Potato Bread Recipe

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Friends, I’m thrilled to be here to bring you this fantastic recipe for potato bread today!

Soft and flavorful, this potato bread toasts beautifully, stands up to thick spreads and other sandwich fixin’s, and is very easy to make. Plus you can use it to make an incredible stuffed French toast.

If you’re a fan of making baked goods with potatoes, you may also want to take a look at my super soft sandwich rolls or this fantastic recipe for mini brioche buns.

For ease of browsing, here are all of my bread and roll recipes.

Updated with beautiful new photos by Laura Bashar of Family Spice on April 9. 2020. Thank you, Laura!

Potato Bread Recipe | Great for Sandwiches (2)

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Potato Bread, At a Glance

✔️Skill Level: Advanced Beginner
✔️Skills: working with yeast, shaping dough
✔️Type: Loaf Bread
✔️Number of Ingredients: 10
✔️Prep Time: 45 minutes
✔️Cook Time: 40 minutes
✔️Fridge and Rising Time: 12 hours
✔️Yield: 2 loaves

Jump Straight to the Recipe

My family is in love with this bread; my daughter-in-law gasped, “So THIS is how real bread is supposed to taste!!”
You are genius, Jenni!
Reader and new Bread Baker Petra

Why Make Potato Bread?

Unlike traditional homemade sandwich bread that can stale in as little as a day, potato bread stays soft and fresh for a few days at room temperature.

I also love potato bread for its slightly “boingy” softness and its ability to stand up to buttering, toasting, and the spreading of spreads like mayo, mustard, and even peanut butter.

For my money, potato bread is a better investment in time, since you know it’ll keep longer. Plus the added potato does bring a bit more nutritional value and flavor to the sandwich bread party.

If you already know you want to make some potato bread, you can skip straight to the recipe. Otherwise, keep reading for an overview of the ingredients and procedure as well as some information about how baking with potatoes keeps bread moist and fresh longer.

How to Make Potato Sandwich Bread

Ingredients

Potato Bread Recipe | Great for Sandwiches (3)

Bread has been made literally for millennia out of easily obtainable ingredients. This sandwich bread is no different. I bet you have most if not everything you need to make it right now:

Russet potato: The starch granules in the potato hold onto liquid, keeping the bread soft and also providing deep yet subtle flavor
instant yeast: You can substitute active dry yeast if you want to. Just proof the same amount in a portion of the potato water and add it to the mixing bowl with the rest of the ingredients once it starts foaming.
sugar: For a touch of sweetness. Sugar also assists with moisture, softening the crumb, and aids in browning
water from cooking the potato: Delicious water full of potato starch. Yeast loves it! Note that this bread proofs (rises) pretty quickly because the yeast gets really happy with all the potato!
butter: Carries flavor as well as adds some flavor. It also assists in browning
vegetable oil: further tenderizes the crumb for a nice, soft bread that is easy to cut into slices thin enough for sandwiches
salt: Helps to moderate yeast growth and lends structure as well as flavor.
eggs: For richness, color, moisture, and structure. Eggs do a lot!
bread flour: I don’t recommend subbing all-purpose flour here. You want flour with a lot of protein in it to lend structure, especially with so many ingredients that soften it (potato, eggs, butter, oil, sugar, etc)

Procedure

This bread is pretty straightforward to make. Here’s the rundown:

Cook the potato in plain water. Reserve some of the cooking liquid and mash the potato.
Let potato and water cool to just warm.
Put all the rest of the ingredients in the bowl of your stand mixer and mix until you get a nice dough.
Knead for about 10 minutes or until the dough is smooth, shiny, stretchy, and pulls away from the sides of the bowl in sheets.
Refrigerate overnight.
Split in two and shape into loaves.
Let rise.
Bake.
Brush hot loaf with melted butter.
Cool and enjoy.

Potato Bread Recipe | Great for Sandwiches (4)

Shaping the Loaves

Potato Bread Recipe | Great for Sandwiches (5)

Pretty much all loaf breads are shaped the same way.

Press the dough into a rectangle.
Roll the rectangle into a log, starting from a short end.
Tuck the ends under.
Place in loaf pan.

