Perfect Homemade Subway Bread recipe, just like the restaurant. This recipes makes a perfect copycat loaf of Subway bread for sandwiches at home.
I love making homemade bread. It’s easier than you think-try these simple bread recipes: Homemade Italian Bread, Easy Bread Sticks Recipe and Mom’s 4 Loaf Wheat Bread Recipe.
Homemade Subway Bread
You guys, they turned out amazing! Really and truly. Plus, it wasn’t all that hard to do. Next time I’m going to double the recipe so that I have some leftovers and I’m going to try to freeze them. Lucky for me, I found a jar of pickled banana peppers in the pantry too. My sandwich was half banana peppers and half everything else because those are my favorite thing ever.
The homemade Subway bread was just perfect. It had a very soft crust (thanks to a little butter and letting them steam in a towel as they cooled) and a light middle, and it kind of smashed into nothing when you ate it. Just like the real thing. Sure, Subway is cheap, but it’s pretty fun to make them at home. Your family will be shocked and amazed at your mad skills and you’ll be able to put on as many banana peppers as your heart desires. Best deal ever!
Just top with your favorite sandwich toppings and a heavy hand of mayo and you’ll have yourself something ridiculously close to an authentic Subway sandwich made at home. Even if you aren’t craving Subway, this homemade Subway bread recipe is a great one to keep on hand for any future hoagie needs.
Tips and Tricks for making Homemade Subway Bread:
- I have had a few people email me and say that just before baking they brushed the outside of the dough with olive oil or butter and then sprinkled on some Italian seasoning and some Parmesan cheese for a great homemade Subway Italian Herb and Cheese bread. I can’t wait to try this myself.
- This bread froze just about as well as other breads. It was still soft but seemed a bit dryer after freezing. Fresh is best but they do freeze and thaw well.
- Like pickled banana peppers as much as I do? Check out my recipe on how to make easy refrigerated pickled banana peppers (great use for extra garden or farmer’s market produce).
How do I know how much flour to add to bread dough?
If you haven’t ever made dough before, the goal is to add just enough flour for it to be a soft but not sticky dough. If you add too much flour, you’ll end up with Subway bricks instead of bread.
Can I still make homemade bread without a stand mixer?
No stand mixer? This recipe can be made by hand, just be sure to knead it for a full 8 minutes. That’s a long time but developing the gluten helps the bread to be soft.
Can I incorporate whole wheat flour in this bread recipe?
This recipe works well with half whole wheat flour mixed with half all-purpose flour for whole wheat sub buns.
Homemade Subway Bread Recipe
- Prep Time: 1 hr 35 min
- Cook Time: 25 min
- Total Time: 2 hours
- Yield: Makes 4 9-inch sub buns 1x
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Perfect homemade Subway bread recipe, just like the restaurant. This recipe makes a perfect copycat loaf of Subway bread for sandwiches at home.
Ingredients
- 1 cup warm water (110 degrees F)
- 1 tablespoon yeast
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 4 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 1/2 to 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
Instructions
- In the bowl of your stand mixer, add the water, yeast, sugar, salt, and olive oil. Let the mixture stand for 5 minutes.
- Add 1 cup of flour and mix with the dough hook for 3 to 5 minutes. Add an additional cup of flour and mix until well combined. Continue adding the flour, 1/4 cup at a time, until a soft dough is formed. The dough should still stick to the bottom of of the bowl, but pull away from the sides. Let the dough mix for around 8 minutes total.
- When the dough has come together but is still sticking a bit to the bottom of the bowl, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth. The dough should be very soft. Shape the dough into a ball and return it to the bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and allow the dough to rise for a half hour.
- After the dough has risen, turn it out onto a clean surface and divide it into 4. Roll each piece of dough into a long skinny loaf that is about 9 to 10 inches long.
- Place the rolled loaves onto a baking sheet lined with parchment or a baking mat. Repeat with the rest of the dough. Allow at least 2 inches between each loaf on the pan.
- Cover the loaves with a greased piece of plastic wrap and allow the loaves to rise until doubled, about an hour.
- Towards the end of the rising time, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. When the loaves are ready, bake them in the preheated oven for 25 minutes.
- When the loaves come out of the oven, rub the tops with a stick of butter and cover them with a dish towel to cool.
- Let the loaves cool for at least 30 minutes before cutting down the middle and topping with your favorite sandwich fixings.
Notes
Rubbing the loaves with butter and covering them with a towel to cool are part of what keeps them very soft, so be sure not to miss those steps.
- Category: Bread
- Method: Oven
- Cuisine: American
Keywords: subway bread recipe, subway copycat recipe, easy hero bread recipe, best sandwich bread recipe, subway bread
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Tried and True Bread Recipes:
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- Grandma Lucy’s Famous Clover Rolls
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- Homemade Italian Bread
- Easy Bread Sticks Recipe
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- One Hour Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls
Recipe adapted from Copycat Recipe Guide.
