Can you make slow cooker bread? You bet! Transform any bread recipe with two rises into a soft, delicious loaf that bakes unattended on your counter without turning on the oven.
Over the years, I’ve used my slow cooker for all sorts of things. I mean, you can make meat, soups, stews, fruit butter, yogurt, spaghetti sauce, veggies – even dessert! I don’t think there’s anything you CAN’T make in a slow cooker.
One thing I hadn’t tried in the slow cooker? BREAD.
But when our oven broke, and it took over a month to get it fixed, my people started to get tired of tortillas and pita bread on repeat.
And I started to get tired of the price of store-bought sourdough at over $3 a loaf for something I knew cost me a lot less to make from scratch.
Money-Saving Tip: One of my lessons in Grocery Budget Bootcamp (enrollment is currently closed, but you can join my FREE 5-day Crush Inflation Challenge and start saving money on groceries tomorrow!) is to evaluate what are the best items for you to make from scratch. Bread is at the top of the list in my home. We love bread and making it from scratch saves a ton!
Armed with a freshly kneaded batch of Rosemary Olive Oil Bread Dough, I gave bread in the slow cooker a chance.
Holy smokes. It turned out AMAZING! Mr. Crumbs said it was perfect for a soft sandwich bread, and asked if I could make it again. Safe to say, I think slow cooker bread works!
SLOW COOK BREAD
So, should you slow cook bread on your next baking day? It depends.
SLOW COOKER BREAD PROS
- Doesn’t heat up your house
- Can bake bread and leave the house
- Bread is much softer than oven-baked
- Frees up the oven for other items
SLOW COOKER BREAD CONS
- Can only bake one loaf of bread at a time
- Takes longer to bake one loaf
- Requires planning ahead since you can’t use your slow cooker for two things at once
- Loses signature flaky crust
SLOW COOKER BREAD INGREDIENTS
I’m going to walk you through the steps of how to slow cook bread using my Man Bread recipe as an example, but any bread recipe that calls for two rises should work as slow cooker bread.
- Warm water (105-115 degrees).
- Honey. Just a tablespoon helps to activate the yeast.
- Active dry yeast.
- Coconut oil. You can use melted butter or olive oil instead, although the flavor will be slightly different. Rest assured; this bread does NOT taste like coconut oil.
- All-purpose flour or bread flour. You can also use up to 50% whole wheat flour.
- Salt.
- Vital wheat gluten (optional). This makes for a softer, more pliable loaf. If you are using bread flour, you don’t need to include this. Otherwise, add 1 tablespoon for every cup of all-purpose flour to make homemade bread flour.
HOW TO SLOW COOK BREAD
Step 1: Grease the bottom and sides of your slow cooker well with butter and set aside. (We use this slow cooker.)
Step 2: Follow the bread recipe according to the instructions through the first rise and shaping of the dough.
For Man Bread, that looks like this: In the bowl of a stand mixer or large bowl, add warm water, honey, and yeast. Stir a few times until the honey dissolves. Once the yeast starts foaming (5 minutes or so), add the flour, melted coconut oil, and salt. Once your bread dough comes together using the dough hook, knead for 10 minutes on medium-low. Leave your dough ball in the bowl and cover with a towel. Let the bread dough rise for 30 minutes.
Step 3: Place the unbaked dough in the buttered slow cooker and turn it on high. The bread will complete its second rise and bake at the same time.
Step 4: Allow bread to bake for 45 minutes and check the internal temperature using an instant-read thermometer. Bread is done when the internal temperature reaches 180-200 degrees. This may take up to 3 hours, depending on the slow cooker. After the initial 45 minutes, check the temperature every 30 minutes until you are familiar with the timing of your slow cooker.
Note: The bottom and sides of the slow cooker bread will become a beautiful golden brown, but the top will remain pale.
BREAD IN THE SLOW COOKER TIPS
- Any bread recipe that calls for two rises should work as a slow cooker bread. The second rise happens while the slow cooker heats up.
- Slow cooker bread will come out fully cooked and soft, but it will not have that golden brown crunchy crust that the oven is known for. You can run the loaf under the broiler or use a mini blow torch to achieve that same hard crust if you desire.
- This slow cooker bread method would be AMAZING for soft dinner rolls! Here’s my favorite dinner roll recipe if you want to give it a try.
- The shape of your slow cooker will make a difference. Use a machine whose capacity is twice the size of your unbaked dough. I have this slow cooker.
