Make this garlic rosemary sourdough bread for a handsome homemade loaf with a chewy crust, airy center, and fine herb-and-garlic aroma!!

Garlic rosemary sourdough bread is what you make when a plain loaf feels a little too well behaved!

This golden, crackly sourdough has a chewy, airy center ribboned with sweet roasted garlic and fresh rosemary, so every slice smells like a bakery and tastes ready for butter, soup, sandwiches, or shameless snacking beside the cutting board.

Roasting garlic first keeps its flavor mellow and almost buttery instead of sharp, while a long cold proof gives this loaf a balanced tang and a crust that sings when you press it.

Ingredients

For Roasted Garlic

• 1 medium head garlic, about 10 to 12 cloves
• 1 teaspoon extra-virgin olive oil
• Small pinch fine sea salt

For Sourdough Dough

• 450 grams bread flour, about 3 3/4 cups when spooned and leveled
• 50 grams whole wheat flour, about 1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon
• 350 grams water, about 1 1/2 cups, divided, at 78°F to 80°F
• 100 grams active sourdough starter at 100 percent hydration, about 1/2 cup
• 10 grams fine sea salt, about 1 3/4 teaspoons
• 8 grams fresh rosemary leaves, about 2 packed tablespoons after finely chopping
• 35 to 40 grams cooled roasted garlic, usually all cloves from 1 medium head

A Practical Baking Schedule

Feed starter around 8:00 a.m. Roast garlic near lunchtime, mix dough around 1:00 or 2:00 p.m., complete folds during the next two hours, shape in early evening, and refrigerate overnight.

Bake directly from refrigerator next morning. Shift this schedule to match your starter, since dough readiness matters more than any clock!

Servings: 12 slices

How to Make Garlic Rosemary Sourdough Bread 

Heat oven to 375°F. Slice about 1/4 inch from top of garlic head so tips of most cloves are exposed, set garlic on a small sheet of foil or in a covered ramekin, drizzle exposed cloves with olive oil, add a small pinch of salt, and wrap loosely but securely.

Roast for 40 to 50 minutes, checking around 40 minutes, until cloves look golden, feel completely soft when pressed with a knife, and smell sweet rather than raw.

Let garlic cool fully, then squeeze cloves from their skins and mash them lightly with a fork. Do not add warm garlic to dough, because heat can weaken starter activity and make fermentation less predictable.

Place bread flour and whole wheat flour in a large bowl, pour in 330 grams water, and mix with your hand until no dry flour remains. Dough will look rough and feel sticky, which is exactly where it should be.

Cover bowl and rest for 30 minutes. Do not skip this rest, because it gives flour time to absorb water and makes dough smoother with far less wrestling later!

Add active starter over dough, then pinch, fold, and squeeze mixture until starter disappears into it. Dissolve salt in remaining 20 grams water, pour it over dough, and continue pinching and folding until water is absorbed.

Dough may briefly feel slippery and uncooperative, but keep going for two or three minutes and it will come back together. If your flour already feels very loose after adding starter, add reserved water a teaspoon at a time rather than all at once.

Cover bowl and let dough rest for 30 minutes, then perform one set of stretch-and-folds by wetting your hand, lifting one edge until you feel resistance, folding it across center, rotating bowl, and repeating on all four sides.

Rest another 30 minutes and repeat. Dough should begin feeling more elastic, smoother, and less likely to tear, which is your cue that it can now carry flavorful additions without collapsing.

After second fold, gently stretch dough into a rough rectangle inside bowl or on a barely damp counter, spread half of mashed garlic and rosemary across its surface, fold one side toward center, add remaining garlic and rosemary, then fold other side over it like a letter.

Roll or tuck dough back into a loose ball and return it to bowl. Work gently here! You want visible layers of garlic and herbs, not a fully mashed paste that leaks through every seam.

Complete one or two more sets of gentle coil folds at 30-minute intervals, stopping once dough holds its shape and resists stretching.

Let it continue fermenting undisturbed until it looks puffier, has a slightly domed surface, shows bubbles along bowl, jiggles when you shake it, and has risen roughly 30 to 50 percent. In a 75°F to 78°F kitchen, total bulk fermentation commonly takes 4 to 6 hours from moment starter was added.

Do not wait automatically for dough to double, especially in a warm room, because an overproofed loaf can spread and bake up flatter than your Sunday motivation.

Lightly flour your counter and ease dough out without punching out its air. Use a bench scraper to guide it into a loose round, pulling it gently across counter until surface gains light tension, then let it rest uncovered for 20 to 25 minutes.

It may relax slightly, but it should not melt into a puddle. If it spreads quickly, shorten bench rest and move to final shaping sooner.

Dust top lightly with flour, flip dough so smooth side faces down, gently stretch it into a rectangle, fold left and right sides inward, then roll from top toward you while keeping tension along outer skin. Pinch seam closed only if needed.

Place loaf seam-side up in a generously rice-floured proofing basket or a bowl lined with a clean, well-floured towel. Cover and refrigerate for 10 to 16 hours.

Do not leave it uncovered, since a dry skin can crack in strange places and steal attention from your carefully scored top!

Place Dutch oven and lid inside oven, then preheat to 475°F for 45 minutes. A properly heated pot gives chilled dough immediate oven spring, so resist putting loaf into a barely warm pot because you got impatient and started making coffee.

Cut a sheet of parchment slightly wider than loaf. Turn cold dough onto parchment, brush away excess flour, and score one confident slash about 1/2 inch deep at a 30 to 45-degree angle across top.

A shallow decorative pattern is optional, but one main expansion score is not. Lower loaf carefully into hot Dutch oven, cover immediately, place pot in oven, and reduce temperature to 450°F.

Bake covered for 25 minutes, then remove lid, reduce temperature to 425°F, and bake for another 20 to 25 minutes until crust is a rich chestnut brown and loaf sounds hollow when tapped.

If you use a thermometer, center should register about 208°F to 210°F. If crust darkens too quickly because rosemary or garlic reaches surface, lower oven to 400°F for final 10 minutes rather than pulling bread early and leaving a gummy center.

Lift loaf onto a wire rack and cool for at least 2 hours before slicing. I know this feels unreasonable when your kitchen smells like roasted garlic and a bakery, but cutting too soon releases steam and compresses crumb, leaving it sticky around knife.

Listen for tiny crackles as crust cools, then slice once loaf feels only faintly warm at its center!

Serving Suggestions

Serve thick slices warm with salted butter, whipped ricotta, goat cheese, or good olive oil with cracked black pepper. It is excellent beside tomato soup, white bean soup, chicken noodle soup, beef stew, roast chicken, baked salmon, or a large chopped salad.

For breakfast, toast a slice and top it with scrambled eggs, avocado, or cottage cheese. For lunch, use it for grilled cheese, turkey sandwiches, caprese sandwiches, or open-faced tuna melts.

For a quick appetizer, toast thin slices, rub them lightly with a cut garlic clove, and spoon tomatoes or marinated white beans over top.

This garlic rosemary sourdough bread earns a permanent place in your baking rotation because it delivers everything a savory loaf should offer: a crisp, deeply bronzed crust, a springy open crumb, sweet pockets of roasted garlic, and fragrant rosemary in every bite! 

Hungry for more feel-good meals? Explore these 21 Anti-Inflammatory Breakfast Recipes for a nourishing start and 10 Anti-Inflammatory Dinner Recipes for delicious evenings that make healthy eating easy!