Grandma's Dinner Rolls Recipe (2024)

September 25, 2018

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My Grandma’s Dinner Rolls Recipe is practically fool-proof. It is the perfect dinner roll recipe for all your holiday meals.

I call these Grandma’s Dinner Rolls Recipe because I follow my own Grandma’s handwritten recipe card to make them. In researching the ingredients, it seems like it was a popular recipe in the 1950’s. But to me this recipe belongs to my Grandma, so I am giving credit to her.

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This dinner roll recipe calls for the simplest of ingredients: flour, yeast, sugar, salt, milk, eggs and butter. Using butter is a change I made, as the original did call for shortening, but I am not in the habit of using shortening.I also had to look up how to scald milk and found it can be done easily in the microwave. The reason behind scalding milk in baking is that the whey protein in milk can weaken gluten, causing the dough not to rise properly. Scalding deactivates the protein. (source: The Kitchn)

With the butter, egg and sugar in the dough I guess these rolls could be considered a type of brioche dough. They are absolutely delicious and I look forward to making them each holiday season starting at Thanksgiving. Attention novice bakers! This dough can be made in a stand mixer and it is very easy to shape into rolls. As long as they rise properly, they bake perfectly. My daughter has started helping me make them. I think it’s cool to have her helping make her great Grandma’s rolls.

Tips for Grandma’s Dinner Rolls Recipe:

You can make these rolls ahead of time. I published a separate recipe explaining the process of making and freezing the rolls HERE.
I use a digital thermometer like this one to make sure the scalded milk is the correct temperature (105 – 110 degrees F) before adding it to the yeast.
This dough browns quickly. It’s best to bake these rolls with your oven rack set to the lower middle part of your oven.

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5 from 21 votes

Grandma's Dinner Rolls Recipe

My Grandma's Dinner Rolls Recipe is practically fool-proof. It is the perfect dinner roll recipe for all your holiday meals.

Course Side Dish

Cuisine American

Prep Time 2 hours hours 20 minutes minutes

Cook Time 18 minutes minutes

Total Time 2 hours hours 38 minutes minutes

Servings 32

Calories 60kcal

Author Foodtastic Mom

Ingredients

1/4 cup sugar
2 packets active dry yeast
2 cups milk scalded and cooled to between 105 and 110 degrees F
1 stick (8 tbsp) unsalted butter
2 large eggs
6 cups all-purpose flour
3 tsp salt

Instructions

Place milk in a microwave-safe glass measuring cup. Microwave for 4 minutes. Place in refrigerator and allow to cool to between 105 - 110 degrees F.
Melt butter and set aside to cool.
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook, combine the 6 cups of flour and salt.
Remove the milk from the refrigerator and whisk in the yeast and sugar. Allow to rest for 5 minutes.
Beat the 2 eggs into the melted butter. Add the yeast, sugar and milk mixture to the flour and salt and knead on low speed until dough begins to come together. Stop mixer and add the eggs and melted butter. Knead the dough, scraping down the sides of the bowl if necessary, for 6 minutes.
Remove the dough hook and bowl from the stand mixer. Cover the dough ball in the bowl loosely with a towel.
Place the dough bowl in a warm spot and allow to rise for about 60 minutes or until dough is doubled in size.
Gently push down on the dough to deflate. Place on clean counter and evenly divide dough into 8 log-shaped pieces, using a bench scraper or sharp knife.
Cut each of the eight dough logs into four equal pieces, giving you 32 rolls. Gently cup each roll in your hand to "plump" them up a bit in the center.
Place the rolls in well-greased baking dishes, spaced about 1/2-inch apart. Place dishes in a warm spot and cover loosely with a towel. Allow rolls to rise in baking dishes for 60 minutes more.
Bake at 375 degrees for 14 - 18 minutes. Watch closely in the last few minutes to make sure tops don't over brown.
Brush the tops of the rolls with melted butter when they come out of the oven. Serve warm.

