Potato Rolls – Easy Homemade Recipe

Homemade Potato Rolls Recipe makes a soft and tender bread roll that’s slightly sweet. They make perfect dinner buns and great potato bread sliders too.

Potato bread rolls are so easy to make that even the beginner baker is going to love making them.

This recipe was originally written in 2017 and has been updated to improve your experience.

Potato Rolls recipes are a must for St. Patricks Day and so easy you can make them all year long.

What you’ll love about Potato rolls

You can make mashed potato rolls with leftover potatoes.

This potato bread roll recipe is that it’s so versatile, I’ll be sharing ways that you can change them up so they’re perfect with whatever you’re serving.

I know that baking bread can be intimidating for people that have never baked bread before or done it unsuccessfully. These potatoe rolls are so easy to make that they’re a great way to gain confidence in baking bread.

To some people, yeast is a scary ingredient. If you are one of those people, this Super Easy potato yeast bread roll recipe is for you!

What is a Potato Roll?

Potato rolls have cooked potatoes in the ingredients which make them moist and tender.

Potato roll ingredients

This recipe uses very simple ingredients and in uncomplicated steps. Let’s break it down.

• Mashed potatoes – peeled and boiled potato before any cream or butter is added. We used one medium-sized potato, 1 cup. You want to use them when they are at room temperature.
• Potato water – Retain one cup. You can also use plain warm water if you don’t have potato water.
• Instant yeast – Yeast may also be labeled as rapid-rise. If the different names for yeast confuses you, you’re not alone! I explain them here.
• Flour – All-purpose flour
• Sugar – White granular sugar
• Shortening – makes these rolls soft and tender. We always use the Crisco brand.
• Salt – We use Kosher salt in this recipe.

What you may need

• Baking sheets
• Measuring Cups & Spoons
• Pastry Brush

How to make potato rolls

This recipe can be hand mixed and kneaded. However, I’ve found that it works better with an electric stand mixer.

The dough is soft and buttery but not overly sticky. When I put the dough hook on the mixer it comes away from the sides of the bowl and forms a ball.

When you mix by hand, you may have to flour your hands to prevent the dough from sticking to your hands.

You use what you have. I’ve done it both ways and it works regardless.

1. Boil a medium-sized peeled and diced potato. Pour the potato water into a glass measuring cup. Mash the potato until fairly smooth.

2. Combine all of the ingredients into the bowl of an electric stand mixer fit with the paddle attachment. Mix until the ingredients are well combined.
3. Change the attachment on the mixer to the dough hook and allow the mixer to knead the bread for 7 minutes. The dough should come away from the sides of the bowl and form a ball.
4. Put the dough in a large bowl that’s been oiled or sprayed with non-stick cooking spray. Cover the bowl and let it rise for 90 minutes.

5. Divide and shape the dough. Place them on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet or in a baking dish. Cover them with oiled plastic wrap and let them rest for 1 hour.
6. Remove the plastic wrap. If you want to top with seeds or grains such as caraway, sesame, poppyseeds, or oats, brush with melted butter and apply your garnish.
7. Bake until golden brown. Brush with melted butter if desired.

Tips for the perfect Potato Dinner Roll

• If you’re making mashed potatoes for dinner, just make them earlier in the day. Scoop out a cup before adding the cream and butter for Potato Rolls!
  • You can either finish making your mashed potatoes and warm them up or finish making them right before dinner.
  • When you bake potatoes just add an extra one or two so you have leftover potatoes purposely to make this potato roll recipe.
• You can use instant mashed potatoes (not just the flakes). You’ll need 1 cup.
• Mashed potatoes blend better when they’re at room temperature or slightly warm but not too hot. You can kill the yeast mixture.
  • I mash the potatoes ahead of time and let them cool. Don’t forget to reserve the water.
• I like our rolls approximately the same size so they bake at the same rate.
  • Using a kitchen scale, weigh the entire piece of dough and then divide that number by the number of rolls that you want.
  • With this recipe, I’ve made 24 rolls perfect for dinner and 34 rolls ideal for sliders.
• If you want your rolls to be individual round rolls place the dough balls a little further apart on the baking sheet so they don’t touch once they’ve risen. For a tear-apart dinner roll, you can place them closer together in a baking dish so they’re touching once they rise.

