Irish Soda Bread is the easiest bread you’ll make – no proofing or kneading required and the dough comes together in 5 minutes. Soda bread has a soft and tender crumb with a Biscuit-like texture.
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We love freshly baked bread, from Banana Bread to Homemade Focaccia. If you are a fan of easy bread recipes, this Irish Soda Bread is a must-try!
You’ll Love this Soda Bread!
I fell in love with Soda Bread the first time I tried it. Its lightly sweet crumb reminded me of our Paska Easter Bread and Hot Cross Buns, but it’s amazing how fast and easy it was to make a traditional Soda Bread.
What is Irish Soda Bread?
This Irish-American Soda Bread is traditionally baked for St. Patrick’s Day. It is a quick bread that uses Baking Soda (a.k.a. Sodium Bicarbonate) as the leavening to make it rise. Unlike traditional yeast bread, there is no proofing or rising time. Once the dough comes together, you score the top and bake right away.
Ingredients
We love adding raisins for the holidays, but the raisins are optional. If you want to make it without buttermilk, then kefir works just as well to activate the baking soda.
- Flour – all-purpose flour works best
- Sugar – 1/4 cup makes it a lightly sweet bread
- Salt – every good bread needs a fair amount
- Baking soda – leavening which makes the bread rise
- Butter – gives the bread a scone-like texture (use cold, unsalted)
- Buttermilk – activates the soda (use cold, low-fat)
- Egg – for a finer, richer crumb
- Raisins – optional and can be substituted for dried cranberries
Tips for the Best Soda Bread
- Do not over-mix – as with scones, the dough really just has to come together before baking.
- Sticky dough – the dough will feel sticky. Dust your work surface and hands with just enough flour to handle the dough.
- Cold ingredients – there’s no reason to bring ingredients to room temperature. Keep buttermilk, egg, and butter chilled.
- Generously grease the pan – buttering your cast-iron skillet before baking allows the bread to rise without sticking to the pan.
- Cool on a rack – Once out of the oven, transfer the soda bread to a rack to cool so it doesn’t steam and soften on the bottom.
How to Make Soda Bread
You’ll be amazed how fast and easy it is to form a loaf of this Irish-American Soda Bread.
- Prep – Preheat oven to 375. Grease a 10″ cast-iron pan with butter.
- Whisk dry ingredients – in a large mixing bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, salt, and baking soda.
- Add butter and raisins – cut butter into dice then work it into the flour mixture with clean dry fingertips until crumbs form. Stir in raisins.
- Buttermilk – In a large measuring cup, beat together buttermilk and 1 egg and pour into dry ingredients. Stir with a wooden spoon until moistened and the dough starts to come together.
- Form the loaf – transfer the dough to a lightly floured surface, dust hands with flour, and form dough into a round loaf. If too sticky to handle, dust with flour.
- Bake – transfer dough to the buttered pan and score the top with a deep “X”. Bake at 375˚F for 50-55 minutes.
How to know when Soda Bread is done baking? We bake for 50-55 minutes. When you tap the loaf it should sound hollow inside.
Common Questions:
You can omit the raisins, or even substitute them for dried cranberries or other bits of dried fruit like chopped apricots.
The buttermilk activates the baking soda, making the bread rise. You can substitute the buttermilk with a low fat plain Kefir.
It tastes similar to scones or biscuits but is very lightly sweet.
We love to serve soda bread is delicious served as a side with Irish butter and honey, or jam. It’s a lightly sweet bread so it pairs well with coffee or tea.
Scoring the top gives it extra surface area to brown and crisp.
Over-mixing or over-kneading the dough can make it tough. The less you handle it, the softer the bread will be.
Soda bread freezes really well. If you freeze it the day it’s baked (be sure it’s cooled to room temperature first), it will taste great thawed and toasted.
This Irish Soda Bread recipe is sure to become a holiday favorite for you. It’s so easy and you’ll impress everyone.
More St Patrick’s Day Recipes
If you love this Soda Bread, then you won’t want to miss these St. Patrick’s Day-inspired recipes.
- Green Smoothie Bowl – perfect for a St. Patty’s breakfast
- Zeppole – a special treat loved by all
- Spinach Artichoke Dip – your new favorite dip
- Guacamole Stuffed Deviled Eggs – you’ll love the green
- Roasted Brussels Sprouts – crispy with bacon
- Broccoli Apple Salad – with creamy dressing
Irish Soda Bread Recipe
Ingredients
- 4 cups all-purpose flour, plus 1/4 cup more for dusting
- 1/4 cup granulated sugar
- 1 tsp sea salt
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 6 Tbsp cold unsalted butter, plus 1/2 Tbsp to grease pan
- 1 3/4 cups cold lowfat buttermilk or kefir
- 1 large egg, cold
- 1 cup raisins or dried cranberries, optional
Instructions
- Preheat oven at 375˚F. Generously grease a 10” cast-iron skillet with 1/2 Tbsp butter.
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, salt, and baking soda. Cut butter into small pieces and use your fingers to work the butter into the flour until crumbs form stir in the raisins, breaking up any clumps of raisins. Make a well in the center.
