Easy Sourdough Discard Irish Soda Bread

This easy sourdough Irish soda bread is a great and quick recipe perfect for St. Patrick’s Day or any time of the year! With just 8 basic ingredients, including sourdough discard, this recipe couldn’t be simpler to make! It’s easy, quick, and delicious, it’s perfect for breakfast, serving alongside stew and soup, or with a cup of tea as an afternoon snack!

While most people wouldn’t know it, my family actually has a lot of Irish heritage. In fact, we still have relatives there to this day(at least last time I checked). While I’ve always enjoyed getting to learn about where my family comes from, for most of my life I have to admit I didn’t know much about Ireland, outside of the Irish potato famine. And I knew nothing about Irish cooking or Irish food.

It wasn’t till I was almost 18 that I finally got around to studying Irish food. Where it came from, and what were the most authentic Irish recipes? If you know much about Irish food it probably won’t come as any surprise that soda bread was one of the first Irish recipes I ever tried.

This simple bread is beyond easy to make, uses only simple ingredients you likely already have in the cupboard, and tastes amazing!

After several years of making a traditional Irish soda bread recipe, I decided I wanted to start experimenting with new flavors and ingredients. A lot of things came to mind, orange zest, caraway seeds, raisins, cheese, the list went on and on.

But at the moment I just so happened to have quite a bit of sourdough discard I needed to use, so I thought why not use sourdough discard? Why not take my leftover sourdough starter, and make homemade sourdough Irish soda bread?

In case you were wondering that’s exactly what I decided to do. Not only did this recipe come out perfectly on the first attempt. But it might also be my new favorite way to use up extra sourdough discard!

I especially like to serve this sourdough soda bread, with corned beef and cabbage or Irish stew, at our St. Patrick’s Day dinner. It’s extra delicious if you serve it topped with creamy Irish butter too!

Sourdough Irish Soda Bread Recipe

If you don’t have a sourdough starter yet, be sure to check out my easy tutorial How To Make a Sourdough Starter at Home! Making a sourdough starter is super easy! And it takes only 7 days from start to finish!

Ingredients

• sourdough starter discard
• buttermilk*
• an egg
• all-purpose flour, you can also use bread flour, whole wheat flour, white flour, Irish flour, and whole grain flour​
• cane sugar
• baking soda
• sea salt
• cold butter, cubed

How to Make Sourdough Irish Soda Bread

​Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Lightly grease, a large cast iron skillet, and set aside. You can also use a glass baking dish or a Dutch oven. If you like you can line your pan with parchment paper, but I’ve never had my bread stick to the pan.

In a small bowl whisk together the wet ingredients(the buttermilk, egg, and sourdough discard) and set aside.

In a large bowl, combine the dry ingredients (the flour, sugar, baking soda, and sea salt.) Add the cubed butter and mix with your hands or a pastry cutter, until it resembles coarse, pea-sized crumbs.

Pour the milk mixture, into the flour mixture, and using a dough whisk or your hands, mix the dough just until it comes together.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface, and gently knead until the dough comes together enough for you to form a ball. Your dough should be slightly wet and resemble biscuit dough.

Shape your dough into a ball, and place it in your prepared skillet.

With a sharp knife, cut a slit in the top of the bread, roughly 4 inches long and 1/2 inch deep. You can also cut a deep cross on the top of the dough.

Place the bread in the preheated oven and bake for 45-55 minutes, or until the bread is golden brown and cook through. (see notes if you are having trouble baking your bread)

Remove the bread from the oven and allow it to cool, either in the skillet or on a wire rack for 10 minutes before serving.

Enjoy!

Recipe Notes

*if you don’t have buttermilk handy, you can easily create your own sour milk at home! Add 1 1/2 tbsp. white vinegar to a liquid measuring cup. Pour in the milk until the measuring cup reads 1 1/2 cups. Allow the milk to sit at room temperature for 10 minutes before starting your bread. This method can be used to replace buttermilk in any recipe!

If the outside of your bread is getting too dark but the middle isn’t quite done yet. Cover the top of your bread loosely with aluminum foil, to help prevent the top from burning. Bake the bread for an additional 5 minutes at a time, until done.

You can also use a toothpick inserted into the top of the bread to check if the middle is done.

This soda bread can be stored in an airtight container or tightly wrapped in plastic wrap. (you can store the whole loaf or the bread slices.) At room temperature for up to 5 days!

If you don’t have a sourdough starter yet but are interested in learning how to make your own, feel free to check out my post How to Make a Sourdough Starter at Home.

To the best of my knowledge, an active sourdough starter can also be used in this recipe. Since you aren’t leaving the dough to rise, you shouldn’t have to worry about dough fermenting or causing any unwanted rise in your soda bread. But personally, I have only ever used discard for this recipe, so I can’t be certain how active/feed sourdough starter would act in this recipe. If you do try it with your active starter be sure to leave a comment and let me know!

Looking for more sourdough discard recipes to try? Be sure to check out these!

Easy Sourdough Discard Brownies