Gluten-Free Sourdough Bread
An easy Gluten-Free Sourdough Bread recipe with a perfect golden crust and soft & flavorful middle. This rustic-style boule is dairy-free, to boot!
Where do I start with this one? This has got to be one of the most magical recipes I’ve ever shared. The bread is just so gosh darn good, it’s really hard to tell that it isn’t loaded with gluten. The flavor is truly sourdough. The crispy crust and soft interior make for such a lovely combo that’s great on its own, alongside butter, fruit spread or for use in sandwiches, toast—you name it! If you are new to gluten-free baking or a bread ferment, do not be intimidated, this loaf of bread it worth it.
💛 Why You Will Love This Recipe
- Easy to make.
- Super flavorful and fragrant with a rich sourdough taste.
- Wholesome and hearty.
- Great for beginner and experienced bakers alike.
- Reminiscent of gluten-filled bread.
- Gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, soy-free, corn-free, refined sugar-free.
🥣 How-to Make Gluten-Free Sourdough Bread
My gluten-free sourdough starter recipe.
❓ Frequently Asked Questions
You can use oat flour, millet flour, or a gluten-free flour blend in this GF sourdough recipe.
This is my gluten-free sourdough starter recipe, however, any active sourdough starter should work just fine!
I find the egg adds some nice structure to this loaf that is more reminiscent of the gluten-filled variety of bread, but you can replace it with 1 flax egg for similar results.
Yes, you can. The psyllium adds some nice texture and helps retain moisture in the bread, but is not necessary.
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Gluten-Free Sourdough Bread
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup gluten-free sourdough starter (click for recipe)
- 2 cups sparkling water or water
- 1 egg
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 tablespoon maple syrup or honey
- 2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar or vinegar
- 1½ cups gluten-free all purpose flour (with xanthan gum) plus extra for coating
- 1 cup tapioca flour
- 1 cup brown rice flour
- 1/2 cup millet flour
- 1 tablespoon psyllium husk powder
- 1 teaspoon sea salt or pink salt
- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
Instructions
- In a large bowl add starter, water, egg, oil, maple syrup, and vinegar. Whisk well.
- Add remaining dry ingredients. Mix until a dough begins to form.
- Knead the dough, adding flour as needed, to form a smooth but still slightly tacky round of dough.
- Place in a greased bowl or in a greased parchment paper-lined pan. Cover and let rise overnight or at least 6 hours.
- Place the dough in the refrigerator for 4 hours.
- Preheat oven to 425°F. Place a cast iron skillet or dutch oven into the oven while it preheats, for at least 30 minutes.
- Remove the dough from the refrigerator and knead slightly to re-form a nice round of dough. Optionally, score the dough with any design of your choosing. Allow the dough to rest at room temperature while the oven and pan preheat.
- After 30 minutes of resting time, place the dough into a greased parchment paper-lined dutch oven or cast iron skillet. If using a dutch oven, place a few ice cubes on the outside of the parchment, but on the inside of the pan before placing the lid and on and placing into the oven. If using a cast iron or other oven-safe skillet, place a pan of water on the bottom rack of the oven right after place the bread on the middle rack. Keep the oven door closed the entire time to ensure proper steaming.
- Bake for 35-40 minutes or until the bread has formed a nice golden crust, is firm and sounds hollow when you tap on the bottom.
- Let the bread cool completely before slicing for best results. Slicing too soon can result in a gummy or dense bread.
- Slice and enjoy!
Dearest Moon and Spoon,
I want you to know I make this bread every couple weeks and I have to thank you because it is SO doggone good! Even my glutenous samplers flip out over it and ask for it! I use Pamela’s bread flour and find that I have to omit one of the cups of water. I also add olive oil, salt and garlic powder to the top before baking. I follow your instruction to use a cast iron Dutch oven and place ice cubes under the parchment. A friend of mine who bakes bread in a kiln for his local restaurant told me the process mimics what his kiln does by keeping the moisture trapped inside. Again, thank you, I’m obsessed!
Hi, Carrie! Thank you so much for visiting. I am so very happy to hear it! Thank you for taking the time to share here. 🙂
Why does gf sourdough need to be refrigerated before it’s baked?
