Soft and tender, this multigrain bread is so delicious, full of many different grains that is perfect for sandwiches and toast.
This multigrain bread has so many different grains and two different flours, honey and butter, so it has extra flavor and texture. The process is quite simple and results in a tender loaf, not dense at all. If you have a stand mixer, there's hardly any work involved at all.
I have my standard recipe for regular white bread, and I love it. It's so simple to make and always comes out so well. I've also wanted to find a good recipe for a whole wheat multigrain bread as well. The problem with most whole wheat recipes is that the bread is so dense and hard, and that's not what I was going for. I also didn't want to be perusing many aisles in several specialty stores looking for all the different grains that the recipe would need. As soon as I gave this recipe from American's Test Kitchen a try, my husband and I were both very pleased with the results and I've been making it for several years now. It's so rewarding to take out a warm and fragrant loaf of bread from the oven, and the smell that wafts throughout the house is amazing.
The bread has whole wheat, rye, barley, oats, triticale and flaxseed grain and additional all purpose flour to make it soft. It's perfect to enjoy with a bowl of soup and sandwiches. My favorite is to use it for all kinds of toast - simply with butter or avocado toast, smoked salmon toast, cream cheese and arugula and so much more. The options are endless.
Ingredients:
Scroll to the bottom of the page for the printable recipe with measurements or use the Jump To Recipe button at the top of the page.
- 5 or 7-grain hot cereal mix (more details about the hot cereal mix below)
- boiling water
- unbleached all-purpose flour
- whole-wheat flour
- honey
- butter
- instant dry yeast
- salt
- old-fashioned rolled oats or quick oats
Hot Cereal/Oatmeal is the secret to great multigrain bread
This multigrain hot cereal mix is the perfect answer to multigrain bread. This 5 grain hot cereal mix has a combination of whole wheat, rye, barley, oats, triticale and flaxseed grain. Sometimes you can also find 7 grain hot cereal mix.
Instead of gathering many different grains and dealing with them all separately, the hot mix cereal gives us a simple solution. Here we have numerous grains and we only have to deal with them once. Isn't it genius? Plus, using the warm and hydrated "oatmeal" makes the bread so soft and tender too.
Multigrain Bread Video
How To Make Multigrain Bread
- Pour the boiling water over the hot cereal mix and set aside for about an hour, until it cools to approximately 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
- During that time, the cereal will hydrate and soften, soaking in all that water.
- Meanwhile, in another large bowl, combine the two flours together.
- Using half the amount of whole wheat as all purpose flour, will keep the bread nice and soft.
- Once the cereal has cooled, add the honey, melted butter and yeast. Mix to combine.
- Gradually add the flour to the liquid ingredients.
- In a stand mixer with a dough hook attachment, mix the dough on low speed, slowly adding in the mixed flours. Mix for about 2 minutes, until the dough forms a ball.
- Add the salt and knead the bread dough for about 7 minutes, until the dough has pulled away from the sides of the bowl.
- If you've mixed if for 3-5 minutes and it's still sticking to the bowl, add 3 Tablespoons more flour.
- Set the dough aside, covered, to rise until doubled in size, about 40 minutes.
- Coat the bowl and the dough in oil, so it's easier to get out of the bowl after it rises.
- Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a towel while it's rising so it doesn't dry out.
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease 2 bread pans with oil.
- When the dough has doubled in size, cut the dough in half and roll each into a loaf. (More details instructions below.)
- Lightly spritz each loaf with water or oil and roll in the oats, just enough for the oats to adhere to the bread.
- Place the bread loaves into the loaf pans and set aside to rise until double in size, for another 40 minutes or so.
- Bake for 35-40 minutes in the preheated oven. Cool the bread in the loaf pans for about 5 minutes before taking them out of the loaf pans and onto a cooling rack.
Shaping the Bread
- When the dough has risen and is double in size, lightly sprinkle your counter with flour, then remove the dough from the bowl.
- Divide the dough in half.
- Flatten each half into a rectangle (the width of the rectangle should be about the same size as the length of your bread pans.)
- Roll up the rectangle into a loaf, tightly.
- Lightly spritz the dough with water, oil or melted butter.
- Spread out the old fashioned or quick oats onto the counter, then roll each loaf on all sides in the oats. Pat the oats onto the bread dough so it adheres. Place the bread into the prepared baking pans to rise.
Storing and Freezing the Bread
I have a detailed blog post all about how to freeze bread, you can get a lot more info there. But, here's the quick version.
