Sourdough Starter Recipe

A sourdough starter is a lively, bubbly, and active ingredient — and a vital component of chewy, tangy sourdough bread. Unlike commercial yeast, which you often find in small packets at the grocery store, sourdough starter relies on the naturally occurring wild yeasts and bacteria living all around us. While it takes longer to make bread with a starter than with commercial yeast, the payoff is worth it. Using a sourdough starter gives  bread a complex flavor, full of tangy, mildly acidic notes, and tends to greatly increase its shelf-life. 

Many people who are just beginning their bread-baking journey procure a starter from a friend or local bakery. However, making your own at home is simple and just requires a little time. The process is largely hands-off, simply requiring occasional feedings to train the starter to rise and fall on a regular schedule. Over the course of 12 days, the starter will become increasingly active, visible by many tiny bubbles, and it will have an acidic, slightly sour smell.

Simply stir together flour and water and let it stand at room temperature for a few days to get started. Using a mix of bread flour and whole-wheat flour helps to jump-start the starter’s activity since whole-wheat flour is full of nutrients that the yeast can feed on. Once the starter shows signs of life (bubbles), continue feeding it, and you’re well on your way to making delicious bread.

How to store sourdough starter

If storing your starter at room temperature, continue feeding it daily. To take a break from bread baking, you can store your starter in the refrigerator and decrease feedings to weekly. Before baking bread with a starter that’s been in the refrigerator, you will need to revive it at room temperature, with daily feedings, for at least three days prior to mixing the dough.

What can you make with sourdough discard?

Rather than trashing the sourdough discard that gets scooped out of the starter each day, you can keep it in a jar in the refrigerator for up to two weeks. Sourdough discard is packed with tangy, acidic flavor, and can be used in a variety of ways. 

Try adding it to biscuits, crackers, or spiced molasses cookies to bring a mildly acidic flavor and faint complexity. Or incorporate it into pancake or waffle batter to boost the yeasty flavor with very little effort. 

Notes from the Food & Wine Test Kitchen – 3 bullets

• Keep a container of the flour mixture in your pantry to make daily feedings quick and easy.
• If your tap water has high chlorine content, opt for bottled spring water instead.
• If you’re not planning to make bread for a few weeks, keep your starter in the refrigerator so you don’t have to feed it daily.