Hi, Laura! Thank you for visiting. Refrigerating the dough prior to baking slows the fermentation process temporarily and allows time for that classic sour flavor to develop. So, it’s primarily for flavor development! I hope this helps. 🙂
can you make this without the egg..use a substitute?
Hi, Connie! Yes, you can. You can omit it without further substitutions. I hope this helps!
Wäre toll, wenn du das Rezept auch mit Gramm Angaben teilst.
Viele Grüße,
Jesse-Gabriel
Hi! Right below the “ingredients” section, you should see a slider button that will convert the ingredients to metric. Please let me know if you have any issues with it. Thank you for visiting! 🙂
My daughter can’t have millet. Is there something I can sub?
Hi! Thank you for visiting. You can replace it with more brown rice flour or all purpose flour. I hope this helps!
Thanks so much for this recipe! I love the use of sparkling water to give it lift. I just put my dough together, and I think it may be differences in climate, but I had to add another cup and a half of flour just to get my dough to come together, it was very moisturized! Next time I will add less liquid. We’ll see how it comes out. Looking forward to this sourdough adventure!
Hi! I’m very excited to try this loaf. I baked wheat based sourdough for many years, my question is about the 30 minute resting time prior to baking but after kneading a second time…it doesn’t seem like enough time to allow the starter yeast to create rise again. I’m a little nervous to put it in the oven without a full rise of a few hours. Am I being too cautious?
thanks!!
Hi, Katie! Thank you for visiting. This method has always worked for me, as it continues to rise during the baking and with the help of the steam. I hope this helps. 🙂
Hi! Is it safe to leave the dough to rise out on the counter when it has egg in it? I am a hypochondriac and I would be nervous to do that. Is this normal to do?
I’ve never encountered an issue with this method, and from what I’ve read, the cooking process would kill anything present anyhow, but if it makes you uncomfortable, you can choose to let it rise for an hour at room temperature, then place it in the refrigerator overnight for the remaining rising time. I hope this helps!
Hi. Posting from a snowy east coast of Canada. I have just put this to rest overnight. I am hoping I have success. I have gotten a couple of gf starters going and my sons family are all gf, DF, DF, SF (yep it’s been a journey trying to find successful recipes so aI am very hopeful for the bake later tomorrow (or could I leave till the morning of the next day to take to them in our visit. I noticed after that you used
Nameste 1/1. , I do have that and also Lulubelle 1/1. Have you housed the later at all. It is more easily available to me here and works out cheaper for me than Bob Mills. The Nameste I purchased while away in the US.
Sorry for the lengthy post.
Hi, Anne! Thank you for stopping by. And sorry for just now getting to this. I’ve never used Lulubelle, but I have used a variety of all-purpose blends in this recipe with success. I hope you enjoyed the recipe. 🙂
This is an amazing recipe! I was so excited to get my gluten-free sourdough starter going, but couldn’t find a recipe to use it in till now! This is the first recipe I found that also looks like a sourdough boule. And it tastes amazing, is moist, no crumbling, even after 3 days, slices beautifully. Thank you so much! My husband who has not liked any of the other gluten free bread I’ve made likes this too.
I’m so very happy to hear this! Thank you so much for taking the time to share here. 🙂
Hi, this sounds great, I’m celiac. My son is allergic to eggs though. What can I use as a replacement?
Hi, Tracy! You can omit the egg altogether with very similar results! I hope this helps. 🙂
Looks so good! I want to try to make one! Do I have to use xanthan gum ??
No, you do not at all! I hope you enjoy.
This is the best bread – thank you for an awesome recipe and detailed instructions. I will be making this regularly in the future.
I’m so happy to hear that! Thank you for sharing!
In my country, we don’t have Namaste’sGF All Purpose Blend, What can I use in place of it? Thanks.
Hi! You can use any gluten-free all purpose blend or you can also replace with more brown rice flour and/or millet flour. I hope this helps!
I’ve been consistently making this recipe weekly for a couple months and i have to say this is the perfect gluten free sourdough recipe! I’ve tried others and the loaves turned out dense, hard as a rock on the outside and super gummy on the inside. This loaf is so soft and airy and easy to cut through and delicious to boot!! Thank you!
This makes me so happy to hear! Thank you for taking the time to share here. 🙂
Making this today been looking for a gluten free great recipe like this for months thanks!