Nutrition

Calories: 60kcal

More Thanksgiving Recipes:

Perfect Roast Turkey Breast
Sweet Potato Pumpkin Casserole
Perfect Cranberry Sauce

Reader Interactions

Comments

Brian Jones says
November 5, 2018 at 2:26 am

They look superb, the ingredients are similar to a Japanese egg-enriched dough I was playing around with a couple of weeks ago. I must make these!
Reply
- foodtasticmom says
  November 5, 2018 at 4:12 pm
  
  Thank you so much Brian. And now I am intrigued by the Japanese dough you were using. Hopefully you’ll publish a recipe?!
  Reply
Julia says
November 20, 2018 at 9:33 am

Jill, the rolls look amazing and the best part is that they can be made ahead and frozen! Thanks for the recipe 🙂
Reply
- foodtasticmom says
  November 20, 2018 at 4:50 pm
  
  You’re very welcome 🙂
  Reply
  See Also
  Bugie, chiacchere, cioffe or frappe Italian recipe - Christina's Cucina
Emily says
November 20, 2018 at 9:56 am

I swear recipes from Grandma are always the best recipes. I have to try these rolls!
Reply
- foodtasticmom says
  November 20, 2018 at 4:49 pm
  
  You do have to try them!
  Reply
Cliona Keane says
November 20, 2018 at 10:17 am

These are the perfect accompaniment to any holiday dinner!
Reply
- foodtasticmom says
  November 20, 2018 at 4:49 pm
  
  I agree! Thank you Cliona!
  Reply
Jacqueline Debono says
November 20, 2018 at 10:23 am

These rolls look beautiful. I love the idea of serving homemade rolls at dinner or lunch. Really need to try this recipe! Going to pin for later!
Reply
- foodtasticmom says
  November 20, 2018 at 4:49 pm
  
  Terrific. Thanks very much for the Pin!
  Reply
Tina Dawson | Love is in my Tummy says
November 20, 2018 at 10:31 am

Oh wow, those look like little pillows!!! I cannot wait to try it myself!
Reply
- foodtasticmom says
  November 20, 2018 at 4:49 pm
  
  I do hope you try the. Thanks Tina!
  Reply
Krista says
October 24, 2021 at 9:28 pm

I just found your website while looking for a way to use some outdated milk. We enjoyed these rolls, I had them mixed up before I realized that the overwhelming majority of your 5-star reviews for this recipe are from people that have NOT actually tried the recipe yet. I found this to be true on the other recipes I looked at here. I don’t consider “oh these look yummy, I’ll have to try them” a valid review and usually won’t try a recipe weighted with reviews of this type.
Reply
- foodtasticmom says
  October 24, 2021 at 10:51 pm
  
  I am so glad you enjoyed these rolls! Since you are being honest with me, I’ll return the favor and tell you how the “game” of reviews works. Competition is stiff to get on page one of Google. Google favors recipes with lots of positive ratings (it’s just one of the criteria to help me get my recipe to the top and therefore actually seen by more people). I would much rather have all reviews that are honest, like yours, by people that have actually made my recipe. But, in order to get more of those, I have to go into Facebook groups with other bloggers. I write reviews for them and in exchange, they write reviews for me. That’s how it works and why you see so many reviews from people who haven’t actually made the recipe. Like I said, I MUCH prefer and wish for REAL REVIEWS! Thanks for trying my recipe and giving me real, honest feedback.
  Reply
Ryan 76 says
April 2, 2022 at 12:44 pm

Older person now trying to duplicate my Grandma’s rolls and found they didn’t rise enough, kneaded by hand for 6 plus minutes and put in a little larger pan. Are those two areas I need to sharpen up on?
Reply
- foodtasticmom says
  April 4, 2022 at 8:45 am
  
  I’m not an expert baker, but how new was your yeast? That could have been the problem. I usually knead these with my mixer, so not sure if the hand kneading affected anything. I think they do tend to rise higher in a smaller pan because they push together and have something to kind of grab onto. There are a lot of things that can go wrong in the baking process. Those are just some of my guesses. Hopefully they still tasted good and next time they’ll rise well for you!
  Reply
Elaine says
February 4, 2023 at 11:01 am

I made them for Christmas when I couldn’t find my favourite old recipe, I now have a new favourite recipe that everyone loved. I’ll be making them again next week for a 50th birthday dinner. Perfect. Thank you
Reply
- foodtasticmom says
  February 5, 2023 at 4:16 pm
  
  I’m so happy to hear this! Thanks for sharing Elaine. 🙂
  Reply
Jeff says
November 11, 2023 at 6:52 pm

Would the dough freeze well? Wondering if I can make that ahead of time and bake day of.
Reply
- foodtasticmom says
  November 13, 2023 at 10:09 pm
  
