No fail, easy to make 6 ingredients homemade burger buns with a secret ingredient to keep them soft and fluffy longer. You will never buy burger buns from the store once you try these!
My husband’s favorite season is here! Grilling season that is!
As soon as the temperature hits 85ish, he’s all ready to show his grilling skills. And of course, no matter how good you are, and how juice your burger is going to be, your cookout will be memorable only if you have right burger bun! And this easy, no fail recipe for homemade burger buns has been made in my kitchen over and over again for the past 3 years! Yeah, it’s s keeper!
The buns are light and fluffy with a crusty exterior just like a burger bun should be! Store-bought can’t even begin to compare!
Why is recipe my favorite (and soon to be yours?) Because it calls only for 6 ingredients! And i’m sure you have them in your kitchen already.
Bread flour, active dry yeast, egg, mashed potatoes (you can use leftover mashed potatoes or a boiled potato mashed), butter and water. That’s it!
It may sound weird to add mashed potatoes to the dough, but in fact, it’s the starch in the potatoes that gives these buns the light, tender, and moist texture. And not only that, but they help the dough rise faster and prevents the bun to go stale.
To make them start by proofing the yeast. You can either proof the yeast with just lukewarm water in a separate bowl and add it to the flour or by making a well into the flour and let the yeast proof in there (one less dish to wash!)
The kneading process is done by your stand-up mixer. It takes about 8-10 minutes total, from the moment you start adding the remaining ingredients (salt, egg, mashed potatoes, water, butter) and it’s best if you knead the dough for few more minutes after it cleans itself from the sides of the dough.
Time to let the dough rest. You can either place the dough overnight in the fridge or, if pressed by time, at room temperature.
Giving your dough enough time to rise is crucial in bread baking. Rising times vary, but usually it takes about 1 hour to 1 hour and 30 minutes if the dough is left at room temperature and about 8-9 hours if the dough is placed int he fridge.
Once the dough is doubled in volume, give it a gentle knead and divide it into 12 buns. It’s best if you have a kitchen scale. Weigh each bun so that they’re all the same size. Do so by weighting the entire ball of dough first and divide by 12. It should be about 77 grams of dough in each ball.
Let the buns rest again while the oven is heating up.
I love brushing the buns with a lightly beaten egg. It gives that shiny crust, but you can completely skip this step. The same goes for poppy or sesame seeds. It’s a personal preference.
These buns can also be frozen! Bonus points! If you live in an area where the temperature gets so hot you don’t want to heat up your oven, make a bunch of buns early in the season (like right now!) and freeze them for later.
Bake the buns as directed, let cool completely, then place in an airtight container in the freezer for up to 1 month. Let defrost at room temperature before reheating in a 350°F oven until warmed.
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If you enjoyed these homemade burger buns, you may also like
The BEST homemade dinner rolls
Three cheese cheese filled dinner rolls
Happy baking,
Roxana
Bless you for this…I was just eating a grilled burger and wishing I had seen this earlier today! My bun was no where near as yummy as yours, I’m sure!
I will be making these , thanks so much they look so good!
they look perfect! I am afraid I would fail even such no fail buns 🙂
I love this! I have stared helpless in the bread aisle looking for buns. They are so expensive and look awful. I need to get on making our own.
These look amazing! Homemade buns are the best.
These buns look so good, Roxana. Perfect for summer grilling season!
Will be making these for Memorial Day weekend…
Love you’re recipes. ..
Thank you for sharing 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
For all the germans:
480g Mehl
7g Trockenhefe
60ml lauwarmes Wasser
1 Teelöffel Salz
1 Ei
125g Kartoffelbrei
120ml lauwarmes Wasser
60g geschmolzene Butter
Roxana,
These look fabulous! I was wondering, for the mashed potatoes, could instant be substituted? I’ve made mashed potatoes (following the directions on the box, adding milk/butter/water so they’re at the same consistency as regular mashed potatoes) and I was wondering if those would work, or would it ruin the recipe.
I know it’s weird to use pre-pakaged food in a homemade recipe, but as I have some on hand already, it would be a time saver.
