Garlic Herb Soft Dinner Rolls delivered in one hour! I brush these with garlic herb butter when they’re hot out of the oven and they’re perfect to serve with all your holiday meals and yet easy enough for weeknights! So soft and fluffy!

One Hour Garlic Herb Dinner Rolls - Fluffy and tender dinner rolls that are topped with an amazing garlic butter to give you the most flavor dinner rolls of your life! #garlicbutterrolls #onehourdinnerrolls #dinnerrolls | Littlespicejar.com

Bring on the fluffy and soft dinner rolls!

These golden brown little pillows of goodness are all I want between Thanksgiving and Christmas. And then I look forward to them around Easter time too. And you cannot forget days when you’re snowed in (Ha! It happens in Texas too now!) Basically, there’s no right or wrong time to eat a soft dinner roll is all I’m here to say.

 Garlic herb dinner rolls are absolutely perfect for Thanksgiving dinner for two reasons. 1.) They take just an hour to make. 2.) Because they’re a little more ‘fancy’ than your basic dinner roll recipe. And if you’re ever gonna be fancy with your food, you know it’s usually during the holidays!

I’m sure there are all sorts of names for these soft dinner rolls. Amish rolls or potato rolls are just a couple of them. But the fact of the matter is that my homemade dinner rolls almost always contain one ingredient that gives them that tenderness for days. Have you guessed it yet? It’s instant potato flakes. Don’t worry, you can’t even tell that they’re there! They add the most luxuriously sweet, creamy taste and make anything you add them to instantly better. Sorry, I couldn’t resist!

This recipe is a new spin on an old favorite. We’re taking my basic one hour dinner rolls recipe that I love serving with honey butter and amping it up in the best way possible — with herbs and garlic.

One Hour Garlic Herb Dinner Rolls - Fluffy and tender dinner rolls that are topped with an amazing garlic butter to give you the most flavor dinner rolls of your life! #garlicbutterrolls #onehourdinnerrolls #dinnerrolls | Littlespicejar.com

I know making bread or homemade dinner rolls isn’t always easy to do. In fact, it can be quite daunting if you haven’t done it before. This recipe is simple and easy to make, even if you’re a beginner at bread baking. 

Just make sure you read through the instructions before starting. That way you know exactly what comes next.

Ingredients for garlic herb soft dinner rolls:

  • Butter: this is the main fat used in the recipe. Fats like butter aid in giving bread or dinner rolls tenderness, structure, and richness and flavor. The melted butter is used in two different ways here. First, we’ll use some of it in the preparation for the dough. Then, we’ll use the rest to brush on the rolls when they’re hot from the oven.
  • Whole Milk: the warm milk helps quicken the process for these rolls.
  • Water: we’ll heat the water to luke warm with the milk and some of the butter to make the wet ingredients for the dough.
  • All-Purpose Flour: I don’t suggest using bread flour for this recipe. Bread flour is wonderful hen you’re trying to make a crusty bread loaf. But for a soft dinner rolls or hot cross buns or cinnamon rolls, all purpose flour does work best.
  • Instant Potato Flakes: This is my secret little rockstar ingredients for the softest dinner rolls!
  • Rapid Rise Yeast: make sure to use rapid rise so that you don’t have to wait for the yeast to activate.
  • Granulated Sugar: is food for the yeast and gives the bread a slightly sweet flavor.
  • Salt: adds that touch of sodium that we need in baked goods.
  • Garlic Powder: helps amp up the garlic flavor in the bread portion of the recipe. We’ll top it with more garlic butter at the end so the flavor is pronounced.
  • Herbs: I like to use rosemary and fish parsley. We’ll brush the garlicherb rolls with the butter when they’re hot out of the oven. You can hear the butter sizzling and sealing all the garlicky coolness into the rolls and it pure heaven!
  • Egg: we’ll add this in with the other wet ingredients to add structure to the dough.
  • Fresh Garlic: for the garlicherb butter you’ll need a couple of tablespoons of butter and a couple of cloves of garlic. We’ll minced the garlic for a more pronounced garlic flavor. The key is to allow the butter to melt with the garlic in a saucepan so that the butter is layered with flavor and the garlic doesn’t burn.
One Hour Garlic Herb Dinner Rolls - Fluffy and tender dinner rolls that are topped with an amazing garlic butter to give you the most flavor dinner rolls of your life! #garlicbutterrolls #onehourdinnerrolls #dinnerrolls | Littlespicejar.com
One Hour Garlic Herb Dinner Rolls - Fluffy and tender dinner rolls that are topped with an amazing garlic butter to give you the most flavor dinner rolls of your life! #garlicbutterrolls #onehourdinnerrolls #dinnerrolls | Littlespicejar.com

