Sourdough Croissant Dinner Roll Recipe

Last Updated on December 3, 2025 by Jamie Saechao

These sourdough croissant dinner rolls are flaky, buttery and delicious! Simple and easy to make, these buttery bread rolls are the perfect side for holiday dinners, but make an excellent side for everyday meals as well!

This rolls are the perfect side for a Christmas ham or Thanksgiving turkey- but my family will seriously eat them any time. They are so good!

This flaky sourdough roll recipe was inspired by my popular sourdough croissant bread. It is essentially the same recipe, but instead of baking the whole loaf, we skip the second ferment and divide it into 12 rolls.

The mouth-watering croissant rolls are then baked in cupcake tins for 35-40 minutes, and the resultant rolls are tangy, buttery, flaky and delicious.

For more easy sourdough roll recipes try my flaky overnight rolls or same-day sourdough discard rolls.

Ingredients

You need just a few ingredients to make these amazing rolls:

• Active sourdough starter- your starter should be bubbly active before making this recipe.
• Cold butter- I like to freeze my butter before grating it into the dough
• Bread flour
• Salt- I like to use flaky sea salt in this recipe- it accents the buttery goodness perfectly!

Special Tools

I highly recommend using a kitchen scale to measure out the ingredients.

Use these parchment paper cupcake liners to prevent the rolls from sticking!

How To Make Sourdough Croissant Bread Rolls

Step 1: In a large bowl, mix together the water and sourdough starter. Add in the flour and salt and mix well. Cover the dough for 30 minutes.

Step 2: Perform first set of stretch and folds and grate in half of the frozen butter as you go. To stretch and fold the dough, pull one side of the dough up and fold it back over itself. Repeat on each side until the dough forms a tight ball. Cover the dough and let rest 30 minutes.

Step 3: Do a second set of stretch and folds, grating in the rest of the butter as you go.

Step 4: Cover the dough and let it bulk ferment for 7-8hours or until the dough is almost doubled in size. Keep the room temperature at 72 degrees F so the butter does not get overly soft.

Fermentation tips: The dough is done fermenting when the top is slightly domed, one or two bubbles are on the top, and it pulls away from the sides of the bowl easily.

Step 5: Dump the dough on a lightly floured work surface. Use your scale to divide the total weight of the dough by 12. Cut the dough into 12 equal pieces, and fold each piece of dough into a ball.

Gently roll each dough ball in a circular direction to tighten up the shape of the roll. Place each roll into a parchment cupcake liner and place in the cupcake tin.

Step 6: Bake at 375 degrees F for 35-40 minutes or until the tops of the rolls are lightly brown.

Remove from the oven and brush the tops with butter. Enjoy!

Recipes Notes + Tips

• If you only have salted butter, reduce the amount of salt by 1/2 teaspoon.
• Keep the room temperature at 72 degrees F to prevent the butter from melting.
• To amp up the flavor, add in herbs like dried rosemary, sage, or oregano.

Get my sourdough Thanksgiving recipe ideas here.

Baking Schedule

I designed this recipe to be a same day recipe, so I like to feed my starter the night before and mix the dough in the morning. The dough took about 8 hours to ferment at 72 degrees F.

If you’d like to make these rolls the night before and bake them the next morning you can do so. Make sure to keep the room temperature lower so that the butter does not melt.

Sample baking schedule:

• 7 am- mix dough
• 730 am- 1st round of stretch and folds
• 8 am- 2nd round of stretch and folds
• 3 pm- Shape rolls + bake
• 4 pm- Rolls are ready

Storage

Store bread rolls in an airtight container like a ziploc bag for 3-5 days. To freeze, seal the rolls in a freezer safe container for up to 3 months.

To reheat, heat the rolls in the oven at 325 degrees F for 10-15 minutes.