Freezing Bread Dough: How to Bake Frozen Bread Dough

Bread dough is generally a mixture of yeast, flour, water, and salt. Depending on the type of bread, there might also be sugar, oil, or other mix-ins; additionally, some breads don’t use yeast at all. The raw form of bread, a bread dough goes through a couple of rises before you bake it. The number of rises and the rise time depend on the type of bread you are baking and whether or not the bread recipe calls for active dry yeast or fast-acting yeast.

You can freeze bread dough; however, timing and technique are both important to the end results. You must freeze yeast bread dough, such as sourdough bread dough, after the first rise and after you’ve shaped it into its final form. If the dough is for a loaf of bread, freeze the dough inside the loaf pan. For buns, cinnamon rolls, balls of pizza dough, and dinner rolls, you can freeze them on a cookie sheet—line the sheet with parchment paper and cover it with plastic wrap.

You should freeze non-yeast doughs, such as flatbread dough, immediately after kneading it. There is no rising necessary with non-yeast doughs, just some resting time, which will occur as the dough thaws in the case of frozen non-yeast dough. Form the dough into a ball and place it in a resealable freezer bag.

It is possible for frozen dough to rise, or proof, after you remove it from the freezer. If the dough went through its first rise before freezing, there is still enough life left in the yeast for the dough to rise again—as long as you didn’t overproof the dough during the first rise. Overproofed dough is dough that has risen for too long and lost its springiness. There is no need to add extra yeast to accommodate freezing. For the frozen bread dough to be able to go through a second rise, thaw it first. Then it will be ready to bake.

The freezing process for yeasted bread dough is simple, but some steps can still trip up bakers. First-time or inexperienced bakers might want to follow a recipe designed specifically for freezing. Additionally, here is a general step-by-step guide to freezing dough:

1. 1. Let the dough rise one time. Follow your homemade bread recipe instructions for mixing and kneading the dough. Continue the process all the way through the first rise and the punch-down step but stop before the second rise step. If the recipe calls for only one rise, prepare to freeze the dough prior to allowing it to rise.
2. 2. Shape the dough. After the first rise, punch down the dough and shape it into whatever form the final product should take, such as bagels, hamburger buns, or another food type. For a loaf of bread, shape the dough into the same size as the bread pan.
3. 3. Prepare the pans. A loaf of bread will bake in the same pan it freezes in, so you should grease the loaf pan and line it with parchment paper, leaving a little bit of overhang for easy removal after the baking process. If you’re using a baking sheet instead, line it with parchment paper and spray the paper with a cooking spray.
4. 4. Protect the dough. Cover the dough, no matter what form it is in or what pan it’s on, with a layer of plastic wrap followed by a layer of aluminum foil. This prevents freezer burn and preserves the texture and taste of the baked bread.
5. 5. Let the dough freeze for at least twelve hours. If you freeze bread dough in or on the same loaf pan or greased baking sheet that it will bake in or on, there really isn’t much more to do until you’re ready to bake. But if you want to freeze dough for buns, bagels, or rolls in bulk to store for a while, you can transfer the frozen dough to a plastic freezer bag for easier storage.

To use frozen bread dough, remove the frozen loaf from the freezer. If it’s a formed loaf of bread, do not unwrap it or remove it from the loaf tin. If it’s individual pieces of dough, like buns or bagels, remove the number of dough pieces you want to bake and place them on a parchment-lined and greased baking sheet. Let the dough defrost in the refrigerator overnight. Then bring the thawed dough out of the refrigerator and let it sit at room temperature to rise or to undergo its second rise. Depending on the recipe you followed, your dough will have already completed a first rise prior to you freezing it, or it still needs to undergo a single rise. This also allows the gluten in the dough to relax again, which will make for a better bread.

Preheat the oven to the baking temperature in your dough recipe. Once the dough thaws and completes its second rise, it is ready to bake. The end result should taste the same as fresh-baked bread, even if the dough was in the freezer for weeks.

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