Thanks for your lovely recipe! I’d love to make these soon.
Hi Sarah,
I’m sure you can use mashed potatoes from a box in this recipe. Just make sure you watch the dough so you don’t add to much water since the cinsistency might be slightly different.
Roxana
I make them from instant mashed potatoes and they turn out great. I do add more water as 1 cup water to 4 cups flour is no where near enough
Just found your site. Copied the bun recipes and will try these, I also am a self taught baker,cook and enjoy new recipes. Thank you for sharing your experience and information.
can i use a microwave since my oven doesnt really work it is really annoying
Hi Rose,
I don’t think baking this rolls into the microwave would work.
Oh okey ??
These are super good! I used half white half multigrain flour and instant mashed potatoes. They seemed kind of large so I split it into 18 buns and baked for 18 minutes.
Mashed potatoes???? Really?? How comes??
Hi Gigi,
Never say no before you try it!
Mashed potatoes not only add flavor to the dough but because potatoes are starch, when combined with the rest of the ingredients acts as a sugar helping the dough rise faster and it even helps making it fluffier.
Roxana
Followed to the letter and my dough ended up VERY dense–it rose, but wasn’t smooth at all after nearly 15 minutes in the mixer on the dough hook. I added a tiny bit more water because my KitchenAid was having some difficulty with it, but it still never smoothed out completely. Fresh yeast, fresh flour, everything–so I’m not entirely sure where this went wrong. It almost seems as if there’s too much flour, for as dense as my dough came out. Any other suggestions?
Hi Mikki,
Sorry to hear you had issues with your burger buns.
You mentioned you used fresh yeast and fresh flour so dry flour is not the issue.
My other thoughts would be: the humidity in your kitchen, accuracy of measuring the flour (I always weigh it) and the amount of gluten in the flour you used (Unfortunately, this differs from brand to brand) or overmixing the dough.
My advice to save the dough next time – work in a little bit more water by hand. Do not use the mixer as the more it kneads the dough, the more gluten is released and it gets even more drier.
Please let me know if you have issues next time,
Roxana
Love the recipe, but was wondering if you thought these could be made by using the dough cycle on a bread machine THEN letting the dough rise and divide into bun sized portions? I don’t have a stand mixer…yet.
Hi Lisa,
I do not have a bread machine but I know almost all bread recipes can be recreated into one.
My advice is to follow the manual for your machine and figure out the order you have to add the ingredients.
Please come back and let me know how it turned out.
Roxana
I’m wondering if this recipe would work in a bread machine
Hi Lori,
I really don’t know. You should be able to, it’s not a complicated recipe.
Read your bread machine manual to figure out the order you add the ingredients.
Please come back and let me know how you did it.
Roxana
Hi, I am trying your recipe now with strong bread flour (organic) as that’s what I found in my local grocery store if its ok.
And by mashed potato do you mean boiled potatoe only or potatoe with milk, sour cream & seasoning?
Hi Rabiya,
I have made this recipe with just plain boiled potatoes and mashed and with leftover mashed potatoes (with butter and milk) and worked every time.
Love the recipe! But no matter what I do the bottoms end up burnt. Any suggestions? I’ve tried parchment paper, a silicone baking mat…. still black on the bottom (before they are cooked through).
Hi Amanda,
I would lower the oven temperature. Most likely your oven cooks faster from the bottom.
Do you have the same issue every time you bake?
Hi ! I made them today. Came out very nicely. I want to know why the top crust is a bit hard. The middle was very soft and nice
Hi Nirosha,
Glad to hear you enjoyed these burger buns. I’m not sure why your top crust was a bit hard, but to prevent that in the future, brush the buns with butter as soon as you take them out of the oven.
Roxana
I made these tonight and they are GORGEOUS. I would post a picture but unfortunately it doesn’t look like I can. We did have to add about 1/4 cup more water but everything else was spot on. My husband used to cook in a place that made all their bread in house and these are FAR better than the hamburger buns they made. Keep up the good work!!!!!