Sourdough Hawaiian Rolls
Sourdough Hawaiian rolls are everything you ever dreamed of! These amazing, pull-apart dinner rolls are sweet, fluffy, buttery, and so easy to make.
They are delicious served with your Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner or make them into easy ham and cheese sliders for parties!
Who doesn't love sweet Hawaiian rolls with dinner?? I know we sure do! Now you can easily make these classic dinner rolls with your sourdough starter.
Just like our soft sourdough dinner rolls, sourdough sweet potato rolls or sourdough ciabatta rolls, this recipe comes with step by step instructions to make it as simple as possible!
Ingredients needed
This dough has a few added ingredients versus our other sourdough recipes. That's because in order to get that deliciously unique Hawaiian roll flavor, we need to sweeten things up a bit.
- bread flour
- pineapple juice
- milk
- butter
- sugar
- salt
- egg
Equipment needed
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Sample baking schedule
The following is an example of how you can structure your baking schedule to make these sourdough Hawaiian rolls fit into your life perfectly.
Because the dough is enriched with butter, sugar and pineapple juice, the rising times will be a little longer than usual.
The night before
7 PM - Feed your sourdough starter.
The next morning
6:30 AM - In a small saucepan, melt the butter, pineapple juice, milk, sugar and salt together over low heat. Pour the mixture into the bowl of a stand mixer and allow it to cool down to room temperature.
7 AM - Add the flour and active sourdough starter to the bowl and stir with a spatula until the ingredients are combined and there are no dry bits left in the bowl. Cover the bowl and allow to rest at room temperature for 1 hour.
8 AM - Using the dough hook attachment, mix the dough on the #1 speed for 8 minutes. Cover the bowl and allow the dough to rise until it has risen by 50% in size.
1 PM - Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and divide it into 12 pieces, approximately 74 grams each. Shape each piece into a ball by gathering up the sides and pinching them together. Turn the dough over so that the seam side is down on the work surface and gently form a smooth ball. Arrange them in a lightly greased glass baking dish. Cover the dish with a tea towel and let rise for 3-4 hours or until puffy.
4 PM - About 20 minutes before you are ready to bake preheat your oven to 375°F (190°C). Brush the top of the dough with the lightly beaten egg. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until they are golden brown on top. The internal temperature of the rolls should be 190°F when fully baked.
How to store it
Store the rolls in a bread bag, a beeswax cloth or wrapped in a clean kitchen towel at room temperature for up to 3 days. Heat the rolls in the microwave for 15 seconds to soften them up.
The baked rolls can be frozen for up to 3 months.
Common questions
A stand mixer makes this recipe easy, but you don't need one in order to still achieve great results. All you need to do is give the dough 3 sets of stretches and folds after the dough has rested for one hour in step 2 of the recipe. Allow it to rise by 50% and move on to shaping!
You can, but it's definitely not strong enough to give you the full pineapple sweetness you'd expect. I recommend looking for canned pineapple juice instead.
If using a tin baking dish, increase the oven temperature to 400°F (204°C). Rolls can also be baked in a muffin tin for 23-25 minutes.
If you'd like to prepare the dough and bake the rolls at a later time, after shaping the rolls in step 4, cover the dish with plastic wrap and store in the fridge for up to 36 hours. When ready to bake, allow them to have the second rise at room temperature until puffy and proceed with baking.
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Sourdough Hawaiian Rolls
EQUIPMENT
INGREDIENTS
Ingredients to make ½ cup (100 g) of Active Sourdough Starter
- 1 tablespoon (15 g) sourdough starter
- ⅓ cup + 1 tablespoon (50 g) all-purpose flour
- 3 ½ tablespoons (50) water
Dough Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons (28 g) butter
- 1 cup (240 g) pineapple juice
- ¼ cup (60 g) milk
- 3 tablespoons (36 g) sugar
- 1 ½ teaspoons (8 g) salt
- ½ cup (100 g) active sourdough starter
- 3 ⅔ cups (440 g) bread flour
Egg Wash
- 1 large egg (lightly beaten)
INSTRUCTIONS
Feed Your Starter
- 12 hours before you plan to mix the dough, add the ingredients to make ½ cup (100 g) of active sourdough starter to a clean jar. Stir until combined, loosely cover the jar and let the starter rise at room temperature. (The ingredients will create a total of 115 g active starter but, because some of it will stick to the sides of the jar during the transfer, we are making a little more than needed.) The sourdough starter is ready to use when it has doubled in size and there are plenty of bubbles on the surface and sides of the jar.
Make the Dough
- Melt butter: In a small saucepan, melt the butter, pineapple juice, milk, sugar and salt together over low heat. Pour the mixture into the bowl of a stand mixer. Allow the liquid to cool down to room temperature.