- Because slow cooker temperatures vary, don’t leave the house on your first attempt at making bread in the slow cooker. You’ll need to time your slow cooker to see how long it takes your bread to reach the appropriate temperature. Once you’ve successfully made a loaf, you’ll be able to set it and forget it.
- Handle the bread as little as possible while baking. Opening and closing the lid and testing for temperature can damage the loaf, so your first loaf may be a bit on the ugly side while you figure out the best timing for your slow cooker. Once you’ve got the details figured out, you’re good to go. (And even ugly bread tastes good!)
- I hear it’s possible to bake the bread in the slow cooker in a loaf pan…but I haven’t tried it myself and therefore can’t vouch for it. And if you have a smaller slow cooker, your loaf pan probably won’t fit anyway unless you use mini loaf pans. You can also line the slow cooker with parchment paper for easier cleanup.
SLOW COOKER BREAD RECIPES
Since these recipes all have two rises, they’re perfect candidates to convert into slow cooker bread recipes!
- Man Bread
- White Sandwich Bread
- Rosemary Olive Oil Bread
- Potato Buttermilk Bread
- Beer Bread
- Very Little Bother Oat Bread
CROCK POT BREAD FAQS
Can you bake bread in slow cooker?
Yes! I’m so glad we were able to try this experiment!
Can a slow cooker be used for proofing bread?
This crockpot bread method combines the second rise (or proof) with the baking time. Because a slow cooker takes some time to get to the cooking temperature, it works to proof the bread.
Should you bake bread low and slow?
It works for this slow cooker bread! Use a bread recipe with two rises and follow the steps in this post to bake it low and slow.
MORE YUMMY HOMEMADE BREAD RECIPES
- Simple Sourdough Bread
- Soaked Whole Wheat Bread
- Homemade Focaccia Bread
- Homemade French Bread
- No Yeast Bread
- Rosemary Sea Salt Flatbread
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Can you make slow cooker bread? You bet! Transform any bread recipe with two rises into a soft, delicious loaf that bakes unattended on your counter without turning on the oven.
- Prep Time: 1 hour 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 45 minutes – 3 hours
- Total Time: up to 4 hours 15 minutes
- Yield: 1 loaf 1x
- Category: Bread
- Method: Slow Cooker
- Cuisine: American
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups of warm water (105–115 degrees)
- 1 Tbsp honey
- 2 ¼ tsp active-dry yeast
- 2 Tbsp coconut oil, melted
- 4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 ½ tsp salt
- Vital wheat gluten – 1 Tbsp per cup flour (optional)
Instructions
- Grease the bottom and sides of your slow cooker well with butter and set aside. (We use this slow cooker.)
- Follow the bread recipe according to the instructions through the first rise and shaping of the dough.
Note: For Man Bread, that looks like this: In the bowl of a stand mixer or large bowl, add warm water, honey, and yeast. Stir a few times until the honey dissolves. Once the yeast starts foaming (5 minutes or so), add the flour, melted coconut oil, and salt. Once your bread dough comes together using the dough hook, knead for 10 minutes on medium-low. Leave your dough ball in the bowl and cover with a towel. Let the bread dough rise for 30 minutes. - Place the unbaked dough in the buttered slow cooker and turn it on high. The bread will complete its second rise and bake at the same time.
- Allow bread to bake for 45 minutes and check the internal temperature using an instant-read thermometer. Bread is done when the internal temperature reaches 180-200 degrees. This may take up to 3 hours, depending on the slow cooker. After the initial 45 minutes, check the temperature every 30 minutes until you are familiar with the timing of your slow cooker.
Note: The bottom and sides of the slow cooker bread will become a beautiful golden brown, but the top will remain pale.
Notes
- Any bread recipe that calls for two rises should work as a slow cooker bread.
- Slow cooker bread will come out fully cooked and soft, but it will not have that golden brown crunchy crust that the oven is known for. You can run the loaf under the broiler or use a mini blow torch to achieve that same hard crust if you desire.
- This slow cooker bread method would be AMAZING for soft dinner rolls! Here’s my favorite dinner roll recipe if you want to give it a try.
- The shape of your slow cooker will make a difference. Use a machine whose capacity is twice the size of your unbaked dough. I have this slow cooker.
- Because slow cooker temperatures vary, don’t leave the house on your first attempt at making bread in the slow cooker. You’ll need to time your slow cooker to see how long it takes your bread to reach the appropriate temperature. Once you’ve successfully made a loaf, you’ll be able to set it and forget it.
- Handle the bread as little as possible while baking. Opening and closing the lid and testing for temperature can damage the loaf, so your first loaf may be a bit on the ugly side while you figure out the best timing for your slow cooker. Once you’ve got the details figured out, you’re good to go. (And even ugly bread tastes good!)
