The Best Garlic Butter Rolls!

When we say show-stopping, we mean it. These Garlic Butter Rolls are worth making again, that our hubby inhaled a ridiculous amount the other day when we made them!

They are buttery, soft, fluffy (probably the fluffiest rolls we have made!), garlicky, so tasty and addicting!

We adapted this recipe from our easy dinner rolls recipe but made it even better by adding more butter to the dough making the bread so soft that it tastes like brioche.

Brushing the rolls after baking with a simple garlic butter and parsley mixture imbues a lot of flavor to the rolls, taking them to the next level of dinner roll deliciousness!

Ingredients For Garlic Butter Rolls

Here are the ingredients you need for the dinner rolls and the ingredients you need for the garlic butter.

For the soft dinner rolls you need:

Flour. All-purpose flour or bread flour would work here.
Salt
Sugar
Instant yeast or rapid-rise yeast. Using instant yeast quickens the bread-making process as you only have to let the rolls rise once.
Butter. Use good quality butter if you can. We love using Kerrygold!
Egg
Evaporated milk. We love evaporated milk for its concentrated flavor but you could use regular whole milk or 2% milk too.

Here are the ingredients you need for Garlic Butter to brush over dinner rolls:

Minced Garlic
Melted Butter
Minced Parsley. You could replace freshly minced parsley with dried parsley

See the recipe card below for quantities.

How it comes together

Here is how to make Garlic Butter Rolls in 8 easy steps!

1. Combine all ingredients for the rolls and mix to form a dough.

2. Shape the dough into 18 equal pieces.

3. Shape each piece into a ball and place in a greased baking dish.

4. Let the rolls rise in a warm place for one hour.

5. Bake until golden brown.

6. While the rolls bake combine all the ingredients for the garlic butter in a bowl.

7. As soon as the rolls are out of the oven, brush them with the garlic butter.

8. Serve the rolls warm.

Hint: consider grating parmesan cheese over your rolls for more flavor and a hint of saltiness from the parmesan. We have made these rolls with and without parmesan and both ways are satisfying! It’s just a matter of preference.

Serve these rolls with this insanely good Beef Stew Without Wine.

Other ways

You can switch up your garlic butter rolls by trying the following variations.

Different Herbs – add different herbs like rosemary or thyme to the garlic butter. Use the herbs fresh and mince them before adding them to the garlic butter. The flavors of rosemary and thyme also ring of the holidays so add them to bring some holiday flavors if serving these for the holidays.
Add Cheese – Consider grating a nutty and salty cheese like Parmesan cheese or Asiago cheese over the warm rolls.
Bread Flour – If you can find bread flour, use it instead as bread flour gives more structure and elasticity to your bread due to its high protein content. However, all-purpose flour works just fine.

Also, see these easy dinner rolls which are ready in one hour!

Make Ahead

To make these Garlic Butter Rolls ahead, make the dough, shape the rolls, and let them rise overnight in the fridge. Then remove from the fridge and bake the next morning. Note that the rolls will take longer to bake when the dough is cold.

Yield: 18 rolls
Prep: 30 minutes
Cook: 20 minutes
Total: 1 hour 50 minutes

Ingredients

4 cups all-purpose flour, or bread flour
1 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon instant yeast, or 1 0.25 sachet
1 ½ cups evaporated milk, from a 12 ounce can
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 large egg, room temperature
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

Garlic Butter

3 large cloves garlic, finely minced
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 tablespoon minced parsley, substitute with 2 teaspoons of dried parsley
Grated parmesan, optional

Method

Prepare pan. Grease a 9 by 13 baking dish with butter or cover a cookie sheet or half sheet pan with parchment paper.
Heat milk. Place the milk into the microwave and heat up for about 45 seconds. Stir the milk after heating so it is evenly heated. The milk should be heated up to about 110 or 115° F.
Make dough. To the bowl of a stand mixer, add all ingredients for the rolls except the 2 tablespoons of softened butter. Note that this is different from the 3 tablespoons of melted butter. The melted butter should go in the dough. Add the dough mixer attachment and on low speed, mix all the ingredients to form a dough. You could also mix all the ingredients in a mixing bowlby hand.
Add extra butter to dough. To the dough, add the remaining two tablespoons of softened butter, one tablespoon at a time making sure each one is incorporated before adding the next tablespoon.
Shape dough. Flour a working surface and place the dough on it. Divide the dough into 18 equal pieces. Start by cutting the dough into 3 equal pieces then cut each of the 3 pieces into 6 equal pieces. If you want to get nerdy and make sure the pieces are truly equal, use a kitchen scale to weigh them so they are around the same size. We just eyeball them. Roll each dough into a ball and place in the prepared greased 9 by 13 baking dish or a baking sheet.
Let dough rise. Place the rolls in a warm place to rise for one hour until doubled in size. For us, this is often one of our ovens. You could just cover the rolls with a clean kitchen towel and place the baking dish or sheet in a warm spot in your kitchen.
Preheat oven. As the dough rises, preheat oven to 350° Fahrenheit or 180° Celsius.
Bake rolls. Place the rolls into the oven and bake for 20 minutes until golden brown on top and completely cooked through.
Make garlic butter. While the rolls bake, in a small bowl combine the garlic, melted butter and parsley.
Brush with garlic butter. Remove the rolls from the oven and immediately brush with the garlic butter. Sprinkle some freshly grated parmesan over the rolls if desired.
Serve. Serve warm slathered with butter or with your favorite side dish.