Artisan Multigrain Bread

This no knead artisan multigrain bread recipe requires very little hands-on time and makes two hearty loaves of bread. Enjoy right away or freeze for later!

What if we told you you could make fresh, artisan bread at home, with minimal active time and a fraction of the cost of store-bought bread? Most bread recipes require many hours of labor. But there’s a type of bread making called no knead bread, where you can mix up a batch, throw it in the refrigerator for a few hours (or overnight, for up to 2 weeks), and then shape and bake it the day you want to eat it. It’s truly simple, compared to other bread recipes. Keep reading for this multigrain bread recipe, and more about baking bread.

Making this no knead multigrain bread

Alex and I been looking for an easy multigrain bread recipe. So we connected with the queen of no knead artisan bread herself, Zoë François, co-author of the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day books. Perhaps you’ve heard of them? We used to bake from that book years ago; fast forward a few years and turns out Zoë  is actually a friend of our dear friend Sarah! 

For this multigrain recipe, Alex and I adapted a recipe from Zoë’s new cookbook, The New Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. We increased the rye and wheat flours to have a little more nutrition and toasty flavor. Then we added some texture with mix-ins: oats, sunflower seeds, and quinoa. The result? We loved it. It’s our new go-to multigrain bread recipe! We can’t tell you how happy we are to be able to make our own bread: it tastes amazing and is nowhere near the cost of our favorite store bought artisan bread.

Interview with author Zoë Francois

Even better, we caught up with Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day author Zoë here to ask her more about no knead artisan bread recipe in the interview below. We are honored to share her insight and story!

You’re a successful baker and author in Minneapolis. How did you get started baking?

Zoë: I started “baking” when I was about 7 years old. My friend and I would mix random ingredients together, throw it into the oven and wait to see what would happen. The results were technically edible, but the real reason we did it was to watch things blow up. My mom wasn’t much of a baker (which is an understatement), so if I wanted sweets, I had to make them myself. And, as a teen, I always wanted sweets!

I spent a lot of time developing my own cookie recipes. In college, I took those recipes and started a cookie company. That makes it sound a lot bigger than it was, which was actually a cart that I’d push into downtown Burlington, VT and sell to the local business people at lunch. I had enough regulars that I took a semester off from school and baked full time.

After finishing college and going into a less than satisfying career in marketing, I got the pull to bake again. I ended up at the CIA in NY and then working for Andrew Zimmern in Minneapolis before he went global eating bugs and critters.

How did the Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day book come about?

Zoë: I quit my job as a pastry chef when I had my first son, since the restaurant business is crazy and not entirely conducive to family life. I was at a music class with my then 2-year-old son and met Jeff Hertzberg, a doctor and enthusiastic home baker. He shared a “recipe” with me that he’d been working on and asked me to try it out. I resisted for as long as I could, because it just didn’t seem like it would work and I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. The concept of storing dough in the refrigerator flew in the face of everything I’d learned in culinary school and when something seems too good to be true, it generally is.

Well, Jeff is a very persistent man and I eventually tried it. I came back to the music class the next week and told him he absolutely had to get the recipe in front of everyone. I was hysterical about the whole thing, the bread was amazing, it was easy and it was fast enough to make sense in every busy person’s life. He had called the radio show The Splendid Table to ask Lynne Rosetto Kasper how to get a cookbook published. An editor happened to be listening to the show, she contacted Lynne to find out how to get in touch with Jeff and that is how our first book came to be. Jeff asked me to be a part of it because that first recipe was in rough shape (another understatement) and he wasn’t particularly fond of cookbooks. I did it for the experience and next thing I know, we’re finishing up our 5th book together.

What are the major benefits of baking homemade bread?

Zoë: Our method produces artisan quality bread for a fraction of the cost of what you can buy it for at the store. It costs about 50 cents to bake a 1-pound loaf of our master artisan bread recipe. You can’t even buy a slice for that little in a bakery anymore.

The main reason people stopped baking bread was that the process intimidated them, or they assumed it took too long. We created our method with them in mind. We knew it needed to be so easy that even the most tentative cook would want to try it and it had to be fast. We’re all so busy that spending the day on a loaf of bread just isn’t realistic for most folks. 5 minutes we can do.

Obviously, that is the active time. Another great reason to bake your own bread is to have total control over the ingredients you are using. Our master recipe is just flour, water, yeast and salt. That is all you need to bake a gorgeous loaf of bread.

Are there health benefits to home-baked bread?

Zoë: Most bread you find in the grocery store (especially those in plastic bags) has all kinds of preservatives, food color and lots of unnecessary sugars. Many of the whole wheat breads are mostly white flour, but they add molasses and food colors to make it look like whole grain bread. Many of our readers want more control over what they are eating, and baking their bread is a great place to start. Our second book, Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day, was written because our readers were asking us for more whole grain breads.

How do you respond to the popularity of eating gluten-free?

Zoë: I had never heard about Celiac disease before we wrote our first book. When it came out in 2007, our website was flooded with requests for gluten-free versions of our fast and easy recipes. We started developing some to satisfy the requests. It became obvious that it wasn’t just a few folks; it was many. We added a chapter of gluten-free breads in HBin5 and got a tremendous response. The numbers of folks who are being diagnosed with Celiac disease is growing, as are the number of people who are intolerant and sensitive to wheat. Jeff and I decided that a small chapter in our wheat filled books wasn’t really fair to these folks, so we have just written a book that is entirely gluten-free. Gluten-Free Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day will be out in October.

Bread is a staple in our diet, as it is all over the world. Both Jeff and I bake it daily. Neither of us has gained any weight during this 10 year, bread-baking adventure, because we eat it in moderation. Jeff, the doctor, always says “everything in moderation, even moderation!”

Anything else to share?

Zoë: We understand that bread baking seems intimidating, so we have a website where we have videos and lots of pictures to show just how easy it is. We also invite all of our readers to come ask questions and Jeff or I am there to help 24/7!

Thank you so much to Zoë for your inspiration and insight!

How to store bread

Because this homemade multigrain bread contains no preservatives, it won’t stay fresh for long on your counter. With that said, you can store it in a paper bag or cloth bread bag at room temperature for a few days, or freeze the entire bread loaf before slicing it. To freeze the bread, wrap it in plastic wrap and then seal it in a zip top bag. When you’re ready to eat the multigrain bread, place it on your countertop to thaw. Whatever you do, do not store homemade bread in the fridge, otherwise it’ll dry out!

Looking for more homemade bread recipes?

Outside of this artisan multigrain bread, here are some of our favorite bread recipes:

• Homemade Sourdough Bread
• Pita Bread Recipe
• Artisan Dutch Oven Bread
• Tomato Sage Parmesan Cornbread
• Pizza Dough Rye Cracker Crust
• Garlic Herb Focaccia Bread
• Whole Grain Homemade Pita Bread
• No-Knead Rustic Bread Recipe
• Raspberry Braided Bread
• Healthy Banana Bread

Looking for ways to use multigrain bread?

Here are a few ways we love to use our multigrain bread:

• Avocado Toast with Turmeric Egg
• Vegan Banana French Toast
• Dippy Eggs with Cheese-Fried Toast Sliders
• Easy Chickpea Salad Sandwich
• Ultimate Rainbow Veggie Sandwich

This recipe is…

This multigrain bread recipe is vegetarian, vegan, dairy-free and plant-based.

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