- I hear it’s possible to bake the bread in the slow cooker in a loaf pan…but I haven’t tried it myself and therefore can’t vouch for it. And if you have a smaller slow cooker, your loaf pan probably won’t fit anyway unless you use mini loaf pans. You can also line the slow cooker with parchment paper for easier cleanup.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 slice
- Calories: 179
Sharon
I’ve made a few loaves of the Artisan 5 minutes a day bread in my slow cooker. It’s great because you leave the no knead dough in the fridge in a large container, then when you want it, just pull out a loaf size ball, and it’s ready for the slow cooker straight away. I put it on parchment paper then place in slow cooker. As I do like crusty bread, I also turn it as soon as I can see the bottom half going brown, and the loaf is stable enough to be turned without wrecking it. I end up with crusty bread all the way round, and it’s yummy.
Tiffany
Oh wow – I haven’t tried going from fridge to slow cooker before. I’ll have to give it a go – thanks for the idea Sharon!
Skye P
Made your Rosemary Olive Oil bread in the crockpot AND oven today! Rave reviews all around from everyone in the family! This bread will become a frequent occurrence in our home now! Thanks for the recipe! 🙂
Ashley
That slow cooker double chocolate peanut butter lava cake sounds delicious! I cant find a recipe for it anywhere. Do you have a recipe?
Lindsay
My crockpot only does warm, low and high, not temp adjustment. Which do I use for this?
Layn
I did this bread today… It was so delicious…., but the dough seemed a bit
raw, although the temperature has reached 182 F.
Tiffany
Did it cool all the way? The bread continues to cook after it’s pulled out of the oven. A full 20-30 minutes is needed to completely cool, but to be honest, it rarely lasts that long!!
Debbie
I prove our bread in the slow cooker on low for an hour, then crank it up to high for about 1hr 45mins. Worth checking every 30mins from the 1hr mark if you’re using a new recipe/ready mix. Then I brown the top under the grill just to give it a little crust.
You can also put water in the bottom of the slow cooker and bake the bread in a bread tin if you prefer a more square shape.
Teresa
Intriguing! We often stop baking in summer so we don’t heat up the house, and this would be a great work-around. (Since we’re currently excited it’s up to 12 degrees, baking is the method of choice at the moment.)
Tiffany
LOL, I think my blood as gotten used to our moderate temperatures. I don’t even know what I’d do with myself if it was only 12!! 😉
Kristine
Looking forward to trying this method in the summer. I confess that homemade bread becomes scarce when the temperatures start to soar. We cool our house by pulling in cooler air overnight and then sealing things up during the day to keep the cool in. So baking just doesn’t get a high priority. We have learned to make pizza very successfully on the grill but homemade bread would take a backseat in summer. I do cook many a meal on the porch in my crockpot in the summer but never thought about doing bread. Thanks for all the great info!
Tiffany
You’re most welcome Kristine!!
ka kowalski
I’m happy to find this. My oven broke yesterday and I found this on a search today. Thanks.
Tiffany
You’re most welcome Ka! Enjoy! 🙂
Michelle Lierre
Do not, I repeat, DO NOT put the whole batch of Very Little Bother Oat Bread in the crock pot!! LOL. Lets just say it was the ugly betty of all bread loaves. Still delicious though! Tiffany, when you said to make sure that the slow cooker was twice the size of your bread, I thought you meant BEFORE rising. Oops. Still laughing about it. Next time I will just put in half. Maybe I can freeze the other half? Has anyone ever baked frozen bread dough in their slow cooker? Mmm… I think there might be a Crumbs post about that somewhere.
Tiffany
Oh Michelle, that surely won’t be a problem after I MELTED MY CROCKPOT IN THE OVEN! LOL, even still, I should probably make note that you can only bake one LOAF of bread at a time, not an entire batch? When you’re dealing with two loaves, put the second loaf in the fridge during the first rise of loaf #1. Then pull loaf #2 out for its first rise while loaf #1 is baking. When loaf #1 is done, #2 should be ready for the crockpot. I have not tried baking frozen bread in a crockpot, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work!
Norma Hauser
I dont know if I can reply here but will try
I have baked a loaf of frozen Rhodes dough in the slow cooker. It was really good all I remember us putting it in a greased foil loaf pan not a big one nor mini still big big so squashed the sides in a tad.
