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Soft, fluffy, and perfectly sliceable gluten-free sandwich bread with a rich flavor from oat flour and honey.
Gluten Free Oat Bread
After a few months of making and very much enjoying soft and fluffy gluten free sandwich bread, I realized I missed the deeper flavors that are typical in whole wheat sandwich bread.
So, I started playing with that recipe. (The original is closer in flavor to a traditional light wheat or white sandwich bread.)
Gluten Free Honey Oat Bread
I’ve made this recipe at least five times now and I am very excited to finally share it. This bread is perfect for sandwiches, toast, or as a snack on its own.
Try a slice toasted slathered with restaurant-style whipped butter, whipped strawberry butter, or vanilla bean whipped honey butter.
Add a smear of peach jam or apple butter for a treat that you won’t soon forget.
If you enjoy step-by-step photos, there are a whole lot of photos included with the original Gluten-Free Sandwich Bread post. This dough appears the same in each stage and those photos can be used for reference.
For a few more great gluten-free recipes to try, check out these Gluten Free Flour Tortillas, the Sour Cream Banana Bread, this Hershey’s Chocolate Cake, and the Best Gluten-Free White Cake.
This Homemade Nut and Seed Paleo Bread from Cotter Crunch looks like a terrific option for toast too.
If you are not in need of Gluten-Free recipes, check out a few of our favorite whole wheat bread recipes:
- Honey Whole Wheat Bread
- Cool Rise Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread
- Rosemary Bread with Whole Wheat
- Maple Oatmeal Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread
- 100% Whole Wheat Free-Form Artisan Bread
- Unbelievably Easy Brioche
Honey and Oat Gluten Free Bread
Ingredients
- 1 cup brown rice flour
- 1¼ cups oat flour make sure the flour is certified GF
- ⅔ cup potato starch
- ⅓ cup tapioca starch
- 2 teaspoons instant yeast
- 1¼ teaspoons kosher salt
- 1¼ teaspoons xanthan gum
- ¾ cup warm milk
- ⅓ cup honey
- ¼ cup soft butter
- 3 large eggs
- Optional: sprinkle of oats for the top make sure the oats are certified GF
Instructions
- Place the flours, starch, yeast, salt and xanthan gum in a mixing bowl, or the bowl of your stand mixer. Warm the butter and honey in a glass bowl or cup until the butter is melted. Whisk or stir it together and set aside.
- Using an electric mixer (hand mixer, or stand), gradually beat the warm milk into the dry ingredients. The mixture will be crumbly at first, but once all the milk is added, it’ll come together. Add the melted butter and honey to the mixing bowl and beat until thoroughly blended.
- Add the eggs, one at a time. Beat the mixture till each egg is thoroughly integrated before adding the next one. Once you’ve added all the eggs, beat the mixture at high speed for 3 minutes. This adds air to the thick batter, which helps take the place of the missing gluten as far as structure is concerned.
- At the end of 3 minutes, the batter will look like thick, heavy buttercream icing: smooth and silky. The dough will also be very sticky, and feel a bit gritty if you rub some between your fingers. Leave the batter right in the mixing bowl and cover the bowl with a light cloth or plastic wrap.
- Let the thick batter rise for 60-90 minutes. This batter won’t double in size, but it’ll definitely puff up. Gently stir the batter down. Scrape it into a lightly greased 8 1/2” x 4 1/2” loaf pan.
- Use your wet fingers, or a wet spatula or bowl scraper, to smooth the top, eliminating any “wrinkles.” The smoother your loaf is before you put it into the oven, the smoother it’ll be once it’s baked.
- Lightly sprinkle the top of the loaf with oats and press lightly into the loaf. Loosely cover the pan and let the dough rise till it barely crowns over the rim of the pan. 45 – 60 minutes, as much as 90. Towards the end of the rising time, preheat the oven to 350°F.
- Bake the bread for 25 minutes, until golden brown. Remove it from the oven, and turn it out of the pan onto a rack. Lightly brush with melted butter to help keep the crust soft, being careful not to brush off the sprinkling of oats. Slice when completely cool. Enjoy!
{originally published 10/16/12 – recipe notes and photos updated 4/15/22}
Wow, that bread looks absolutely perfect, Mary! I bet the house smelled amazing while it baked too!
This bread looks so soft and delicious! Wow!
Yay for gluten free bread! I can eat gluten but so many of my friends cant. I look forward to making this for them. Thank you for sharing!
