Easy White Soda Bread

4.74 from 45 votes

Make delicious, crusty white bread in under 40 minutes – with no kneading, or proving! My Easy White Soda Bread is super simple to make and only uses 4 ingredients! Wonderful eaten just as it is or as an accompaniment to soups and stews.

Course Bread

Cuisine Irish

Prep Time 10

Cook Time 30

Total Time 40

Servings slices

Calories 181kcal

Author Eb Gargano

Ingredients

350 g plain white flour (all-purpose white flour)
1½ teaspoons salt (or to taste - see note 6)
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda (see notes)
285 ml buttermilk (see notes)

Metric - US Customary

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 180C / 160C fan/ gas mark 4 / 350F.
Dust a baking tray (I actually use a pizza tray) with a little plain flour.
Mix all the dry ingredients together thoroughly. Tip in the buttermilk and stir to combine.
Keep stirring until the ingredients come together as a dough, then squidge together to form a ball.
Place the ball of dough on your baking tray and cut a deep cross in the centre. (This is really important as it helps the centre of the bread to cook properly – so cut nice and deep, almost to the bottom.)
If you wish, you can dust the loaf with a little flour, then place the bread in your preheated oven for 30 minutes.
Serve with soup, stew, salad, or cheese, olives and cold meats.

Notes

Baking soda is the same as bicarbonate of soda, however it is not the same as baking powder. Make sure you use baking soda/bicarbonate of soda in this recipe. Baking powder will not give the same result!
Instead of buttermilk you can use 200ml/7oz regular milk with 1 tablespoon of lemon juice, apple cider vinegar or white wine vinegar stirred in to sour it. Alternatively you can use natural yogurt.
You can make this recipe dairy free / vegan by using dairy free milk instead of regular milk, plus 1 tablespoon lemon juice, apple cider vinegar or white wine vinegar.
Flour does vary in absorbency, so you may find if you add all the buttermilk (or buttermilk alternative) your dough is too wet. To avoid this, add the liquid slowly and stop when the dough is soft and sticky but still able to hold a shape.
If you find your dough is too wet, add extra flour until it is able to hold its shape. Conversely, if you find your dough is too dry, simply add a splash of water or milk to achieve the correct consistency.
I have had a couple of comments about this recipe being too salty. Personally I find 1.5 teaspoons of salt to be just perfect for this size loaf (see the main blog post above for my reasoning), but taste is a very personal thing, so you may find 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of salt to be more to your liking.
Nutrition information is approximate and meant as a guideline only.

Nutrition