Olive Oil Rosemary Bread Recipe

This easy olive oil rosemary bread recipe creates a delicious, soft & savory bread. It is great for sandwiches or as a side dish for dipping into soup, mopping up tomato sauce, etc.

The dried rosemary and olive oil used to make this bread provide a nice Mediterranean flavor. Moreover, this bread has a wonderful aroma. Your kitchen will smell great!

Olive Oil Rosemary Bread – Straight From The Oven

Recipe Sections

1. Ingredients
2. Instructions
3. Helpful Tips

FYI – This recipe shows you how to make the dough in your bread machine, how to shape the dough into a loaf and how to bake the bread in your oven (not bread machine). Many people prefer to make oven-baked bread machine breads because you get a more “traditional” looking bread loaf (versus the typical bread machine “brick” shaped loaf) and there is no paddle hole in the bottom of the loaf.

However, in the tips section below, you will also find information on how to make this bread only with your bread machine (and not use an oven).

Sliced Olive Oil Rosemary Bread

Ingredients – Olive Oil Rosemary Bread

• 1/4 Cup – Olive Oil – 59 milliliters
• 1 1/4 Cups – Water (warm) – 296 milliliters
• 3 1/2 Cups – Bread Flour – 420 grams
• 1 1/2 Tablespoons – White Granulated Sugar – 19 grams
• 1 Tablespoon – Dried Rosemary – 6 grams – If you use fresh rosemary (instead of dried rosemary), you must use 3 times as much (3 tablespoons of fresh vs 1 tablespoon of dried rosemary). See the tips section below for more info.
• 1 1/2 Teaspoons – Salt – 9 grams
• 1 1/2 Teaspoons – Instant Yeast (or Bread Machine Yeast) – 4.5 grams – Not active dry yeast.
• Optional – Brush an egg wash on top of the rolled dough and sprinkle a pinch of dried rosemary & coarse salt on top of the egg wash. FYI – See the tips section below for more information.

FYI – In addition, read the tips section below if you want to add minced & fried garlic to this rosemary bread.

Key Ingredients – Olive Oil & Dried Rosemary

Servings – Roughly 18 slices (oven-baked version)

Equipment Needed (oven-baked version) – Measuring cup & spoons, flexible spatula, cutting board, 9×5 inch metal bread pan, oven mitts, oven, wire cooling rack and a bread machine.

Rosemary Bread Dough with Dried Rosemary & Salt Sprinkled On Egg Wash

Olive Oil Rosemary Bread – Bread Machine-Baked Version

Instructions – Click on links to jump to appropriate sections

• Creating dough with a bread machine
• Shaping the dough & baking the bread in the oven

Instructions – Creating Dough with a Bread Machine

• Your bread machine should be unplugged.
• Remove the bread pan from the bread machine (so when you add the ingredients, they can not accidentally spill into the machine).
• Pour the olive oil & water into the bread pan and then add the other ingredients. Place the instant yeast (bread machine yeast) in last and the yeast should not touch the liquid (until the bread machine is turned on and the ingredients start to be mixed together by the bread machine). FYI – Some bakers like to make a small indent on top of the flour to prevent the yeast from spilling into the liquids or mixing with the salt before the machine is turned on.
• Put the bread pan with ingredients back into the unplugged bread machine.
• Plug in the bread machine. Enter the “Dough” setting on your bread machine and then press the “Start” button.
• When the bread machine has finished making the bread dough, unplug the bread machine.
• Remove the bread pan from the bread machine.
• Now go to the instruction section below on “shaping the dough & baking the bread”.

