Texas Roadhouse Rolls with Cinnamon Honey Butter

Texas Roadhouse rolls are the reason the bread basket at that restaurant never lasts five minutes. They arrive square, pale gold, warm enough to steam when you tear one open, and they come with a tub of whipped cinnamon honey butter that people have been known to ask for by the pint.

The recipe is not a secret and it is not difficult. It is an enriched yeast dough with milk, eggs, butter and a generous amount of sugar, shaped into balls, crowded into one dish so they bake into squares, and brushed with butter the second they come out. The only thing standing between you and a dozen of them is two hours of mostly unattended rising.

What Makes Texas Roadhouse Rolls Different

Most dinner rolls are round because they are baked with space around them. Texas Roadhouse rolls are square because they are not. You crowd twelve balls of dough into a single 9-by-13-inch dish, they rise into each other, and the sides that touch stay soft and pale while only the tops brown. That is where the pull-apart texture comes from.

The dough itself is sweeter than a standard dinner roll. Half a cup of sugar in a batch this size is closer to a sweet bread than to sandwich bread, and it does two things: it feeds the yeast, so the rise is fast and reliable, and it leaves a faint sweetness that makes the honey butter feel like a continuation rather than a contrast.

The last difference is the finish. A brush of melted butter goes on while the rolls are still too hot to handle, which softens the crust as it cools. Skip it and you get a perfectly good roll with a slightly crisp top. Do it and you get Texas Roadhouse rolls the way they arrive at the table.

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Ingredient Notes

• Active dry yeast. One standard packet, which is two and a quarter teaspoons. Proof it in warm water with a spoonful of the sugar first. If it does not foam within ten minutes the yeast is dead, and you will have found that out for the price of half a cup of water rather than after four hours.
• Warm water. Between 100 and 105 degrees, which feels like a comfortable bath. Hotter than 120 kills yeast outright.
• Whole milk. Scalded, then cooled to lukewarm. Scalding is worth the extra pan, and there is more on why below.
• Granulated sugar. Half a cup, split between proofing the yeast and the dough. It is not a typo. These are meant to be sweet.
• Unsalted butter. Six tablespoons melted into the dough and three more for brushing. Unsalted lets you control the seasoning, which matters when the butter spread is also going to be sweet.
• Eggs. Two, at room temperature. Cold eggs seize the melted butter into flecks. Sit them in warm water for five minutes if you forgot.
• All-purpose flour. Four and a half to five cups, scooped and leveled. Add the last half cup only if the dough is still sticking to the sides of the bowl after five minutes of kneading.
• Salt. One teaspoon. Add it with the flour, never directly onto the proofing yeast.
• Powdered sugar, honey and cinnamon. The three additions that turn softened butter into the spread. Powdered sugar dissolves cold, which granulated will not do.

Bread Flour or All-Purpose Flour

Several copycat versions call for bread flour, and it does produce a chewier roll with a bit more pull. All-purpose flour gives you the softer, more tender crumb that I think is closer to the original, and it is what most people already have.

The difference comes down to protein. Bread flour is milled from hard wheat and runs around 12 to 14 percent protein, while all-purpose sits closer to 10 or 11, as the Wheat Foods Council explains in its guide to the types of wheat flour. More protein means more gluten, and more gluten means chew.

Texas Roadhouse rolls work with either, so use whichever you have. If you go with bread flour, hold back a quarter cup, because it absorbs more liquid and the dough can tighten up on you.

How To Make Texas Roadhouse Rolls

First, wake the yeast. Stir the yeast, the warm water and a teaspoon of the sugar together and leave it alone for five to ten minutes. It should look foamy and smell faintly of beer.

Next, build the dough. Whisk the flour and the salt together in a large bowl and make a well in the middle. Add the rest of the sugar and the eggs, then pour in the yeast mixture, the scalded milk and the melted butter. Stir until a soft dough comes together that is slightly tacky but not wet.

Then knead and rise. Five minutes with a dough hook, or eight to ten by hand, until the dough is smooth and pulls away from the bowl. Cover it and leave it somewhere warm until it has doubled, about an hour to an hour and a half.

Why the First Rise Matters

An underproofed dough bakes into a dense roll no matter how long you leave it in the oven. The test is not the clock, it is the dough: press two fingers into it, and if the dent stays put rather than springing back, it is ready. In a cold kitchen this can take two full hours, so give it the time it asks for.

