Looking for some easy, healthy, and most importantly incredibly tasty recipes for your bread machine? While some thoroughly enjoy the process of kneading bread, others prefer to take five minutes, pour their ingredients in a pan, press a button, and have a warm, fresh loaf a few hours later. Can you blame them? Using a bread machine can be a daily part of your routine and is a fantastic and inexpensive way to make bread that is actually healthy for you - as far as bread goes, anyway. We’re going to give you four healthy bread machine recipes for some easy and tasty ideas.
Why is Homemade Bread Healthier?
Although not all homemade bread is healthier for you, it certainly can be when you’re choosing the ingredients yourself. Here are a few reasons why you should choose homemade bread over store-bought.
Healthier Ingredients & No Preservatives
When you’re selecting ingredients for your homemade bread, you have the option to make it as healthy as you want. Some easy way to make healthier choices when it comes to your homemade bread are:
Unless you decide to add them in yourself, homemade bread does not contain any nasty preservatives or artificial ingredients. This alone makes your bread healthier than any packaged, store-bought loaf you can buy.
Free of Allergens
Making your own homemade bread is the perfect way to make sure you don’t include any ingredients that you may have an allergy to. This includes but is not limited to dairy and gluten. There are plenty of options available that you can use to substitute either. Even buying expensive dairy or gluten-free options at the store runs the risk of cross-contamination. Baking your bread yourself ensures that this is not a problem.
Lower Sodium
Ever looked at the nutritional values on the back of a packaged loaf of bread and were shocked by the amount of sodium contained in a single slice? The average slice of bread on your supermarket’s shelf contains 130 mg of sodium. Making your own bread allows you to limit the amount of salt you include as much as possible.
The Option to Use Whole Grains
While you can still make a loaf of bread that is considerably healthier than the average commercially produced loaf using white flour, you have the option to use whole grains if you wish. Why use whole grains as opposed to refined white flour? It has more nutrients and more fiber which is a great way to consume your USDA recommended amount of whole grains per day. You can put your own take on a whole grain loaf by adding additional seeds and grains, such as flaxseed, pumpkin seed, linseed, sesame and/or sunflower seeds for additional nutrients and omega-3 fatty acids.
4 Healthy Bread Machine Recipes
Honey Whole-Wheat Sandwich Bread
This healthy spin on a basic sandwich bread only takes five minutes of prep time and three to five hours to bake. This is a great recipe for those who suffer from allergies as it’s dairy-free, egg-free, and peanut/tree-nut free.
Ingredients
Instructions
Note: For an option with less baking time, select the “Quick Whole Wheat” setting on your bread maker (if applicable).
Healthy Multigrain Bread
This multigrain loaf contains healthy additives such as low-fat yogurt, wheat bran, and quick-cooking oats as well as whole-wheat flour. With three minutes of prep time and three hours of baking time, you have no reason not to indulge in this healthy bread.
Ingredients
Directions
Honey Oat Bread
Everyone loves a homemade loaf of warm, sweet, honey oat bread. There’s only ¼ cup of honey in this recipe for sweetener and it’s made with mainly whole wheat flour. This homemade loaf is moist, delicious, and healthy and takes only 10 minutes of prep time and three hours of baking time.
Ingredients
Directions
Next time you whip out your bread maker for your family dinner or when you want to bake yourself a loaf of bread to enjoy, consider one of these three healthy options. They are guaranteed to surpass any loaf that you’d buy at the supermarket not only in terms of their health content but in their taste, texture, and flavor.