Instructions – Shaping the Dough & Baking the Bread

• Sprinkle a little bit of flour onto a large cutting board.
• Remove the dough from the bread pan and place the dough on the cutting board.
• Press down on the dough with your hands and create a “flattish” rectangle with the dough. The dough should be roughly 1 inch high.
• Roll up the dough into a tight “jelly roll”. FYI – Please see the short instructional videos in the tips section below on how to shape the dough if you haven’t shaped bread dough before. It is easier to watch & learn from these short videos versus trying to explain the rolling technique step by step.
• Place the rolled up dough into the bread pan.
• Press down on top of the dough so the edges of the dough press out towards the sides of the bread pan. This should result in little or no gaps between the dough and the bread pan. This helps the bread to turn into a nice loaf shape without any misshapen edges. Make sure that the top of the pressed down dough is roughly level (so one side isn’t much higher than the other).
• Optional – Brush olive oil on top of the dough with a pastry brush. This prevents the crust from drying out as the dough rises.
• Loosely cover the top of the bread pan with plastic wrap. Set the covered bread pan aside for 60-90 minutes for the dough to rise into a loaf shape. Once the dough has risen 1 – 1.5 inches (2.5 – 3.8 cm) above the rim of the bread pan, the dough should be ready to be placed in the oven. FYI – You want the dough to fully rise during this stage. So don’t try to shorten this rising time. If the dough is still significantly rising while in the oven, you are more likely to see crust/seam cracks or “bursts” in the oven. In addition, the speed of the dough rise will vary in part based on the temperature of your kitchen (e.g. rise faster in the summer & slower in the winter).
• Preheat the oven to 350 F for about 20 minutes before you plan to put the dough in the oven. FYI – I like to set my timer to go off 40 minutes after I place the dough in the bread pan. Given variability in the dough rising time, this can be a little early sometimes (but better to be a little early versus being late!).
• Optional – Right before placing the dough & bread pan in the oven, lightly brush an egg wash on top of the dough and then sprinkle some dried rosemary and/or coarse salt on top of the egg wash.
• Place the bread pan in the (preheated) oven to bake at 350 F for 37-42 minutes. Wear oven mitts when dealing with a hot oven. Place the bread pan in the middle of the oven.
• Rotate the bread pan in the oven after 15-20 minutes (in order to ensure an even browning of the bread).
• After the 37-42 minute baking period has finished, remove the bread pan from the oven. Wear oven mitts. Optional – Use a digital thermometer to confirm that the bread has been fully baked. See tips below.
• Remove the bread from the bread pan and place the bread on a wire cooling rack. Wear oven mitts.
• Allow the bread to cool down on the wire cooling rack for 1-2 hours before cutting the bread.
• Please read the tips section below for extra information on how to make this recipe successfully.

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Helpful Tips – Olive Oil Rosemary Bread

• The tips below are designed to help baking & bread making “novices”. Intermediate and advanced bread makers probably know most of these bread making tips.
• Click on this “print recipe” link if you want to print out this recipe. It includes all of the recipe’s ingredients and instructions. However, the recipe print function does not include my tips section. Please read the tips section in order to avoid common recipe problems.
• This recipe is part of Bread Dad’s series on Easy Bread Recipes such as recipes for extra soft white bread, multigrain bread, oatmeal molasses bread and French bread.

• If you want to bake this bread in your bread machine (and not in an oven), you should use the following machine settings – basic bread (usually setting 1 on most machines), 2 lb loaf and light color crust.
• My olive oil rosemary recipe will not work in small bread machines (e.g. compact bread machines). To bake this bread in your bread machine, it will need at least a 2lb loaf capacity.
• See the bread machine-baked picture (above the recipe instructions) to get an idea of the size of the bread machine-baked loaf.

• Many of my “competitors” like to use fresh rosemary to make their rosemary bread. However, I prefer to use dried rosemary. Why? Because there is no need to make a special trip to the supermarket to buy fresh rosemary (because a bottle of dried rosemary is usually conveniently located in my pantry). In addition, dried rosemary has a much longer shelf life than fresh rosemary. I don’t want a ton of leftover fresh rosemary that spoils much more quickly than dried rosemary.
• Moreover, you need to have 3 times the amount of fresh rosemary compared to dried rosemary when making rosemary bread. For many recipes, there is a 3 to 1 ratio if you try to swap fresh rosemary for dried rosemary (e.g. 3 tablespoons of fresh rosemary equals roughly 1 tablespoon of dried rosemary). Dried rosemary has more concentrated flavor per tablespoon (because it is not diluted by the water weight found in fresh rosemary). You get more rosemary flavor in the dried rosemary on an ounce-to-ounce or gram-to-gram basis (as the dried ounce/gram doesn’t include much water weight). Of course, this assumes that you are not using very old/expired dried rosemary.