Regina
My AC was out and it was 100 degrees. I made bread with my regular bread recipe by setting a reusable cookie sheet liner on my electric griddle and making two rectangular 7″x10″ flat breads (just make sure they fit your griddle perfectly. I let them rise the regular amount of time, removed the liner from the griddle and then set then preheated to 350. I then returned the bread to the griddle and baked 6-7 minutes on each side. They were very brown but not burned. Turning was tricky, but I did it with two pancake spatulas and it worked. I cut the finished flatbreads into 6 pieces each that reminded me of english muffins. I sliced open each piece and got 12 sandwiches. My usual loaf is only about 16 slices, so the bread went a little farther which I liked. My kids all thought this was a wonderful treat. My loaf of bread normally cooks 55 minutes, so this saved me sooo much time. I’ll be making bread this way a lot in the future.
Tiffany
Way to improvise Regina! I can see doing bread on a griddle… similar to biscuits, but a much larger scale. Nice, flatter pieces of bread would make some great grilled sandwiches too! Thanks for sharing your method!
Nikki
Hi Tiffany! I made pretzels last night and had a lot of dough left over, so I let it rise and figured I’d give crock pot bread a try. I don’t have a thermometer, however and am wondering if there are other ways for me to check for doneness?
Tiffany
Hi Nikki! You can do a visual test – the edges/bottom should be a medium/dark brown (being so close to the heat) and the top will be lighter. It should be mostly firm on the center top and barely uncooked, if any. Hope this helps, and that your bread comes out delicious!!
Nikki
Awesome! Thank you 🙂
JoAnn
Just ran the recipe off and will try it when we get back from running errands. My oven gave up the ship about 3 or so weeks ago – and my Breadmaker decided to “bit the dust” this week. My horoscope (which I very seldom read and do not take much stock in it) predicted a small appliance would give up. So on the mark!!! Saving for another breadmaker as they are so nice to have. Thanks for this recipe.
Tiffany
You’re most welcome JoAnn! I’m sorry to hear about your oven AND breadmaker giving up on you. Hopefully this will tie you over for a little bit. Darn those horoscopes. 😉
Kathleen Lenshyn
Can you make this bread with fast rise yheast or bread machine yheast. I have a machine but lost the paddle.
Tiffany
I don’t cook with fast rise yeast Kathleen, so I’m not sure what the difference is between the two. If bread machine yeast is the traditional dry active yeast, then yes! You can. 🙂
jackie
According to some “baking websites” the difference between fast-rise and traditional active yeasts is that the sizes of the yeast granules is different. Apparently fast-rise yeast has small granules so that it can be mixed directly into the flour mixture, whereas active dry yeast is in large granules, requiring mixing with water and proofing before mixing into flour mixture. Thanks for reminding me that i was curious about this too! love, jackie
Mary
Okay, dumb question, but I don’t SEE the bread recipe on this site. 🙁
Tiffany
Hi Mary!
I’ve got TONS of bread recipes for you to choose from. You can find them here: https://dontwastethecrumbs.com/recipes/
Tiffany
Thanks Daja!
Phallin @ CottageHomestead
Thank you so very much for sharing this! We have been without an oven or four months, we use the toaster oven for cookies, and small things but bread doesn’t bake well in it. I cannot wait to try this!!!
Tiffany
You’re most welcome!
Christy Johnson
This sounds so good! I’m making your olive-oil rosemary bread right now, though I’m going to bake it in the oven since I didn’t start it soon enough for the crock-pot. Question: did you put the whole batch (dough for two loaves) in the crockpot, or halve the dough?
Can’t wait to try it!
Tiffany
Hi Christy! One recipe makes two loaves, so I put half a recipe (one loaf) in the fridge for a very long and slow first rise while did the normal instructions for the other loaf. Then when the slow cooker was done with loaf #1, I pulled the other from the fridge, shaped and put it in the slow cooker.
Christy Johnson
Okay! Thanks, that makes sense. 🙂 We loved the bread! It was the first time in a looooooooong time that I’ve made homemade bread! I was so happy to have such a treat for literally pennies (we already had wheat and own a wheat grinder – I think the most expensive part was maybe the yeast?) compared to the $4-$5 I could spend on a loaf from a bakery. Hopefully this will become part of my cooking routine.
Tiffany
I’m so glad you guys liked Christy! Try buying yeast in bulk from Sams/Costco. You can get 32oz (I think) for $3-4 and it lasts a REALLY long time, and that’s with me baking bread each week. Just store it in the freezer and you’re good!
Ashley
I’ve often wondered if this actually worked, I’ve seen it on Pinterest multiple times. I will have to give it a try!
Tiffany
I can attest – it does work! And it’s yummy!!