So, Macaroni Grill is one of my favorite places to eat. It could be because of the good food or the fact that they have half price wine bottles once a week. But in reality, it’s really because their rosemary bread is just so dang good. If you’ve never had the Rosemary bread from Macaroni Grill, you are missing out for sure. But don’t be sad, now you can make it at home!
If you’re scared of making bread because you are afraid you will mess it up, have no fear! I had never made any kind of bread that requires kneading and rising before this recipe. I was convinced it would not work at all because I didn’t know what I was doing. But this is SO EASY! (And delicious…have I mentioned that yet?)
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp yeast (I actually just used one little packet of yeast…measures out to be approximately 1 tbsp)
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 1 cup warm water
- 2 1/2 cups flour(I ended up using about 3 cups, actually)
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 tbsp rosemary (If you don’t love a lot of rosemary taste, just use 1 tbsp and don’t put any rosemary on top of the bread)
- 2 tbsp butter
Place yeast, sugar, and warm water in a bowl until it becomes bubbly. This takes usually about 5 minutes. When I first read this recipe, I had no idea what that was supposed to look like, so here is what it’s supposed to look like:
Yeast, sugar, water mixture is bubbly. (I would actually describe this as being more “frothy,” but then I’m an English teacher and get caught up on things like that…)
Then mix in butter, salt, 2 cups of the flour, and 1 tbsp of rosemary.
Should start to look like this once you start mixing…
If the dough is still too sticky (I have made this twice, now, and my dough both times was way too sticky), add more flour in until it is not so sticky. Like I said earlier, I have ended up using about 3 cups of flour instead of the 2 1/2 the recipe calls for.
After it is mixed together, you are supposed to knead the dough for 10 minutes. I have a Kitchen Aid mixer and don’t really know how to knead correctly (both my grandmothers would kick me out of the family for saying so…), so I just used the dough hook attachment on my mixer for 10 minutes until it looked like this:
Don’t know if I’m doing it correctly or not, but the end result was delicious, so who cares?!?
Take the dough out of the mixing bowl and place it into an oiled bowl. (DON”T forget to oil the bowl or else it will be impossibly messy to get the dough out of it later…speaking from experience…)
For those of you inexperienced bread bakers, like me, this will not look like a lot of dough. But I promise it will end up being enough to make 2 small loaves!
Cover the bowl with a towel and let the dough rise for about an hour. It should double in size.
After an hour, punch the dough down and divide in half. Let it rest for 5 minutes. (Because, it’s been sitting around so long…it’s tired…it “kneads” a break…)
Shape the dough into 2 small rounded loaves and go ahead and put them on the baking sheet they will be baking on. If you want more rosemary taste, sprinkle the remaining 1 tbsp of rosemary over the 2 loaves and press the rosemary in so it sticks. (Both times I’ve made this bread I skipped this step because I just didn’t want the added rosemary flavor. 1 tbsp mixed in the dough was plenty rosemary taste for me!)
Cover them with a towel and let them rise again for 45 minutes.
Then pop them in the oven at 375 for about 15-20 minutes until they are lightly golden brown.
Note the very light golden color.
Then, to make them taste even more like Macaroni Grill bread, spread some butter and sprinkle some Kosher salt on top of each loaf. (I’m pretty sure Macaroni Grill probably puts oil on top of their bread to make the salt stick to it, but butter seems like a better idea because it doesn’t stay oily like the original bread – the butter soaks in.)
One more little tip: If you’re going to have this bread with a meal, make sure you start the bread FIRST! The bread takes so little time to bake that you can make all the preparations for it first, then make the rest of the meal as it is rising, then stick it in the oven right before you’re ready to eat!
This bread also keeps and reheats fairly well.
This would be a fantastic side with either the Chicken Parmesan Casserole or the Chicken Rollatini.
Enjoy!