• I find that olive oil helps to create a slightly moister bread because olive oil is a liquid at room temperature. In contrast, butter is a solid at room temperature (and this leads to a slightly drier bread).
• Some people prefer to use olive oil (instead of butter) when making bread because olive oil has less saturated fat than butter.
• Olive oil adds a distinctive flavor to bread & baked goods, especially if you add stronger-tasting olive oils (e.g. extra virgin). Be aware that olive oils can have different flavor “profiles” such as fruity, grassy, bitter, peppery, etc. So use your favorite oil to make this olive oil bread!
• Olive oil is commonly used to make focaccia and other Italian & Mediterranean-style breads. If your family likes Mediterranean & Italian style foods, they will love the taste of this olive oil rosemary bread.
• Want the lower saturated fat of olive oil but not the distinctive taste of olive oil? Then use a “light” olive oil which has a more neutral taste than virgin or extra virgin olive oil.
• FYI – Olive oil contains a number of antioxidants as well as a lot of unsaturated fat. For more information on the nutrition and potential health benefits of olive oil, you should read these articles from Wikipedia, Cleveland Clinic or WebMD.
• Visitors – How do you like to eat your olive oil rosemary bread? As a sandwich? Or as a side dish (for mopping up tomato sauce)? Toast? Please leave your rosemary bread tips & suggestions in the comment section below.

• Optional – To turn this bread into rosemary garlic bread, you can include 3-4 large cloves of garlic (minced & FRIED). Add the minced & fried garlic when putting the dry ingredients into the bread pan. Do not use raw garlic.
• You mince garlic by crushing the cloves (e.g. with a garlic press) and then cutting the crushed garlic into very small chunks. After mincing the garlic, you will need to sauté the minced garlic in a frying pan with olive oil, etc.
• Do not use garlic powder or garlic flakes to make this recipe. Non-roasted/grilled garlic can inhibit the growth of the yeast (as garlic seems to have an anti-microbial effect on yeast). Therefore, if you use “regular” garlic powder or flakes (which are just dehydrated garlic), your bread is more likely to have problems (e.g. the bread might not rise properly).
• Nevertheless, frying the garlic seems to solve this problem because frying seems to neutralize garlic’s negative impact on yeast growth. Therefore, you need to mince & sauté the garlic cloves if you plan on adding garlic to this bread.
• Optional – Just before you place the dough & bread pan into the oven to bake, you can brush on an egg wash (on top of the dough) and sprinkle some dried rosemary and/or coarse salt on the sticky egg wash. This adds a unique look and more flavor to the bread crust. FYI – Many bakers make an easy egg wash by mixing together one egg and 1 tablespoon of water. Just make sure to thoroughly mix these 2 ingredients together.
• Visitors – What changes did you make to this bread? Used a different herb? Added garlic? Added onion flakes? Please post your recipe variations & suggestions in the comment box below.
• Great visitor variations – Liz “added the garlic and did an egg wash with salt and thyme” and Josie “sprinkled some Herbs De Provence” on top of the bread.

• Do not use cold water (or super hot water) to make this recipe or the yeast may have trouble growing properly. Yeast is sort of like Goldilocks – it doesn’t like things too hot or too cold.
• The ideal temperature for liquid ingredients used when making bread dough is around 100 F to 110 F. Cold liquids (such as water & milk straight from the refrigerator) will slow yeast growth and liquid ingredients that are 140 F or above can kill yeast.
• FYI – Some people like to use a digital bread thermometer to measure the temperature of their liquid ingredients when making bread.

• Use FRESH ingredients (e.g. flour) for the best results. Ingredients that have been sitting in the pantry for months can become stale or pick up weird smells & flavors.
• Try to keep your ingredients (e.g. flour) in airtight food containers in order to extend their shelf life and avoid exposure to dust, pests, etc.
• Airtight containers also help to prevent ingredients (e.g. flour and sugar) from absorbing moisture from the air. This extra moisture can throw off recipes (as it can disrupt the liquid-to-dry ingredient ratio in the recipe) and shorten an ingredient’s shelf life. They also help to prevent exposure to pests, dust, etc.
• My recipe calls for the use of bread flour. If you are out of bread flour, you can use all purpose flour in a pinch. However, an all purpose flour bread will be less airy and fluffy (when compared to honey bread made with bread flour).
• This recipe will NOT work with gluten free flour.
• Make sure to level off the ingredients in your measuring spoons & cups. No “mountains” of ingredients in your spoons & cups!! If you add too much of an ingredient, you can have a baking problem. FYI – I like to level the ingredients in my measuring spoons & cups with the back of a butter knife.
• If you like bread with herbs, you might also like to make Bread Dad’s recipe for Italian Herb & Cheese Bread.