Why do we shape loaves of bread like this?

It’s more than just convention.

Forming loaves in this way allows for a tighter, more uniform crumb and a nice smooth top of your bread.

If you just haphazardly shape each piece of dough into a loaf shape, you can end up with very flimsy slices of bread.

Taking the time to press out the dough and roll it up before baking makes for a sturdier slice. And sturdy slices are perfect for making sandwiches!

How Does The Potato Help it Stay Fresh?

Potato bread is very similar to tangzhong bread. Tangzhong relies on cooking a portion of the flour with a portion of the liquid in a bread recipe and then adding it back into the rest of the dough.

What this does is gelatinize some of the starches in the flour. This does two things:

the gelled starches hold onto that liquid, and that’s part of what helps to keep the bread so soft
gelatinizing the starches in a portion of the flour also keeps the proteins in that same flour from combining and forming gluten. This’ll keep your bread softer and less chewy.

In the case of potato bread, the mashed potato plays the part of the Tangzhong. You get the starch matrix holding onto the liquid it was cooked in much like you would with Tangzhong, and you also end up using less flour because you’re substituting potato.

In a way, making potato bread is like making a shortcut Tangzhong bread. Sweet!

Take a look at my Grits Bread too. The grits act very similarly to cooked potatoes, so it’s another bread that stays fresh for days.

How Long Does Potato Bread Last?

Potato bread will stay fresh, wrapped in a lint-free kitchen towel, for a good 4 days before slicing.

Since sliced bread doesn’t have the protection of the crust like a whole loaf does, I don’t recommend storing the sliced bread at room temperature.

For longer storage, I like to slice the whole loaf as soon as it cools completely, place the slices in a zip top freezer bag, press out as much of the air as I can, and then freeze.

More Bread Recipes and Serving Suggestions

Potato Bread Recipe | Great for Sandwiches (7)

If you love a nice soft-yet-chewy sandwich bread and can get your hands on some spent grains from home-brewing beer, my spent grain sandwich bread is really very good.

And if you love a good focaccia, I highly recommend this “grandma pizza dough” recipe. It’s great for pan pizza, Sicilian pizza, stromboli (when rolled out thin), and of course focaccia.

If you’re more into sourdough, you can’t go wrong with this beautiful whole wheat sourdough artisan style loaf or this sourdough apple bread. Yes please!

This soft potato bread will welcome pretty much anything you spread onto it. Make a pb & j using my peach plum jam or mixed berry jam.

Toast it up for a breakfast sandwich featuring bacon jam or tomato jam. Or both. Plus a fried egg and melted cheese.

Questions?

If you have any questions about this post or recipe, I am happy to help.

Simply leave a comment here and I will get back to you soon. I also invite you to ask question in my Facebook group, Fearless Kitchen Fun.

If your question is more pressing, please feel free to email me. I should be back in touch ASAP, as long as I’m not asleep.

Email Jenni

A Note About Measurements

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03/07/2024 05:03 pm GMT

I really hope you love this sandwich bread recipe, you guys!

It will help me and other readers so much if you take a moment to rate and leave a review for this recipe.

You can use the stars to rate 1-5 (5 is best), and leave a review in the comments. It helps me make adjustments if any are needed, and comments help others decide whether the recipe is worth making.

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Thank you so much for taking the time!

Jennifer Field

This soft potato bread smells amazing baking, and it tastes even better. A beautiful, sturdy-yet-soft yeast bread that makes fantastic sandwich bread and toasts beautifully. Potato bread stays fresh and lovely at room temperature for at least 3 days which gives you plenty of time to dream up delicious ways to use it!

5 from 10 votes

Tried this recipe?Please give it a star rating!