Making the best soft dinner rolls:

  1. Heat it up. In a microwave-safe measure cup, combine 4 tablespoons butter with the milk and water and zap it in the microwave until it’s warm to the touch. If at any point, it gets too hot, allow the it to cool.
  2. Get out the stand mixer. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook attachment, combine the flour, potato flakes, yeast, salt, sugar, garlic powder, rosemary, and parsley and just stir to mix.
  3. Make the dough. with the machine on the stir setting, slowly stream in the warm milkmixture, then add the egg. Let the machine run on low speed until the dough comes together. You’ll notice and the machine is kneading the dough, it starts to pull away from the sides of the bowl. If the dough doesn’t do this, add a bit more flour until a ball forms. 
  4. Let it rest. Remove the dough from the hook. Cover the bowl of the stand mixer or grab a clean, lightly greased bowl, and add the dough ball. Cover with plastic wrap. Allow the dough to sit at room temperature. You want to also preheat your oven to 180ºF at this point and spray a 9×13 baking dish with cooking spray.
  5. Shape and rest. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. With a flour rolling pin, roll the dough out. Divide the dough into 12 to 16 equal pieces. If you want to be super accurate, you can weigh the dough, I just eyeball it. Fold the seams in and roll into a smooth ball. Place the dough balls in the baking pan with the seam side down. Continue to roll the dough the same way on a floured work surface.
  6. Let the rise. Using a pastry brush, brush the dough balls with roughly a teaspoon of water on each roll to keep them from drying out in the oven. Turn the oven off and place the rolls inside the one to rise.
  7. Bake until golden. Take the dish out of the oven and preheat the oven to 375ºF. Once the oven is hot, bake the soft dinner rolls until they’re golden brown and spring back to the touch. You’ll want to make the garlic butter sauce during the last 5 minutes of baking time.
  8. Make and brush with sauce. In a small saucepan over medium heat, combine the garlic and the remaining butter. When the butter melts and you can smell the garlic, add the remaining parsley to the saucepan along with some salt. Stir to combine. Brush the soft dinner rolls with the garlic butter when they’re hot out of the oven. I love serving this with gravy, a pear salad, you favorite side dish. and a delicious turkey dinner!
One Hour Garlic Herb Dinner Rolls - Fluffy and tender dinner rolls that are topped with an amazing garlic butter to give you the most flavor dinner rolls of your life! #garlicbutterrolls #onehourdinnerrolls #dinnerrolls | Littlespicejar.com

Tips for the best homemade soft dinner rolls:

It’s important to make sure your liquids are 110-115ºF.

 Like, really, really important. If it’s too hot, just let it sit out for a few minutes until it’s warm to the touch. You don’t want to add it in until it’s the right temperature. Adding in hot liquid will cause the yeast to die, and the dough won’t rise.

Adding in liquids that are too cold or <110ºF means that the yeast won’t activate

and we really don’t want that either.

This recipe calls for rapid-rise yeast

or sometimes called ‘instant’ yeast. This is what allows us to produce these dinner rolls in one hour. Make sure your packet isn’t marked ‘active dry yeast’, this type of yeast will require longer proofing time.

Make sure to check the expiration date on your packet or jar of yeast before starting.

Sometimes, it’s something as small as that that causes the recipe to produce mediocre results.

One Hour Garlic Herb Dinner Rolls - Fluffy and tender dinner rolls that are topped with an amazing garlic butter to give you the most flavor dinner rolls of your life! #garlicbutterrolls #onehourdinnerrolls #dinnerrolls | Littlespicejar.com

FAQs about this recipe

How do I get my rolls to be fluffy?

adding a ¼ cup of instant mashed potato flakes helps make these rolls springy and delicious!

What makes commercial bread soft?

A lot of bakeries and commercial kitchens use some form of potatoes or dry milk powder to make their dinner rolls extra soft and delicious. 

What happens if you left the dough rise longer?

The addition of rapid-rise or instant yeast allows these rolls to rise quickly. If you aren’t in a hurry, use active dry yeast instead. Be sure to activate it by letting the yeast sit in the warm milk solution. You’ll also want to add the sugar to the yeast so it has food to snack on as it wakes up!