• The flattening & shaping of the dough and the press down of the dough in the bread pan is the “punch down” phase. This helps to squeeze out any large bubbles produced by the yeast in the dough.
• If you don’t do this punch down phase, your bread will have large air pockets. Large air pockets are fine for ciabatta-type breads but are not ideal for sandwich bread. The punch down & second rising helps to create a lighter & chewier bread. It also creates a more uniform & tighter bread texture which is better for sandwich breads.
• If you are having problems shaping your dough, you should watch the “how to” instructional videos below. These are links to bread dough shaping videos on YouTube.
• King Arthur Baking Video
• San Diego Artisan Bread School Video
• Father Dominic Video – a slightly different method versus the videos above
• Don’t worry if you are a beginner and the bread top comes out a little lopsided. The bread will still taste great. It takes a little while for new bakers to learn how to shape a bread consistently. 

• How do you know when the dough has risen enough in the second rise (when the dough is in the bread pan)? After letting the dough rise for 60-90 minutes (and when it is roughly 1-1.1.5 inches above the 9 x 5 bread pan), you can try the “poke test“. Poke your finger into the dough (going in about an inch). If the poke hole rebounds immediately, you need to allow more time for the dough to rise further (it is “under proofed”). If the hole doesn’t come back at all, the dough has risen too much (it is “over proofed”). If the hole slowly fills over 2-3 seconds, the dough is at the right stage of proofing.
• Unfortunately, the temperature of your kitchen can make the timing for this perfect poke result hard to predict (because there is a faster dough rise in hot kitchens and a slower rise in cold kitchens). Experience with “proofing” will make this easier (but it can be a problem for beginning bakers).
• If the dough is “underproofed” (hasn’t risen enough) when you place it in the oven, the bread is more likely to burst/crack when baked in the oven (as the still rising dough will push against the hardening crust and “burst” at the seams of the crust). Bakers try to get around this issue via testing for the right “proofing” level (e.g. use the poke test), “scoring” breads (slicing the top of the dough so the cracks occur where you want them), adding moisture inside the oven (so the dough doesn’t harden as quickly), using a dutch oven (in order to trap the dough moisture inside the dutch oven container & not spread out into the oven), etc.
• Don’t overproof the dough (let it rise too long). This occasionally happens when someone forgets about the rising dough and comes back hours later to check. Overproofed dough leads to deflated dough as well as flat and/or sunken bread tops. According to Wikipedia, “Overproofing occurs when a fermenting dough has rested too long. Its bubbles have grown so large that they have popped and tunneled, and dough baked at this point would result in a bread with poor structure.”
• If your dough is “over proofed”, you might like to read the King Arthur Baking article “How to save over-proofed dough” as it gives tips on how to save the dough.

• This rosemary bread is a dairy free bread. It is made with olive oil and water (instead of ingredients such as butter and milk). Of course, always check your family, friends & guests for potential food allergies before serving this bread or any other food to anyone.
• If you would like to try growing rosemary at home, check out Bread Dad’s Grow Your Own Ingredients page for herb seeds, etc. FYI – Rosemary is an easy herb to grow at home in a container. Nevertheless, be aware that rosemary is a tender perennial which means it needs a year-round warm environment. Therefore, if you are growing rosemary outside in pots, you will have to bring it inside if you are facing freezing weather.
• If you like to make baked goods with olive oil, you might like my recipe for an extra moist Olive Oil Banana Bread.

• The oven-baked version of this bread recipe calls for the use of a 9 x 5 inch bread pan. You can also use a 8.5 x 4.5 inch bread pan but the “crown” of the bread might come out too tall (or overflow) if your yeast is very active.
• To prevent your bread from sticking to the bread pan, you should consider using a nonstick bread pan or either “greasing” the bottom & sides of the pan with butter, vegetable oil, a cooking spray, etc.
• This bread recipe uses instant yeast or bread machine yeast. It is not focused on active dry yeast. This recipe is targeted towards instant yeast & bread machine yeast as many of our visitors are bread machine users.
• Active dry yeast is different from instant yeast & bread machine yeast. Instant yeast & bread machine yeast are added directly to the recipe’s ingredients. In contrast, active dry yeast must be activated in water before being added to a recipe’s ingredients. Many bakers find it quicker to use instant yeast because you just add it to the dry ingredients. With active dry yeast, you need to spend roughly 10 minutes “proofing” (activating) the yeast with a liquid & sugar.
• I would recommend NOT reducing the salt in this recipe. You generally want to keep the salt-to-yeast ratio at a 1:1 basis in most bread recipes (based on teaspoons to teaspoons and NOT grams to grams). The salt moderates the growth of the yeast. If you cut the salt (and disrupt this 1:1 ratio), the yeast will grow faster than expected. In turn, this leads to more bread collapses (because the yeast rises too high and then craters in the middle) and/or results in “slack” less manageable dough. In addition, less salt will impact the flavor and browning of the bread.

