Freezer Dinner Rolls
These freezer rolls make having fresh bread for dinner a quick possibility. Just grab frozen dough balls from the freezer, let thaw and rise, and then pop in the oven just before dinner–about the same amount of time it takes to open and bake a can of crescent rolls.
Ingredients
- 2 cups Warm Milk
- ½ cups melt Butter
- ½ cups Sugar
- 2 ¼ teaspoons Instant Dry Yeast
- 4 ½ cups Flour, All-Purpose
- ½ teaspoons Baking Powder
- 1 teaspoon Baking Soda
- ½ tablespoons Salt
- 1 ½ tablespoons melt Butter
Containers
Cooking Instructions
Freeze For Later Cooking Day Directions
These directions help you cook or prepare this meal PRIOR to being frozen for serving later (see Serving Day Directions when you are ready to prepare it to eat).
Why would I want to freeze this?
- Combine warm milk, melted butter, and sugar. Stir until sugar dissolves.
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Make From Frozen Serving Day Directions
These directions help you cook or reheat this meal AFTER it's been frozen for when you are ready to eat it.
- Prep from frozen
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Make It Now Cooking Directions
These directions are for cooking this recipe to serve immediately and NOT to freeze for later.
- Combine warm milk, melted butter, and sugar. Stir until sugar dissolves.
- Sprinkle in yeast and let stand about 10 minutes. The yeast should be bubbly.
- In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
- Add milk/yeast mixture and stir well to combine.
- Place bowl in a warm place, cover with a clean towel, and allow to rise–about an hour.
- Punch down dough, lightly flour your work surface, and turn dough out onto surface.
- Divide dough in half, roll out on floured surface, and knead in a bit more flour if dough is too sticky.
- Shape into golf-ball size rolls and place on a greased baking sheet.
- Cover and let rise in warm place, until doubled in size.
- Bake at 350 degrees for 12-15 minutes, or until golden brown.
- Brush with melted butter #2 and enjoy.
Nutrition Facts
- Servings Per Recipe
- 36 Servings
- Serving Size
- 1 roll Amount Per Serving
- Calories
- 107
- Total Fat
- 3g
- Saturated Fat
- 2g
- Trans Fat
- 0g
- Cholesterol
- 9mg
- Sodium
- 124mg
- Total Carbohydrates
- 17g
- Fiber
- 1g
- Sugar
- 3g
- Protein
- 2g
- WW Freestyle
- 4
47 Comments
Join the discussionHow long do the rolls take to thaw & rise from frozen? I’d like to make these for Thanksgiving, but we have a mid-day meal. Thanks.
It definitely depends on how warm your house is, etc. You might want to do an experimental batch first?
A couple of days ago we had a “big” mid-day meal and I took some dough balls out of the freezer around 9am. They were ready to bake at about 2, just in time for our meal. Hope that helps?
To shorten the thaw/rise time you can follow the quick instructions from Rhodes frozen dough balls package. Heat oven to 150 and boil a quart of water in a saucepan.
Then turn the oven off and put the pan of water on the bottom of the oven and your pan of frozen dough balls on the rack in the middle of the oven. Close the oven door and leave an hour to an hour and a half and they are ready to bake. Take out the pan of water, leave the rolls in the oven and turn the oven to 350 and bake for 15-20 minutes depending on size of your rolls, til lightly browned. Golfball size dough balls take 15-20 minutes to bake in my oven.
Will this work with whole wheat flour as well?
I haven’t tried wheat flour, but I’m sure they would be fine. I’d recommend doing 1/2 white, 1/2 wheat to start and see how you like them.
I’ve never made dinner rolls before, and I can’t wait to try these! I was wondering why you had to roll out the dough, if you are going to shape it into balls, anyway? And about how thick should it be once rolled out? Thanks for the recipe!
I just rolled it out so I could better divide it evenly, but I guess you could skip that step. 🙂
“roll out on a floured surface, kneading in a bit more flour if dough is too sticky” — what do you mean by “roll out” – using a rolling pin and roll it out like to make cinnamon rolls? or just knead it a couple of times? Looking forward to freezing some rolls!!
Thanks for this, Pam! I’ve been looking for a good freezer roll recipe! I’m going to try these this weekend!
Wow, what a great idea!! I may have to try this with my bread recipe as it makes a whole lotta bread and this would be a great way to have fresh buns.
Use say to stir until combined but I do not see anywhere that we should knead the dough. Do you knead it at all? I do not have a bread machine.Also I often mix yeast with a 1/4 -1/2 cup of warm water and let sit 10 min until bubbles- can I do that or does combining milk, melted butter and sugar work well?Excited to try these!!!!!
It works fine the way I wrote it, but if you are more comfortable doing it the other way, I’d say go for it! I’m not really an expert on breadmaking.The stirring and forming into balls also seems to be enough kneading required, but again, do what you’re most comfortable with.
Thanks for answering my Q regarding rolling out the dough. I made a batch of these last night. Question: once I formed the rolls, they didn’t hold their shape well. They were soft enough that they spread out a bit into domes, instead of balls. Does that sound right?