Store the bread at room temperature or in the refrigerator for longer storage.
If you have a small family, you can freeze the second loaf. Wrap it securely in a freezer ziplock bag or even vacuum seal it for longer storage. Freeze for up to 3 months.
Then simply thaw and serve; it will stay fresh perfectly. Another option is to share the second loaf with your friends or neighbors. I'm sure your thoughtfulness will be appreciated. Who wouldn't love a fresh loaf of homemade bread?
What To Serve With the Bread
- This multigrain bread is perfect to serve with a warm bowl of soup, like Chicken Noodle Soup or Borsch and make it into sandwiches.
- I love using this bread for avocado toast topped with poached eggs. So good!
- It's also wonderful to use for Smoked Salmon and Cucumber Sandwiches or Salmon Gravlax Sandwiches.
Multigrain Bread
Soft and tender, this multigrain bread is so delicious, full of many different grains that is perfect for sandwiches and toast.
- Prep Time: 3 hours
- Cook Time: 35 mins
- Total Time: 3 hours 35 mins
- Yield: 2 loaves of bread 1x
- Category: Miscellaneous
Ingredients
- 1 ¼ cups 5 grain or 7-grain hot cereal mix
- 2 ½ cups boiling water
- 3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour, plus extra for dusting work surface
- 1 ½ cups whole-wheat flour
- 4 Tablespoons honey
- 4 Tablespoons butter, melted and cooled slightly
- 2 ½ teaspoons instant dry yeast
- 1 Tablespoon table salt or sea salt
- ½ cup old-fashioned rolled oats or quick oats
- additional butter or oil to coat the bread dough/bowl while rising and to grease the bread pans
Instructions
- Pour the boiling water over the cereal mix and set aside for about an hour, until it cools to approximately 100 degrees Fahrenheit. During that time, the cereal will hydrate and soften, soaking in all that water.
- In another large bowl, combine the two flours together.
- Once the cereal has cooled, add the honey, melted butter and yeast. Mix to combine.
- In a stand mixer with a dough hook attachment, mix the dough on low speed, slowly adding in the mixed flours. Mix for about 2 minutes, until the dough forms a ball.
- Add the salt and knead the bread dough for about 7 minutes, until the dough has pulled away from the sides of the bowl. If you've mixed if for 3-5 minutes and it's still sticking to the bowl, add 3 Tablespoons more flour, 1 spoon at a time.
- Set aside the dough to rise until doubled, about 40 minutes. (Coat the dough and the bowl lightly in oil, cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a towel while it's rising.)
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease 2 bread pans with butter or oil.
- When the dough has doubled in size, divide the dough in half. Flatten each half of dough into a rectangle and then tightly roll the rectangle into a loaf.
- Spread out the oats onto the counter. Lightly spritz each loaf with water or oil and roll in the oats, just enough for the oats to adhere to the bread. Place into the loaf pans and set aside to rise until double in size, for another 40 minutes or so.
- Bake for 35-40 minutes in the preheated oven.
- Cool the bread in the loaf pans for about 5 minutes before taking them out of the loaf pans and onto a cooling rack.
Thank you Olya,for a very good recipe!Made it 2 times with great results. I mixed the dough in a breadmaker and used only 2 tbs of honey and 2 teaspoons of yeast. Bread turned out really fluffy and delicious!
I'm so glad you enjoyed the Multigrain Bread:). Thanks for taking the time to write.
This recipe is amazing! I bake it at least twice a week. My kids love it and it also makes a great gift. Love the simplicity!
I'm so glad you enjoy the bread, Lindsay. That's so awesome that your children love it too. Thank you so much for taking the time to write.
This is the recipe from America's Test Kitchen, minus the sunflower seeds. You should credit or reference them. I'm making their recipe now and was cross referencing it for result information.
Yes, I got this recipe from America's Test Kitchen, but I did give them credit. In the 2nd paragraph where I was describing the recipe, I wrote that I got the recipe from there, with a link to their website.
This is a really nice recipe and worked beautifully for me. I used white wholewheat flour but found that I needed almost 3 cups of water to get a moderately wet dough. I tried using the mixer with a dough hook but it wouldn't combine so eventually just mixed and kneaded by hand.
One point, you don't mention what size loaf pans should be used. I took a guess and used the 8.5" x 4.5" pans rather than the 9 x 5 and it appears that was correct. I't an important point that you missed.