That looks do good. It looks like it has a great crust.
I love sourdough and this looks like a great option for people that are gluten free.
Thank you for sharing this awesome gluten-free recipe it was great to try it and share it with my family they also loved it.
Great to have a sourdough recipe I can make for gluten-free friends, thanks so much – will be trying at the weekend.
hi,
How do you prepare/feed the gluten free starter before baking bread?
I cannot find this info anywhere.
Is it used straight from the fridge or needs to fed 24hr before (like normal sourdough starter) ?
Hi Margaret – you feed it/refresh it prior to using it in the bread. You can find a bit more info here: https://moonandspoonandyum.com/gluten-free-sourdough-starter. Having said that, if it hasn’t been in the fridge that long or still appears quite active, it usually works fine as is. I hope this helps!
I am so excited to try this… I’m halfway through it. Question… can I refrigerate it more than 4 hours? I’d like to do it overnight if possible. Thank you for your amazing blog!
Hi, Noelle! Yes, overnight will be just fine. 🙂 Thank you for your kind words! I hope you enjoy.
Thank you so much for your quick response! I wish I could give you 10 stars. You cracked the code on gluten-free sourdough bread! God bless you, Kristen!
I’m so happy to hear that. 🙂 Thank you so much!!
When I bake, I love to make it gluten-free. This sourdough bread came out perfect and so good with a bowl of hearty soup.
Not only does this taste amazing, it’s gluten-free! I didn’t think sourdough and gluten-free were possible! Amazing!
I’m not sure how you did it, but this gluten free sourdough is FABULOUS!
So hard to find a good gluten-free sourdough recipe, thanks for such detailed instructions and little videos. I think I have most of the ingredients on me (phew!) so can’t wait to make it the starter.
I couldn’t believe how well this bread turned out!! I hadn’t found a good gluten free sourdough at the store – but this recipe tasted just like regular sourdough bread – yum!
What a great loaf! Perfect texture and the most impressive GF bread I’ve made to date!
Sounds perfect I must try this soon since we need gluten free in our family diets
Loved your healthy version to making this amazing Bread. Home made sounds the best too.
What a great idea to make gluten free bread! It looks delicious.
I love that this is a bread free from so many allergens and still is delicious
Hello! your recommended GF all purpose mix? or a home made mix you like (we have a lot of different flours, but not an AP one right now). Thanks!
Apologies, I normally have some images displaying in the recipe cards of the products I use but am experiencing some issues at the moment! Any gluten-free all purpose mix with xanthan gum will work in this recipe. I most frequently use Bob’s Red Mill 1:1 or Namaste’s All Purpose Blend. I hope this helps! 🙂
As for a homemade mix….1 part sorghum and 1 part brown rice works beautifully, as well as 1 part buckwheat and 1 part tapioca starch. A pinch of xanthan gum will do.
Everything about this was fantastic! The crumb, the crust, etc was all great. However, the flavor was very vinegary and sour. Basically it tastes like how the starter smells when it starts “eating” itself… any idea what happened?
Looking forward to trying your recipe – have made 4 sourdough loaves and they have all been quite dense. If my flour does not have xanthan gum in it, how much should I add? Thank you!
Hi Stacy — thank you! An overabundance of xanthan gum, using a starter that isn’t active enough, an unsuccessful rise or under-baking can all contribute to a dense loaf. If you are using a flour without xanthan, then I advise using 1/4 teaspoon in this particular recipe. Please let me know if you have questions and good luck! 🙂
It was the picture of your gluten-free sourdough bread that caught my eye – so sweet looking! And the ingredients were already in my pantry. Plus, your instructions and video steps are very helpful. So I made my first attempt at making the bread – it turned out pretty well. It did rise nicely and is so much better than any gluten-free bread available in stores. Having freshly baked gluten-free bread is the best! Next time I will use the Namaste brand of all-purpose flour. I used another brand which had the xanthum gum in the blend. I might have added too much extra flour during the initial kneading and maybe the blend of flour was a little different. Thank you so much for this recipe – keep up the good work! I will be trying more of your recipes!
This is such a fabulous comment to receive! I appreciate your kind words and I’m so happy you enjoyed it. Thank you for taking the time to share! 🙂