Was this after you froze them? If it was, yes, mine did that too. If not, it sounds like you needed a bit more flour.
Pam, Just wanted to say thank you. As you could tell from my question about the soft dough, it did take me a couple tries (I will never “wing it” on the milk temp again! I’m all about the thermometer from here on out.). But I did finally put together a lovely batch of rolls for Thanksgiving. This recipe was wonderful. I will be using it again!
YAY! I’m so glad!! Thanks for letting me know!
I used poor quality ingredients and got a poor result, but redid with good ingredients and these were delicious! Will definitely keep these on hand in the freezer!
Glad you tried again then!
Wonderful! My new go to recipe for rolls. Sprinkled with garlic salt before baking. Thanks for another great recipe
Best recipe I have found to make freezer rolls. Just one question. How long if you bake it as a loaf of bread?
I have not tried it that way personally Pam. But you could try in a smaller loaf pan and I would guess around 20-30 minutes baking time.
I made these a couple of days ago to try out for Thanksgiving as I’m trying to prepare as much in advance as possible. Kept a few out to try and froze the rest!! Oh my!!! The best rolls I have ever made. I made another batch the next day since they were so goood I was afraid I would run out. Yum! I had to add about an extra 1/2 to full cup of flour. I will never buy store bought biscuits again! Thank you!
My mouth is watering just thinking about these Marilyn! So glad you enjoyed them!
I also gave some to a neighbor to try and she also liked them so much she made a batch to freeze for Thanksgiving too!
Yummm!
I wondered if I could make into balls and put them into a muffin pan.Singular or three to make cloverleaf rolls.
Yes – I think you most certainly could put them into a muffin pan!
Getting ready to make the rolls and I am assuming that 0.5 is a half a cup.Thanks,
Yes Linda – you are correct! Let us know how they turn out!
Oh my these were very very delicious. I have done this recipe twice and both batches came out awesome!! Im so glad I found this page with being a busy stay and home mom fresh bread isn’t always an easy task. But with these I can make these when the kiddos are asleep and then the next day have fresh dinner rolls for dinner. This will definitely be a keeper.
curious…why is there baking powder and baking soda in a yeast recipe? I haven’t seen this before. Is it because of the freezing method?
Fun food science question, Sharon! More or less it has to do with the different roles each performs in the process as they react with other ingredients. Here are a couple articles that are very informative:
This on looks at the difference between baking soda and powder http://www.thekitchn.com/pantr…
while this one discusses why you would use either with yeast http://food52.com/hotline/1703…
Please help!! I love the idea of this recipe but for the life of me I can’t get my rolls to rise! I went out and bought new yeast and baking powder and baking soda–just in case, and still the rolls won’t rise. I normally freeze them, if that helps to know. I have temporarily given up on this recipe but if you could help me out I would love to start making these again! Thank you!!
Hi Courtney! My first thought is that maybe your milk temp is not warm enough or its getting too cool in the process of combining with the butter and sugar. The temp of your liquid should be between 75F and 130F. After letting the yeast proof for the 10 minutes it should start to get bubbly and that lets you know its been properly activated. This link is my go-to on all things yeast, liquids and proofing: http://redstaryeast.com/yeast-…
Thank you so much for responding to my comment! I always have made the dough in my bread maker…I wonder if the milk cools down in the machine too quickly?
This recipe is a disaster. This is not a dough – it’s a batter. I just wasted all my ingredients.
Ann, I’m sorry that this recipe didn’t turn out for you. I’m wondering if you are possibly in a higher altitude, which can sometimes effect how baking is done. Also, if you notice some of the comments below, one thing to remember is that the milk needs to be warm and not cool down. I hope that helps, and again, we’re sorry that you had a bad experience.
I didn’t do it perfectly by any means, but they’re the best TASTING ones I’ve done so far. So many of my other attempts (with different recipes) turn out bland.
We are so happy to hear that! It’s great to have a dependable recipe that you know will work every time!
Can I sub whole wheat flour for white flour?
Absolutely!
Do you think this would work with fresh yeast too? I have a few ounces that I really need to use up.
Absolutely! We recommend a conversion of 2/3 ounce fresh yeast. Enjoy!
hi! how long can we store the dough in thr freezer? I want to make coffee buns, will it matter if i put cubes of butter in the dough balls? will the yeast be affected? TIA!
Dough should last you at least 3 months in the freezer. And as long as you prepare it according to your directions, it should freezer just fine — yeast, butter and all! Also be sure that you package it correctly! You might find some helpful tips here in this post! (https://onceamonthmeals.com/blog/series/get-started/foods-that-freeze-well/)
When you say to flash freeze, do you mean just stick them in a regular freezer for a short amount of time till frozen or is a flash freezer something entirely different? Thanks!
That is correct! Here is a helpful post on flash freezing: https://onceamonthmeals.com/support/what-is-flash-freezing/ Enjoy!