• If you want to garnish the rolls with seeds or grains, brush the dough with melted butter and apply the garnish right away so it will stick. For ungarnished rolls, you don’t need to brush the dough with the butter.

• I brush our ungarnished baked potatoe rolls with butter because it keeps the crust soft.

If baking scares or confuses you, check out our Baking Basics Techniques, Tools, and Ingredients article.

These are dinner roll-sized but I could easily have made them into 12 hamburger-sized potato buns. I’ve made this recipe into 24 dinner rolls and even 34 smaller rolls for sliders.

That’s exactly what we do when we make Brioche buns too.

Potato Roll Variations

• As illustrated in the pictures, potatorolls can be baked individually on a baking sheet or in a baking dish.
• By topping the rolls with seeds and grains, they take on a whole new appearance, offering versatile serving options. Some of our favorites include oats, fennel, caraway, poppyseeds, or sesame seeds.
• Make a cheesy roll. Add up to 1/2 cup of cheese. My favorite is cheddar.
• Add seasonings to the dough. One teaspoon of Italian seasoning or a Mediterranean blend are amazing.

Storage Tips

Storing

Baked rolls can be stored in an air-tight container at room temperature for up to three days at room temperature or up to five days in the refrigerator.

They can also be placed in an airtight container and frozen for up to 3 months.

Can you freeze the unbaked dough?

You sure can. I let the dough rise and then shape the rolls. Put the rolls on a parchment-lined baking sheet and slip them into the freezer before they rise a second time.

Once they’re frozen, you can put them in an air-tight freezer bag or container and take out the amount you want to bake.

To bake, place the frozen bread on a parchment-paper-lined baking sheet and cover them with plastic wrap sprayed with non-stick cooking spray. Let them rise until doubled in size, 3 to 5 hours.

F.A.Q’s

We LOVE baking bread! You can find all of our bread recipes here!

Be sure to stop back and let me know how your potato rolls recipe turned out!

My neighbor stopped by and she ate the buttered prop for my photos and said they were like crack, which, in this case, is a good thing.

I sent her home with a bag for her family and told her to make sure her family got a few!

Did you enjoy this recipe? Don’t forget to pin it for later and follow me on Pinterest for more delicious recipes like this one!

We teamed up with some of our favorite bread bakers to bring some more Irish bread recipes to you. I found several that are on my must-make list!

• Apple, Beer, and Cheddar Soda Bread by A Baker’s House
• Cheddar and Herbs Soda Bread by Ambrosia
• Cranberry and Poppy Seed Irish Bread by kidsandchic
• Currant Drop Scones by A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Four Leaf Clover Rolls by Cook’s Hideout
• Guinness Bread Rolls by The Bread She Bakes
• Guinness Buckwheat Bread by Baking Sense
• Irish Amber Ale Pretzels by Cindy’s Recipes and Writings
• Irish Barmbrack by The Schizo Chef
• Oat and Potato Bread by Karen’s Kitchen Stories
• Irish Freckle Bread by Mayuri’s Jikoni
• Irish Freckle Bread by Passion Kneaded
• Potato Roll Recipe by Hostess At Heart
• Irish Multigrain Bread by What Smells So Good?
• Irish Soda Bread by Herbivore Cucina
• Soft Wheat Irish Soda Scones with Raisins (Spotted Dog) by The Wimpy Vegetarian
• Irish Soda Buttermilk Bread by Sizzling Tastebuds
• Irish Soda Farls by Food Lust People Love
• Potato Clover Leaf Rolls by Spiceroots