest for a few minutes.
Divide the dough into 12 equal pieces. Form them into 12 rolls. You can roll them into balls or take the dough and tuck it underneath to form a smooth, round top.
Brush the tops with melted butter, cover with plastic wrap and let them rise at room temperature for about an hour. You can create somewhat of a holding pattern here if you’d like. Bake them right away, or refrigerate them at this point and take them out to rise when you’re ready. Or you can let them sit for a bit longer than an hour. They shouldn’t get too crazy-out-of-control with their rising unless you’ve got some crazy-out-of-control active yeast 🙂 They need about 20 minutes in the oven.
Tuck them into a cloth-lined basket to keep them warm for dinner. They’re tender rolls with the oh-so-subtle flavor of rosemary. Though there’s butter brushed on top, a good dab of butter on a warm roll is a really good thing too. Enjoy!
Olive Oil and Rosemary Rolls
Ingredients
- ¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
- 1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary
- 2¼ teaspoons active dry yeast
- 1 cup warm water
- 4¼ cups bread flour (+ extra for dusting)
- 1¾ teaspoons sea salt or kosher salt
- ½ cup butter, melted and cooled slightly
Instructions
- In a small bowl, combine the olive oil and rosemary; let marinate for at least 30 minutes.
- Add the yeast to 1 cup of warm water (105 to 110 degrees… no warmer). Stir to dissolve the yeast and let it stand for 5 to 10 minutes. The mixture should foam and bubble (a sign that the yeast is still good).
- Insert a paddle attachment into your stand mixer. Pour the water/yeast mixture into the mixing bowl. Add ½ cup of flour and the salt and mix on low speed until incorporated. Keep adding ½ cups of flour until all flour is used up and incorporated. Remove the paddle attachment and replace it with a dough hook. Knead on low and slowly pour in the olive oil/rosemary. Increase to speed 3 and let the machine knead for about 2 minutes.
- Remove the dough and shape quickly into a ball. Dust lightly with flour and place in a zip bag, pressing out air and sealing. Place on a cutting board and let rise in a warm, draft-free place until doubled in size (about 1 hour). Punch down inside the bag and let rise again for an additional hour.
- Punch the dough to deflate and let it rest for 10 minutes. Lightly spray a baking sheet with cooking spray. Divide the dough into 12 equal-sized pieces. Shape each piece of dough into a ball and transfer to the prepared baking pan. Cover with plastic wrap, and let rise at room temperature for about 1 hour (until almost doubled). They’ll continue to rise as they bake, so don’t worry too much if they don’t look large enough.
- Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. Remove the plastic wrap and lightly brush each roll with melted butter. Bake at 450 for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 375 and bake an additional 10 to 15 minutes, until browned and hollow sounding when tapped. Remove to a wire rack to cool.
Notes
- *Use a candy thermometer or an instant-read meat thermometer to check for accurate water temperature.
- *If you don’t have a stand mixer, you can always knead by hand instead. It’s just a little messy.
- *Trick to dividing the dough into 12 equal pieces: Divide the dough in half, then in half again, then you can divide each of the four pieces into three equal dough balls.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Nowhere near enough water in this recipe for bread flour. It made a dry, crumbly, very tough dough that I had to keep working and rewarding. It rose ok, but I have no idea how it will bake up.
How did it turn out? If you read the other comments, no one mentions that. I wonder if you accidentally added too much flour?
Serious beginner.I have only made no-knead bread 3X and these are the first rolls I have EVER made! YUMMY! I don’t have a stand mixer so I did it by hand and they came out wonderful. I can’t wait to make them again.
Simply delicious ! I put thyme instead of rosemary and it turned out really great. Thank you !
I made these for Christmas dinner to go with our prime rib and they were delicious!!! They were even better the next day as sandwich rolls for leftover beef, thanks so much for sharing this. This is going on the make again list!!!
made these this morning and instead of rosemary I used chopped up black olives. THEY’RE WONDERFUL
I made these yesterday, and they turned out wonderful. Tweaked it slightly: instead of brushing with butter before baking, i used vegetable spray, then sprinkled a little salt.
Made these last weekend and I am in love! The rosemary is subtle but flavorful. The outside of my rolls were crispy and the inside soft and fluffy, some butter on them fresh out of the oven… it was heaven!