After that, shape and rise again. Punch the dough down, divide it into twelve equal pieces, and roll each into a smooth ball. Arrange them in a buttered 9-by-13-inch dish in three rows of four, leaving a small gap between them. Cover and let them puff for thirty to forty-five minutes, until they are touching.

Finally, bake and butter. Twelve to fifteen minutes at 350 degrees, until the tops are lightly golden and the sides are still pale. Brush the melted butter over them the moment the dish comes out, then serve them warm with the cinnamon honey butter.

The Cinnamon Honey Butter

Half a cup of butter, three tablespoons of powdered sugar, three tablespoons of honey and a teaspoon of cinnamon, beaten until it is pale and fluffy. That is the whole thing. The only real rule is that the butter has to be genuinely soft, not softened in the microwave until half of it has melted, because melted butter will not whip and the spread turns grainy.

Beat it for a full two minutes. It should lighten in color and roughly double in volume, which is what makes it spread onto a warm roll instead of tearing it.

Make a double batch. It keeps for two weeks in the fridge, and it is as good on toast and cornbread as it is on the Texas Roadhouse rolls it was made for.

How To Tell When Texas Roadhouse Rolls Are Done

The tops go from pale to light gold and the whole batch will have risen into one connected slab. If you are unsure, an instant-read thermometer pushed into the center roll should read 190 degrees. Bread is done at 190 and dry at 210, and the gap between those two numbers is about four minutes in a hot oven.

The other tell is sound. Tap the top of a center roll with a fingertip and it should sound hollow rather than dull. A dull thud means the middle is still wet, which happens more often than you would think when twelve rolls bake as one mass.

Make It Ahead

The dough for Texas Roadhouse rolls is happy to wait. After the first rise, punch it down, cover the bowl tightly and refrigerate it for up to twenty-four hours. Pull it out, shape the rolls, and let them come back to room temperature and puff before baking, which takes about an hour and a half rather than the usual forty-five minutes.

You can also shape the rolls, arrange them in the dish, cover and refrigerate overnight. Take them out in the morning and give them two hours on the counter before they go in the oven. This is the version I use for a holiday table, because the only job left on the day is baking.

Unbaked shaped rolls freeze too. Freeze them on a tray until solid, bag them, and thaw them in the baking dish overnight in the fridge before the final rise.

Storing Texas Roadhouse Rolls

Baked rolls keep for two days in an airtight bag at room temperature. Do not refrigerate them. Cold air stales bread faster than a counter does, and an enriched dough like this one goes from soft to crumbly in a single night in the fridge.

For longer storage, freeze them baked and cooled, wrapped tightly and bagged, for up to three months. Reheat straight from frozen, wrapped in foil, at 300 degrees for fifteen minutes. They come back remarkably close to fresh.

The cinnamon honey butter lives in the fridge in a covered jar for two weeks. Bring it back to room temperature before serving, because cold butter will shred a soft roll.

Variations and Substitutions

Instant yeast. Use the same amount and skip the proofing step. Stir it in with the flour and expect the first rise to run about fifteen minutes shorter.

Whole wheat. Swap up to two cups of the all-purpose flour for whole wheat. The rolls will be nuttier and slightly denser, which some people prefer with a roast.

Garlic butter. Skip the cinnamon and honey, and beat softened butter with two cloves of grated garlic, chopped parsley and a pinch of salt instead. It turns the same dough into a side for pasta night.

Buttermilk. Replace the whole milk with buttermilk for a slight tang and an even softer crumb. There is no need to adjust anything else.

Bigger squares. Divide the dough into nine pieces instead of twelve for larger rolls, and add three minutes to the bake.

Maple butter. Maple syrup in place of the honey, with the cinnamon left in. It is a small change that reads as a completely different spread.

What to Serve with Texas Roadhouse Rolls

They belong next to something with a sauce worth mopping up. A pot roast, a bowl of chili, a Sunday chicken, or a steak dinner with Texas Roadhouse seasoned rice if you are building the whole restaurant order at home.

They also work as breakfast, split and toasted under the broiler with more of the cinnamon butter. My honest opinion is that day-two rolls are better this way than they are fresh.

If you want a second bread on the table for a crowd, Olive Garden breadsticks cover the savory end while these cover the sweet, and a tray of garlic butter potatoes keeps everything anchored to the meal.

Texas Roadhouse Rolls FAQ

More Questions About Copycat Restaurant Bread

Texas Roadhouse rolls reward a little planning more than a little effort. If you like a bread that does most of its work while you are doing something else, TikTok cinnamon rolls follow the same overnight logic and land on the breakfast table instead of the dinner one.