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 45 minutes mins

Cook Time 40 minutes mins

Fridge and Rise Time 12 hours hrs

Total Time 13 hours hrs 25 minutes mins

Course Bread and Rolls Recipes

Cuisine American

Servings 2 loaves or about 24 slices

Calories 219 kcal

Equipment

Ingredients

For the Dough

1 large Idaho Russet potato
2 ½ teaspoons instant yeast
2 oz about ¼ cup granulated sugar
11 oz 1 ¼ cup plus 2 T water from cooking the potato, cooled to warm
4 oz 1 stick unsalted butter, softened
2 oz about ¼ cup neutral vegetable oil
2 ½ teaspoons salt
2 large eggs
30 oz about 6 ½ cups bread flour

To Finish the Loaves

2 oz 1/2 stick melted butter

Instructions

Wash, peel, cube, and boil the potato in plain unsalted water for about 12 minutes, or until tender.
Drain the potatoes over a bowl to catch the water. Measure out 11 oz of potato water and set aside to cool down.
Mash the potato (by itself without butter, milk or seasonings) and measure out the 6.5 oz (about 1 cup, slightly packed down.) Save the rest of the potato for another use.
Add all the ingredients for the dough (mashed potato, instant yeast, sugar, reserved cooking water, butter, oil, salt, and eggs) to the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment.
Mix on low speed to incorporate all the ingredients.
Beat on medium low speed for 3 minutes.
Switch to the dough hook and knead on medium speed for 7-10 minutes, until the dough is very shiny, smooth, and stretchy. NOTE: The dough is pretty sticky, so a lot of it will remain stuck in the bottom of the bowl. The sides will mostly be clear of dough. When it’s ready, it should be pulling away from the sides of the bowl in sheets even thought it may still be sticking in the bottom.
Once smooth and supple, scrape the bowl down off the sides and into a compact round shape using an oiled spatula.
Spray the exposed dough with pan spray or brush with oil.
Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 8 and up to 16 hours. The dough will be about doubled in size after refrigeration.
Remove the dough from the fridge and cut into two equal pieces. To be completely accurate, I weigh the whole amount of dough and divide by 2.
Press each piece firmly onto the counter to release as much of the trapped gases as you can. Shape into a rectangle—it doesn’t have to be perfect—of about 15” tall and 10” wide.
Starting from a short end, roll each half of the dough tightly into a log. Press from either end of the log to compact it so it will fit into a 9×5” bread pan.
Pan each log of dough in the same way and spray the tops with pan spray.
Cover and let rise at room temperature until the dough rises above the top of the pans by about an inch. This could take a long time since your dough is starting out refrigerated, so plan for at least 3-4 hours, depending on the temperature of your kitchen.
While the bread is rising, set a rack in the bottom third of your oven, and heat the oven to 350F.
When fully risen, bake the loaves for 30 minutes.
Rotate the loaves 180 degrees, tent with foil, and bake an additional 5-10 minutes, until the loaves reach 195-200F with an instant read thermometer. Loaves will be deeply golden brown.
Brush the tops of the loaves with the melted butter. This will make for a softer crust and lend a touch more richness.
Allow loaves to cool in the pans for 15 minutes then turn out onto a cooling rack to cool completely.

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Notes

Splitting the Recipe in Half

You can divide all the ingredients except the yeast in half to make just one loaf of bread. Use 1 1/2 teaspoons of instant yeast for 1 loaf of bread.

Freezing and Thawing

I suggest freezing the bread sliced rather than in whole loaves. To freeze, once the loaves have cooled completely, slice the entire loaf with a serrated bread knife. Stack the slices in 2 or 3 stacks and place them in a heavy duty zip top freezer bag. Gently press out as much air as you can before freezing for up to 6 weeks without any loss of flavor.

To thaw, take out the slices you need and either microwave them for about 10 seconds or let them thaw on the counter. This will only take a few minutes.

NOTE: Since the bread is moist, the slices may stick together when freezing. I don’t worry about it much and just pry them apart–gently–with a butter knife, but you can avoid having to pry anything by separating each slice (or two slices) with a piece of parchment paper.

Nutrition

Serving: 1sliceCalories: 219kcalCarbohydrates: 30gProtein: 4.5gFat: 9gSaturated Fat: 4.3gCholesterol: 31mgSodium: 315mgFiber: 1gSugar: 2.5g

Keyword best potato bread recipe, how to make potato bread, potato bread

Did you make this recipe?Please tell us what you loved!

And there you have it friends. Enjoy the potato bread.

Thanks for spending some time with me today. Take care, and have a lovely day.

Potato Bread Recipe | Great for Sandwiches (11)

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