- In a large measuring cup, whisk together the buttermilk and egg then add this mixture into the flour mixture. Use a wooden spoon and mix just until lightly moistened and dough barely starts to come together.
- Transfer to a floured surface and use floured hands to shape the dough just until it forms into a round loaf. It should be shaggy. If it’s too sticky to handle, dust lightly with flour. Do not over-mix or bread will be tough.
- Transfer to the buttered pan, use a knife to score the top with a large and deep “X”. Bake in the center of your preheated oven at 375 for 50-55min. When you tap on the bread, it should sound hollow inside. Transfer bread to a wire rack to cool. Enjoy within 2 days of making it and refrigerate leftovers up to a week.
Nutrition Per Serving
Filed Under
Great recipe. I used dried cranberries as the fruit. The bread was a huge hit at our Easter dinner we will be making this regularly. Just a note. After reading some of the earlier reviews, the ingredient measurements are spot on as written. I think it’s important to understand that this “bread” is more like a biscuit dough than bread dough. It is sticky and messy and you need to heavily flour your work surfaces/hands. So if after adding all the liquid, you have a wet sticky mess, you are doing things exactly right and are on your way to a delicious, perfectly textured soda bread. After pouring out the wet sloppy dough onto the well floured counter, gently forming it into a mass and folding it over a couple of times, it will have picked up enough extra flour to be pretty easy to work with and set in a pan. If the dough is not wet and sticky, the end result will not be as good. Thanks for sharing this wonderful recipe.
Hi John, I’m so happy you enjoyed the Soda Bread and thank you for sharing your detailed tips.
I think the folks who are struggling with very wet sticky dough are misunderstanding a key point that isn’t very clear in step 3. When it says to mix until the dough just comes together, I think that means that you should only incorporate enough of the liquid to make the dough just come together. It’s still a sticky dough, but you probably don’t want to use all of the liquid. Doing it this way worked well for me, and I had about a quarter cup of liquid left over (but it will depend on your conditions).
I gave it four stars because the recipe doesn’t have as much buttermilk flavor as some other recipes I’ve had, and I prefer that extra flavor. But overall it’s quite good.
This comment was very helpful! I added the egg then slowly added the buttermilk as I mixed. I ended up having about 1/3 left but I suspect it should be more. My dough was still very sticky but I dusted it with a ton of flour and that helped. I also took it out at 40 minutes because color was great and it sounded hollow. But when I sliced it, the very center was still a bit undercooked so I threw it back in the oven for another 10 minutes covered lightly in foil so that it wouldn’t brown any further. Taste and crunch are great!
This was absolutely delicious and easy to follow!! I followed the recipe exactly, except I used currants instead of raisins, and baked it for 53 minutes.
I followed directions exactly, not bothering to add flour to de-stickify my hands or any surfaces. I just moved it from bowl to heavily buttered cast iron skillet after mixing only enough to not see any flour… and it came out AMAZING. One thing is mine took a lot less time to bake. By 40 minutes it had the right color and sounded hollow, but just to be sure I let it go 5 more minutes. Fantastic recipe.
Measurements are WAY off. Please consider adding weighted measurements. You keep replying to comments saying maybe we did something wrong but we can’t all have been doing something wrong. Dough ends up being a sticky wet mess and not at all shaggy. Had to add a ton of extra flour and dough was still undercooked at 55 minutes.
Hi Haley, the next time I make this, I will weigh out the ingredients to double check but while the dough may seem wet or sticky, this consistency is typical for Irish soda bread and it helps form its characteristic crumb. It’s similar to biscuits. Make sure to use the extra 1/4 cup of flour for dusting and to keep your hands from sticking to the dough.
Great recipe and easy to make. Everyone loved it and had never had it before. Great compliment to st paddy’s day meal. Looked beautiful too! Thank you!
What am I doing wrong here! I had my second go at this recipe and the dough is just SO sticky and loose. Not at all like the photos. Are we not supposed to use the entire buttermilk + egg mixture? Thats the only thing I can think of.
Hi Joan, The dough should be more shaggy than sticky. I wonder if it needed a little more flour.
Can I substitute whole wheat flour instead of white flour?
Hi Sara! Several of my readers have reported good results splitting the two, using all purpose and whole wheat. Whole wheat will yield and more dense bread, you may also need to increase the hydration slightly since whole wheat absorbs more liquid.
Perfect recipe with fabulous results! I am going to try making with GF flour for my celiac daughter. Added a bit of ground flax for extra fiber and Omega-3’s. It was a hit at the St Paddy’s Day dinner I baked it for! Thank you.
You’re welcome! I’m so happy you enjoyed it, MC!
NATASHA
CAN I SUBSTITUTE HONEY FOR THE SUGAR
KIND REGARDS JIMMY STAPLETON
Hi Jimmy, I haven’t tested it with honey but it may work.
This recipe is perfect for Irish soda bread. The only change I made was to leave out the butter. It was truly enjoyed by my family. The best part of making the bread is it doesn’t fall apart like store bought irish soda bread. I toasted a piece for breakfast this morning. I made 2 of them and put cranberries and raisins 1/2 & 1/2 to what recipe calls for. The one with cranberries was a little sweeter. Thank you for sharing : )
You’re very welcome! I’m glad you enjoyed the recipe!