  Yes. I actually have as separate recipe post for instructions on how to make these rolls ahead…
  You just make the rolls through shaping them into balls, freeze them on a baking sheet first, then place them in a freezer bag. Take them out of the freezer and allow them to rise/thaw for about 4 hours. I need to just combine the two posts.
  https://www.foodtasticmom.com/make-ahead-dinner-rolls/
  Reply

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FAQs

Why are my dinner rolls tasteless? ›

Salt adds flavor to bread. If none or too little is used in a recipe, the bread will lack the right flavor and taste "bland." If you reduce the amount of salt, try adding some dried herbs to increase the flavor. Too much yeast in bread will give bread an off-taste.

Find Out More ›

Why are my homemade dinner rolls dense? ›

Why are my dinner rolls not fluffy? If your dinner rolls aren't fluffy it could be because of one of two reasons. Either, you added too much flour or you possibly used all bread flour. Alternately, not giving your dinner rolls enough time to proof and get puffy before baking could yield dense rolls.

Explore More ›

How can I make my bread fluffier instead of dense? ›

Add Sugar

Adding sugar weakens the gluten structure, absorbs water, and eventually makes the bread lighter and softer. As a result, sugar improves the bread's taste, structure and texture. Yeast also eats up sugar to produce carbon dioxide, which raises the dough and makes bread fluffy.

How to make homemade bread less dense or more light & fluffy? ›

Well it's simple, bread flour has an increased amount of protein or more gluten which results in a lighter, fluffier dough which produces a less dense finished product. All-purpose flour can be used for bread but bread flour is always better if your goal is a “fluffier” bread.

View Details ›

What happens if you use too much yeast in bread? ›

This can affect the bread by adding a "yeasty" taste if you put too much into the dough. General amounts of yeast are around 1 - 2 % of the flour, by weight. Too much yeast could cause the dough to go flat by releasing gas before the flour is ready to expand.

Know More ›

What happens if you add too much flour to dinner rolls? ›

Too much flour results in a dry, crumbly dough that's unpleasant and difficult to work with. It doesn't stick to itself and tends to fall apart when kneaded.

Keep Reading ›

Why does my homemade bread have no taste? ›

If the dough does not the reach the proper temperatures, the caramelization of sugars as well as sugar-protein bonds cannot fully go through (the former is responsible for a dark, roasty crust and the latter creates the sweet, nutty flavors typically of high-quality breads).

Tell Me More ›

What is the best flour for bread? ›

While bread flour is the best option, it can sometimes be used if you don't have bread flour. “Check the protein content,” advises Chef Jürgen, since it can vary from brand to brand, and an all-purpose flour that contains protein on the higher end of the range, 12 to 13 percent, will produce a better outcome.

Learn More Now ›

What makes rolls taste yeasty? ›

Too much sugar in the dough can make the yeast grow too fast or too high for the dough. Letting it rise too long can promote a more yeasty flavor also.

Keep Reading ›

Can I use bread flour instead of all-purpose flour for rolls? ›

(Though bread flour can still give you a fluffier, almost cotton-candy-like texture in most buns and rolls.) You could even technically substitute all-purpose flour for bread flour if you add less water, mix the dough more gently and for a shorter period of time, and don't expect the same results.

Read On ›

What type of pan is best for baking rolls? ›

Cast iron can be used on the stove top or directly in the oven. If you don't have a large 11 inch cast iron pan, you can use a glass baking dish sprayed with nonstick spray. A 9×13 size would work well. It's best to have the rolls all touching each other when you arrange them in the pan, and I'll tell you why…

Can dinner rolls rise too long? ›

“If the dough has risen too long, it's going to feel fragile and might even collapse as you poke it,” says Maggie. If this is the case, there's a chance you can save your dough by giving it a quick re-shape.

Should rolls touch when baking? ›

Arrange the Dough For Baking

Arrange the rolls closer to each other, with enough room for them to expand into each other as they rise and bake. More traditional dinner rolls might be arranged on a baking sheet with lots of space in between so you get little orbs of golden brown goodness that don't touch.

Explore More ›

Why is my bread heavy not fluffy? ›

The usual reason why bread becomes too dense is due to using flour with low protein content. When your loaf is spongy and heavy, you might have also put too much flour into it or made the dough in a cooler or too warm setting.