One Hour Garlic Herb Dinner Rolls - Fluffy and tender dinner rolls that are topped with an amazing garlic butter to give you the most flavor dinner rolls of your life! #garlicbutterrolls #onehourdinnerrolls #dinnerrolls | Littlespicejar.com

If you like this recipe you might also like:

One Hour Garlic Herb Dinner Rolls - Fluffy and tender dinner rolls that are topped with an amazing garlic butter to give you the most flavor dinner rolls of your life! #garlicbutterrolls #onehourdinnerrolls #dinnerrolls | Littlespicejar.com

SaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSave

Yield: 12 or 16 dinner rolls

One Hour Garlic Herb Soft Dinner Rolls

Prep Time 40 minutes
Cook Time 20 minutes
Total Time 1 hour

Soft and fluffy garlic herb dinner rolls delivered in one hour. I brush these with a garlic and herb butter when they're hot out of the oven and they're perfect to serve with all your holiday meals and yet easy enough for weeknights!

One Hour Garlic Herb Soft Dinner Rolls

Ingredients

  • 6 tablespoons butter, divided
  • ¾ cup whole milk (2% will also work)
  • ½ cup water
  • 4 - 4 ½ cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
  • ¼ cup instant potato flakes (see note)
  • 1 tablespoon rapid-rise yeast (see note)
  • ¼ cup granulated sugar
  • 1 ½ teaspoon salt
  • 2 teaspoons garlic powder
  • 1 tablespoon fresh chopped rosemary (use ½ quantity if dry)
  • 3 tablespoons fresh chopped parsley, divided (use ½ quantity if dry)
  • 1 large egg, room temperature
  • 1-2 cloves garlic, whole or minced (see notes)

Instructions

  1. Place 4 tablespoons of butter, milk, and water in a 2 cup microwave-safe measuring cup. Heat on high for 1 minute. The milk mixture should be warm to the touch, about 110-115ºF. Continue to heat in 10-15 second intervals until the milk mixture reaches that temperature. If it's too hot, just let it cool.
  2. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the dough-hook attachment, add 4 cups of flour, potato flakes, yeast, sugar, salt, garlic powder, rosemary, and 2 tablespoons of parsley and just stir to combine.
  3. Start the machine on the 'stir' setting and slowly stream in the warm milk mixture and the egg. When combined, increase the speed of the mixer to medium-low and allow the mixer to run for 4-5 minutes. After the first 1-2 minutes the dough should start pulling away from the sides of the bowl, if it doesn't add an additional ¼ cup of flour and let the mixer run for another minute, if the dough still hasn't formed into a ball, add the remaining ¼ cup of flour. You may or may not need to add the additional flour. I didn't.
  4. Remove the dough from the hook, cover the bowl with plastic wrap and allow the dough to rest for 10 minutes. While the dough is rising, position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 180ºF. Spray a 9x13 baking dish with cooking spray, set aside.
  5. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface. With a floured rolling pin, roll the dough out into a 15-inch circle. Using a pizza cutter dipped in flour, cut the dough into 12 or 16 equal pieces. You can weigh the dough to make it more accurate but I usually just eyeball it. Fold the seams in and roll into a smooth ball. Place the dough seam side down into the prepared baking dish. Repeat with the remaining dough.
  6. Using a pastry brush, brush water on the tops of the rolls so they don't dry out in the oven. Turn the oven OFF and place the baking dish in the oven. Allow the dough to rise for 20 minutes. DO NOT OPEN THE OVEN DOOR UNTIL THE 20 MINUTES ARE UP.
  7. Remove the baking dish from the oven and place on the counter while you preheat the oven to 375ºF. Bake the dinner rolls for 18-22 minutes or until the tops are nice and golden. Baking time will be slightly shorter if you made them into 16 rolls (around 14-18 minutes). Prepare the garlic butter sauce (step #8) in the last 5-7 minutes while the rolls are still in the oven.
  8. In a small saucepan, combine the garlic and the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter, heat over medium heat. When the butter melts and you can smell the garlic, add the remaining tablespoon of chopped parsley. Add a pinch of salt and stir. Brush the tops of the prepared rolls with garlic butter mixture. Serve warm.

Notes

  • Make sure to use instant dry potato flakes for this recipe. You can use the garlic variety if you want to add more garlicky goodness in too!
  • Rapid-rise yeast is also known as 'instant' yeast. If you use active dry yeast, note that the proofing times will be significantly longer. For best results, I suggest following the recipe exactly as written.
  • For the garlic butter - use whole cloves of garlic for less intense garlic flavor or mince the garlic for a more robust dinner roll experience.

Have you made this recipe?

If you enjoyed this recipe, please consider leaving a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ rating and a comment below. You can also share a picture on Instagram with the hashtag #LITTLESPICEJAR, I'd love to see what you made!

SaveSave