• Cooler home temperatures in the winter can cause rising problems for bread dough. Ideally, your room temperature should be around 75-80 degrees F. Colder winter room temperatures can significantly delay the rise of the dough. You will need to raise the temperature of your kitchen (if you like a cold house in the winter) or find a warm spot for the dough to rise. I often put my dough (covered of course) next to a heating vent in the winter to make sure it is getting enough heat.
• Conversely, dough can rise faster than expected in a very hot kitchen.
• Kitchen humidity can also impact a recipe. A winter kitchen tends to be drier due to your heating system drying out the air. In contrast, a kitchen in the summer can be much more humid. This change in humidity impacts baking as flour can soak up humidity from the air. Therefore, you might have to add 1-2 teaspoons of liquid in the winter if the dough is looking too dry. Or you might have to add 1-2 teaspoons of flour in the summer if the dough is looking too wet. If your kitchen is very dry or humid, you might have to add even a little more (but start with 1 teaspoon at a time until you achieve the right consistency).
• Of course, excessive kitchen humidity or dryness can impact a recipe at any time during the year (not just in the summer & winter)!

• Other factors that can impact the rise of the dough include old or expired yeast, contaminated yeast (e.g. the yeast was left in an open jar & air moisture contaminated it), water that is too cold or too hot, using heavily chlorinated tap water, placing salt next to or on top of the yeast (salt can kill yeast or inhibit its growth), not covering the dough during the rising period (as the exterior of the dough can dry out & limit the ability to rise), etc.
• It takes roughly 15-20 minutes to preheat most ovens with some variability due to the size of the oven, planned baking temperature (hotter takes longer), etc.
• Optional – Use an oven thermometer as your expected oven temperature may be different than reality. Some ovens can be 25-50+ degrees F hotter or colder than the number you set with your oven dial. An oven thermometer (which usually costs less than $10) is an easy way to measure the actual temperature inside your oven.
• Optional – Use a digital bread thermometer to test if your bread is completely done. The interior temperature of the bread should be 190-200 degrees F. This inexpensive tool can save you from underbaked breads.

• You should let your bread cool down for 1-2 hours on the wire cooling rack before you cut any slices (or the slices will be “gummy” and not taste as good as expected). Excess interior moisture is released (via steam) during the cooldown period.
• If you have not made bread in a long time, please buy some NEW bread machine yeast or instant yeast before making your bread. Old yeast can die or lose its potency and this will lead to bread that does not rise properly. Yeast is not likely to be viable if it has been sitting in your pantry for years.
• Once you have opened the container that contains the yeast, the yeast will last longer if you store the bottle in the refrigerator or freezer. Just make sure the bottle is sealed tight (as yeast will deteriorate quickly if exposed to air, moisture and/or heat).

• You can also use this homemade bread to make one of Bread Dad’s hot & toasty Grilled Cheese & Panini Sandwich Recipes such as air fryer grilled cheese, chicken paninis and ham & cheese paninis.
• My recipes are based on US ingredient measurements (e.g. US cups & tablespoons). However, as a courtesy to our European visitors, I have also included some very ROUGH European equivalents (e.g. grams & milliliters). Since I rarely use European measurements when baking, please let me know in the comment section below if any of the European ingredient measurements need to be changed (e.g. for XYZ ingredient, milliliters are more commonly used versus the grams information listed in the recipe).
• Always wear oven mitts/gloves when dealing with a bread machine and/or oven. Both can get very hot!
• For more easy bread ideas, please visit Bread Dad’s sections on Bread Machine Recipes and Homemade Bread Recipes.

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Reference Sources

1. Wikipedia, Bread
2. Wikipedia, Bread Machine
3. Wikipedia, Olive Oil
4. Wikipedia, Rosemary

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