Simple soft hamburger buns

Name: Simple soft hamburger buns
Prep time: 25 min
Cook time: 20 min
Total time: 165 min
Yield: Makes 6 sandwich size buns
Ingredients: 280 grams all-purpose flour (2 1/4 cups); 17 grams granulated sugar (1 tablespoon); 8 grams salt (1 teaspoon); 6 grams instant yeast (2 teaspoons); 38 grams butter, room temperature (3 tablespoons); 175 grams lukewarm water (3/4 cup); 1 to 2 tablespoons melted butter (optional - for painting on buns after baking)

Jonathan Surratt

With only six ingredients, this is the most simple, soft bun recipe I could create. Perfect for your next burger night or grilled chicken sandwich.

YIELD
Makes 6 sandwich size buns

PREP TIME
schedule 25 minutes

COOK TIME
schedule 20 minutes

TOTAL TIME
schedule 2 hours and 45 minutes

Need more or less than 6 buns? Click to try the Bun Calculator.

Ingredients:

280 grams all-purpose flour (2 1/4 cups)
17 grams granulated sugar (1 tablespoon)
8 grams salt (1 teaspoon)
6 grams instant yeast (2 teaspoons)
38 grams butter, room temperature (3 tablespoons)
175 grams lukewarm water (3/4 cup)
1 to 2 tablespoons melted butter (optional - for painting on buns after baking)

Related blog post: Buns 101

Directions:

In a large bowl or the bowl of your mixer, weigh out and add your all-purpose flour, sugar, salt, and instant yeast and stir to combine all of your dry ingredients making sure there are no clumps.

Add the butter and the room temperature water to the dry ingredients.

If using a stand mixer, knead for 8 minutes on medium speed. If you are kneading by hand, you will need about 15 minutes of kneading after all the ingredients are incorporated together.

The dough should be smooth and a little bit sticky.

Place your dough in a lightly oiled bowl and cover. Let dough rise in a warm place for 1 to 1.5 hours. The dough should be doubled in size.

Remove dough from bowl to a lightly oiled counter and divide into 6 pieces. I like to weigh my buns at this point to keep them all fairly consistently sized and I usually get 6 buns that are all between 85 and 90 grams each.

Roll each of your six pieces of dough on the counter until you have 6 balls.

Add each ball to a parchment-lined sheet pan.

Press down the top of each ball with a lightly oiled hand or the lightly oiled bottom of a mixing cup or small pan. If you want very tall and round buns, don't flatten them at all. If you want medium-height but still rounded buns press down only a little. If you want flat buns as you see in fast food restaurants, you should flatten each one fairly flat.

Cover your buns with lightly greased plastic wrap or a second sheet pan flipped over on top of the pan you're using.

Let shaped buns rise for another hour or hour and a half until they are nearly doubled in size.

Near the end of your final proofing time, preheat your oven to 375 degrees F (190 C).

Bake your buns for 15 to 20 minutes rotating the sheet pan halfway through the baking time. I typically bake for 7 minutes and then rotate and come back in another 7 minutes to see what my level of brownness looks like. At that point your buns should be done all the way through, you're just trying to get them to the color you prefer.

Remove the buns from the oven and brush them with 1 or 2 tablespoons of melted butter for a glossy sheen (optional).

Have you made this recipe? Share on Bluesky or Instagram, tag @beerinator and let him know!

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One response to “Simple soft hamburger buns”

Bonita Smith says:

August 23, 2023 at 9:39 am

Thank you so much for the recipe it’s like foolproof. Love love love it. This is my go to recipe from now since all the bread prices are soaring in our country. Thank you for sharing.

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