This recipe was originally published in March 2013 and republished in July 2017 with new pictures, new text, and an updated based on retesting and reader feedback. Enjoy!
NOTE: One of the awesome Bless this Mess readers, Kim, had great success using her bread machine to make this recipe. Since so many have asked about that I thought I would share her notes. Kim said that she let the bread machine run the full dough cycle (which is 1.5 hours long). After the cycle she shaped the loaves and let them rise for an hour before baking. Here’s how Kim’s homemade sub bun turned out:
Thank you for sharing Kim! I hope that helps someone else out too.
Enjoy this perfect Homemade Subway Bread recipe, just like the restaurant. This recipes makes a perfect copycat loaf of Subway bread for sandwiches at home.
located at the bottom of the comment area.
I am making this now and it is in its first rise. I don’t see anything in the directions for punching the dough down aftet the rise…am i missing anything?
By not punching it down, you leave more air in the dough. I don’t normally punch my dough down for that reason.
This did not work out well at all; it was just very bubbly and flat – perhaps from the yeast? Can you offer some advice because I was desperate for these for lunch and now I’m feeling super deflated…
★★
Hmmm. Yes, do you know if your yeast was fresh? And sometime if your water is too hot it can kill your fresh yeast.
Amy, you didn’t mention which rise was flat and bubbly. If the first rise was ok, it wasn’t the yeast and you probably over-warmed the second rise or you made the fatal mistake of covering the buns with something that stuck to them and caused them to collapse. I use parchment paper but frankly haven’t found any compelling; reason to cover the rises at all other than to keep the flies off, lol.
If the problem happened in the first rise, then, as Melissa suggested, you probably overheated the yeast on proofing. Just keep everything barely warm and DON’T cover your rises with a damp tea towel or you will end up with not only a deflated bun but also a deflated ego and, even worse, a McDonald’s burger for lunch!!
Hi Amy, I’ve not made these before, but something similar. This recipe looks like the dough will be much too moist to hold it’s own shape without the use of an appropriately shaped pan. I would suggest either using a shaped pan, or adding more much more flour, mixing it in a 1/4 to 1/2 cup at a time.
As a reference, when I make regular white bread using a pan, I’m mixing 1.5 cups of liquid to 4+ cups of flour, and even that’s not stiff enough to hold its own shape.
I made these yesterday and was very happy with the results. One caution — I doubled the batch using the calculator included with the recipe. The calculator doubles all the numbers in the recipe, including the temperature of the warm water. This could be a problem for a beginning baker.
★★★★★
Are you using fresh yeast or active dry?
Active dry
I’ve used this recipe several times and it’s a winner!
★★★★★
I am unable to get browned subs, otherwise they taste perfect! Any tips?
★★★★★
You can brush them with an egg white mixed with 1 tablespoon of water before baking to improve the color if you’d like.
To brown the buns preheat the oven to 400F, then turn down to 375F (so the burners don’t come on while baking) and bake the buns UNCOVERED for about 8 minutes. Then reduce heat to 350F, COVER the buns with foil and bake another 8 minutes. Then turn off the oven and leave in for a final 6 minutes.
I haven’t tried this particular recipe but I’ve used this browning method for 30 years and it works every time. For a typical bread loaf, increase the baking times to 12/12/8.
Happy baking!
I love this recipe because I finally get to use my butterin’ towels
★★★★★
Hello there I’m just about to try and bake these but the oven temp is written is degrees is that Fahrenheit or centigrade sorry if it’s a silly question not the best baker
All temperatures on my site are F. I’m working on getting the recipes updated to reflect that!
Just made it and it was perfect
★★★★★
Best bread I have ever made, soft, fluffy and very close to a subway baguette.
But not perfect, not complaining about recipe as it almost certainly was me. But I am looking for pointers. The bread was a little moister than I expected, and had a hint of an oil taste.
I am NOT an expert, far far from it, I followed the recipe to the letter, but I think another 2 mins cooking time taking it to 27 mins and a little less butter during the cool down period might have been better.
Still the very best bread I have made, so really pleased
★★★★★
Thanks for the tips and letting us know what worked for you!
Hello do i need to fold the dough and shape it? And cna you please convert the flour into mg? Sometimes i find there’s difference in measurement for every recipe. Thank you
The picture that you have of the 4 “ropes” of dough in the parchment lined roasting pan looks like the dough is much lower hydration than the recipe (72-79%) espcially when using all-purpose flour. I’ve made this recipe twice now, and I kneaded the dough for so long the first time that I think I started to completely break the gluten. But both times the dough is great deal more wet than what is in the image. How did you shape the dough like that?