- Mix the remaining dough ingredients: Add the flour and active sourdough starter to the bowl and stir with a spatula until the ingredients are combined and there are no dry bits left in the bowl. Cover the bowl and allow to rest at room temperature for 1 hour.
- Stand Mix and First rise: Using the dough hook attachment, mix the dough on speed #1 for 8 minutes. Cover the bowl and allow the dough to rise at room temperature until it has risen by 50% in size. (See notes.)
- Shape: Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and divide it into 12 pieces, approximately 74 grams each. Shape each piece into a ball by gathering up the sides and pinching them together. Turn the dough over so that the seam side is down on the work surface and gently form a smooth ball. Arrange them in a lightly greased glass baking dish.
- Second rise: Cover the dish with a tea towel and let rise for 3-4 hours or until puffy.
- Bake: About 20 minutes before you are ready to bake preheat your oven to 375°F (190°C). Brush the top of the dough with the lightly beaten egg. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until they are golden brown on top. The internal temperature of the rolls should be 190°F when fully baked.
NOTES
- It's very important to take the ambient temperature of your kitchen into account when working with sourdough. Our recipes are tested in a kitchen that is 68°F (20°C). Both the first and second rise took about 4 hours each. If your kitchen is warmer, you will need to reduce your rising time in the first and second rise to avoid over-proving the dough.
- If you'd like to prepare the dough and bake the rolls at a later time, after shaping the rolls in step 4, cover the dish with plastic wrap and store in the fridge for up to 36 hours. When ready to bake, allow them to have the second rise at room temperature until puffy and proceed with baking.
- If using a tin baking dish bake rolls at 400°F (204°C). Rolls can also be baked in a muffin tin for 23-25 minutes.
Can you freeze them and reheat them?
Yes
Also, can you sub honey for the sugar to give it a more authentic taste or does the pineapple juice do the trick just on its own? I always thought it was honey that made it sweet - never realized it was pineapple juice! lol Either way, they sound delicious and pretty easy to make!
Yes you can sub honey for the sugar.
I do not have a stand mixer. Can I knead? How long? What signs do I look for to know it’s sufficient ?
Hi Tyler, yes you can knead the dough for 10 minutes by hand. The dough should be smooth and soft when it's done. You can also perform a window pane test by stretching the dough between your fingers to see if you can stretch it thin enough to see through it without the dough tearing.
I want to make these for Easter (my youngest son is OBSESSED with Hawaiian rolls!) Can I freeze these prior to baking? Like if I shape them and arrange them flat on a pan? I was wanting to do the same with regular soft dinner rolls so we will always have them on hand and ready to bake. Thanks for all the great recipes and thanks in advance for your time answering! 🙂
I recommend baking them and then freezing. They turn out better that way and freezing is my favorite way to store sourdough. They thaw out VERY well.
Can you sub just water or milk for pineapple juice if you are trying to make them a savory Hawaiian roll?
Hi Lisette! Here’s our recipe for hawaiian rolls: https://littlespoonfarm.com/sourdough-hawaiian-rolls-recipe/
10/10! Instead of bread rolls, I baked the dough as a loaf in a 9x5 loaf pan. It had amazing flavor and a good mouthfeel. The hardest part of making this bread was waiting, lol. I think I'll experiment next time by trying this recipe with apple cider instead of pineapple juice. Thanks!
This recipe was fabulous! Could I make the rolls ahead of time and freeze them?
I found the problem with my dough—-definitely my fault. I’ll try the recipe again tomorrow.
Hi Diane - could you share the problem you had and the correction? I’m on my second attempt - 3 hours in and not looking like much action.
I didnt measure the pineapple juice properly. I normally print out the recipe and have a ruler on each ingredient and slide it down after I measure it. With my first batch though, I just looked at the ingredients from my cell phone and got the measurement wrong.
Oh ok! Thank you! After reading some of the comments I realized I mis-read the comments on the best option for the pineapple juice. I had thought it said not to use the canned because the heating kills something that is needed in the pineapple juice, so I went with organic pineapple juice in the glass jar. Now I'm reading it again and it sounds like the canned is best as the unheated pineapple juice may cause issues with the fermentation. They taste great, but are a little dense. Next time I will try the can!
My dough didn’t rise, even after five hours.The starter was active and all the other ingredients were measured per the recipe.Any suggestions? Is there any hope for this dough or should I start from scratch.
Hi Diane, are you working in a cooler kitchen? When a dough has these extra ingredients, it does take longer to rise.
I just made these and they were delish!! Thanks for the recipe. I bulk fermented for 36 hrs in the fridge and rolled after the fact and baked. Thanks!!
What a great recipe use regular flour as I was out of bread flour turned out. Fabulous rose beautifully
slider buns or dinner rolls they taste fabulous they soft and delicious