Other than that, thanks for your detailed recipe with pictures.
I have been baking bread for many years and this is my favorite recipe. I love the taste of the grains plus it's just a little sweet from the honey. Just a couple of things to remember as you are putting this together. Once you mix the flour with the grain/honey/butter/yeast mix it will seem very dry. Just let it do its work for 20 minutes and start kneading. There is petty of moisture once everything gets mixed together. The second thing I learned is that the loaves don't rise much once they have been shaped and put into the loaf pans. Don't worry, they will spring very nicely once you start baking them. I preheat the oven with a pizza stone. I put them in the oven with two cups of ice cubes in a pan in the bottom of the oven to create steam. The loaves spring nicely! Thanks for the great recipe. This bread tastes amazing!!
I'm so glad that you enjoy this bread recipe, Mark. Thank you for sharing your experience.
I make a similar recipe. Tried this one and I had to add a lot more than 3 additional tablespoons of flour, the dough was very wet and sticky. I followed the directions to the letter, not sure why it was so wet.
I'm happily making this presently. Glad I decided on this game plan because I wanted a generous amount of whole grain in the product, and your recipe has that and you can still make it as light as suggested or even heartier-heavier, depending on your wish. Even changing up the suggested proportions of flours and not having any commercial multi-grain-cereal mix, the dough is just delicious. I used grains I had on hand: 1/4 cup each of oat bran, yellow millet, fine Turkish bulgar wheat, roasted buckwheat groats, and granulated barley. I used 2 cups of hard red whole wheat flour, 1 cup of sprouted spelt flour, and 1-1/2 cups of white bread flour. Since I had raw honey, it only took 3 tablespoons of the honey measure to make it pleasantly sweet. Did I say delicious dough?! Made it by hand and it still came together easily with this delay adding the salt. Can't wait to enjoy this bread used in another recipe for Thanksgiving ! Thank You!
I have been making this bread for several years. This is the best whole grain bread recipe. Everybody LOVES it. The instructions are informative and really explain the science behind the making of this delicious bread. It is well worth the 3 hour prep time. This is the best recipe....second to none..thank you for sharing.
This is the absolute best recipe for whole grain bread. I have been making it for several years and everyone LOVES it. It is worth the wait for the 3 hour prep time. The informative instructions explains the science behind the makings of this very delicious bread. Thank you for sharing this recipe...it is so good, second to none.
Olga,
I have been baking your recipe for many years now.
I no longer live in Washington.
The locals here in Texas grow rosemary to keep mosquitos away.
I tried using fresh rosemary and wheat germ along with the rolled oats and the flavor is just awesome.
I also substituted the 1 1/4 cup whole wheat flour for 1 cup wheat germ.
I used only 1 cup 7 grain cereal.
All the rest is just as you stated in your multigrain bread recipe.
The wheat germ gives the bread a nutty flavor and the rosemary gives a fresh new aroma reminiscent of Christmas.
I still love your recipe just as it is, but this little experiment came out so good I had to share it with you.
Thank you for your great flavors and your nursing. Only a fellow nurse knows how truly hard and thankless that job is.
Richard
Thank you so much for this recipe. I have baked it today and OMG... That is the best recipe I have ever made thanks to you...
I'm so happy to hear that, Maria. Thank you for taking the time to write.
This was a great recipe! I used Red Mill 10 grain cereal as I could not find the 5 or 7 grain cereal. I also added about 1/8 cup of unsalted sunflower seeds. It is an amazing bread. Thank you for the recipe. I promised my husband I will be making this again!
Bob's Red Mill cereals are great; I love using them.
This is one of our favorite breads to make. I'm so glad you enjoyed it too, Tina.
I made this today but instead of all purpose flour, I actually used 100% whole wheat flour and added 1 Tbl of vital wheat gluten per cup. It came out just like the soft, chewy, sandwich bread you typically buy at the store. Thanks so much for the recipe!
That's great! Thanks for taking the time to write, Melissa.
Olga, thank you so much for such as great recipe!!! I made this bread, turn out well. The only thing that I concern it is time consuming, however, very good and delicious . Love your blog and enjoy all your recipes!
Thank you Olga - the two loaves of bread came out delicious and appreciated and enjoyed by all at home.
Came out perfect, the first try. We'll make this again and again.
Looking forward to trying out bread recipes ! Thanks again
That's great, Govi! I'm so glad you enjoyed the bread.