This is such a cute little loaf, and I never think of homemade bread as being so sliceable. I am on the verge of making some bread for my husband, it will be my first foray into bread making in a long while, wish me luck! I'm going to check out your easy brioche!
It looks amazingly delicious!
One of the ladies in my art class has celiac and bemoans no bread…this will be such a treat for her!
I have a friend that was just telling me recently that she was having such a hard time trying to find a decent tasting gluten free bread. I know she will be thrilled with this recipe!
Your bread looks amazing.
my gluten free breads have never turned out. I'm excited to try yours!!
Pillow bread! Haha. My dauhters will really be thrilled with this.
And I thought your gluten free sandwich bread was good. Made this today and even though I had to sub tapioca for potato starch due to a wicked potato starch accident caused by a 5 yr old and energetic dogs it was amazing the texture the moisture can't say enough!!
This bread is amazing! I have Hashimoto's so I need to go gluten free. It's been so hard because I love bread. I've tried a few other bread recipes and they are just too yeast-y. I almost cried when I tried this bread…now I can go gluten free and still have sandwiches that taste good. My husband loved it too and said he would go gluten free with me if I made this bread 🙂 THANK YOU!
This looks awesome. I make several gf breads, but still have not been completely satisfied. Have you used coconut oil instead of butter? We dont usually use butter and wanted to substituted the coconut oil. I wasn't sure of the exact ratio to substitute. Thank you.
You could try a 1:1 substitution with the oils. Please let me know how it works for you, if you do do try it! Good luck.
Made this last night for my girl's lunch today. It came out fantastic ( just a little pudgier because I used a larger loaf pan then in the recipe). It tasted delicious. This is the best gluten free sandwich bread recipe I have every tried. Thank You so much for posting it.
This tastes really great, but I can't get mine to rise high enough or top the rim of the pan. Yeast is good, and I put in an only-slightly warmed oven at about 82 degrees to rise. I have made this twice now and both times it failed to rise very much. Any ideas why?
It's hard to guess on something like that, CJ. My first thought was the yeast, but if that isn't it, I'm not sure. Is the finished loaf dense? Is it possible your pans are a bit larger than mine and it is rising fully, but just not over the top because of the size? Good luck with it. I'm glad the bread has been tasty for you though.
Maybe your milk is too hot and it's killing the yeast??
do you think you could sub agave nectar for the xantham gum?
I've never seen that used as a substitute for a gum. I do not think it would work the same way. Guar gum could be substituted, but I don't think that agave nectar would do anything to hold the bread together. Without the xantham, it tends to be a lot more crumbly.
Thank you!
do you think you could sub agave nectar for the xantham gum?
Would this recipe still work well without the first rise (in the bowl)? I have made various loafs of gluten free bread before (with varying levels of success). Most recipes don't seem to call for that first rise, so was wondering if this would still work well if I only did one rise (in the pan, before baking)?
Thank you.
I am guessing not, because the dough is still very wet after the first rise. If you decide to try it that way, let me know how it turns out. I'm always interested in finding ways to make like easier in the kitchen.
Best gluten free bread recipe I've come across so far! The loaf was beautiful, just like in the picture, and it tasted great. I had to add about another quarter to half cup of milk (I used soy milk) to get to the consistencies described in the instructions–perhaps because of different brands of flour? In any case, it came out perfectly. I did everything else exactly the same including temp and time. A note for others: Mixing the dough with a hand-mixer was a bit of a struggle as the dough kept climbing the beaters and I had to stop multiple times to de-gum them. However, I got through it and it was well worth the effort. Thanks so much!
Oh. My. Goodness. The first bite of this bread was heavenly. The honey oat flavor was reminiscent of the best "normal" bread I remember from my pre-GF days. It turned out perfectly, despite my error in letting it rise too long in the pan (it overflowed). I simply scraped it up and plopped it into a new pan, let it rise again, then baked. Just one question…the slices are moist, but break very easily. Is this normal for this recipe, or is it because of the extra rise? Thanks so much and I can't wait to make this again and share it with all my GF friends!
I let a loaf rise too much and it overflowed the pan earlier this week. I noticed after it baked that it seemed a bit more "airy" (?) than usual and the pieces did break more easily after a few days. I don't usually have trouble with it crumbling though. (Wow, how's that for a jumbled answer?) Maybe try cutting the slices a little bit thicker next time? If they get too thin, they will break.