I’ve been baking bread for a long time a tradition handed down from my grandma Stiffey. She used to make 8-10 loaves a week. I guess when you are feeding a family of 7 you have to make that many! When I make bread it was usually to go along with a some ham and beans, something that you could dip the bread into. And, this might gross some people out, but I love homemade bread with butter and ketchup, dipped in coffee! Something else that was handed down through the generations. Still my favorite way to eat homemade bread.
So while looking for recipes for the Instant Pot I came across this No Knead Crusty Bread. My husband and I love the taste, crusty on the outside and chewy on the inside. It’s so simple to make with only 4 ingredients! Something even this ole’ gal can remember without getting out a recipe card!
3 cups of flour
2 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp yeast
1 1/2 cups of warm water.
I just put all the ingredients in a bowl and stir with a fork. You don’t want to over mix, you want the dough to be “shaggy”. This gives you those nice big pocket holes in the bread.
Set the Instant Pot to the Yogurt setting and then use the Adjust button to set it to low. It automatically defaults for normal, so you do need to change the setting. Set the time to 2:30 hours and put the lid on. No need to seal as the Yogurt setting does not build up pressure. I purchased the Instant Pot glass lid, so I use it instead. You can find it here. It will look bubbly on top.
Dump out the dough onto a floured surface. It will be a little sticky, so you may want to use a dough blade or a spatula to turn the dough, mixing in a little of flour until you can get a nice smooth surface and shape the dough into a round. Cover dough with a cloth or plastic wrap and let it rest 30 minutes.
Turn the oven on to 500º F and place your uncovered, dutch oven inside the oven while it is preheating. After the dough has rested 30 minutes, remove the Dutch oven (be care it is very, very, hot) and put the dough into the dutch oven. No need to grease the pan, I have never had the dough stick to it.
Put the lid on and turn the oven down to 450º F degrees. Set your oven timer to 25 minutes. After 25 minutes, remove the lid and bake for another 15 minutes or until golden brown.
Every oven is different, so you might want to check yours after 10 minutes to see if it is browning.
Once the bread is done, remove and let cool.
This will be the hardest part of the whole recipe…my bread always gets cut while it’s still a little warm. 
I used this bread yesterday when I made some Spinach Dip. Slice a “top” off the bread, remove the bread from the inside reserving it for dipping. Break apart the “top” part as well. Fill the bread cavity with your dip mixture and serve with the reserved bread pieces.
This bread can also be made without the Instant Pot, but you have to let it raise in the bowl for 12-24 hours! Who can wait that long??? lol 🙂
