29 sourdough bread starter recipes

Two-ingredient sourdough starter made with just flour and water, left to ferment for 4-5 days. The simplest way to capture wild yeast for homemade sourdough bread.

Just milk, yogurt, and flour. This 3-ingredient sourdough starter uses live yogurt cultures to kickstart fermentation, giving you a bubbly, tangy base for homemade sourdough bread in about 3 days.

Grape starter for sourdough bread uses wild yeast from red grape skins to build a tangy, fruity base with just flour and water. A 6-day fermentation process creates a living starter you can maintain for months.

Old-fashioned milk-and-flour sourdough starter with no commercial yeast. Two ingredients capture wild bacteria for tangy bread. Patience required.

Easy pumpkin loaves made with sourdough starter and biscuit mix for a shortcut spiced bread with raisins, walnuts, and a sweet golden glaze.

Rye sourdough starter made the old Jewish bakery way: rye flour, water, a packet of yeast, and a halved onion that pulls in the wild flavor for classic deli-style rye bread.

Vegan sour rye bread with caraway seeds, sourdough starter, rye flour, and gluten flour for a chewy, tangy loaf. Works by hand or in a bread machine. Freezes well.

Potato flake sourdough starter: a simple three-ingredient base of water, sugar, and instant potato flakes left to ferment for 3 to 4 days. The sweet, old-fashioned starter used in friendship bread and soft white loaves.

Old-fashioned potato sourdough starter built on potato water, flour, sugar, and a pinch of yeast. The starches feed wild and added yeasts together for a tangy, vigorous base for breads, pancakes, and biscuits.

Stir flour, yeast, and water together to create a simple sourdough starter that bubbles to life in days, ready to bake tangy bread without fussing over wild yeasts.

Plain sourdough starter made from just flour and water. No commercial yeast needed. Mix, wait four to five days, and you have a wild-fermented base for bread.

Traditional German rye sourdough starter (Sauerteig): a three-phase rye flour and water leaven built over 3 days for authentic German rye bread baking. Maintainable and long-keeping.

Yeasty sourdough starter is the shortcut version: unbleached flour, a packet of dry yeast, and water mixed into a thick batter and left warm for a day. A fast track to bread baking when you don't want to wait two weeks for a wild starter.