The Best Gluten Free Challah Bread Recipe | Easy and Delicious! (2024)

Learn how to make delicious gluten free challah bread that everyone will love. Eat this yummy gluten free (gf) bread at the holiday table, or any day!

What makes this gluten free challah recipe special?

Challah bread is a highly enriched bread, made with plenty of oil, egg yolks, and some sugar, too. That's how you get that thin, tender, dark brown crust and bread that stays tender for days—plus the rich aroma of deeply browned bread.

This recipe is unlike many other gluten free challah bread substitute recipes you'll find. It can hold its shape as a true, braided bread without being stiff and dry. It has the most beautiful, moist, and tender open crumb.

Most gluten free challah recipes you'll find are made in a molded loaf pan that mimics the shape of braided bread. If you search the web for “gluten free challah bread,” you'll often find recipes that ask you to expect that your bread will be “heavier” or more “dense.”

The texture, flavor, aroma, and crumb of your gluten free bread should be no different from whatever conventional bread you've come to expect. And this gluten fee bread hits all the right notes, so keep those expectations high, where they should be!

Is challah bread gluten free?

No. Traditionally, challah bread is made with wheat flour, along with lots of dairy-free enrichments like egg yolks, oil, and honey or other sugars.

This bread is what you might think of as a challah bread substitute, since it's made wheat-free. But it's a substitute that tastes just as it should—and no one will know that it's made with an all purpose gluten free flour blend.

Challah is similar to another enriched bread, gluten free brioche, but they're not the same.

Brioche is a richer, heartier bread than challah—and is best made without butter, so it's pareve (neither milk nor meat, which can't be mixed in kosher meal) and can be served with any holiday meal.

Braiding gluten free challah bread strands into a loaf

You can braid gluten free challah bread in a 3-strand, 4-strand, or even a 6-strand loaf. The braiding technique begins the same way as any braided bread recipe—but the handling of the dough requires some special care.

I've used a 3-strand braid here because it's the simplest (if you can braid a ponytail, you can braid a 3-strand challah!). If the three strands side by side (by side) are in places 1, 2, and 3, the braiding process is:

• 1 over 2, and return old 2 to 1 spot;
• 3 over 2, and return old 2 to 3 spot;
• Repeat until you reach the end of the braid.

Do not ever pull on the strands, though. They must not fray. Place them where you want them, overlapping them carefully and with intention.

Of course, if you'd prefer, you can use a challah mold pan and place the unshaped dough into the pan to rise and then bake.

Tips for making the best gluten free challah

Start with room-temperature ingredients

Unlike many gluten free yeast bread recipes that call for warm ingredients to activate the yeast quickly, this recipe calls for ingredients at room temperature. We then let the bread rest in the refrigerator so that the liquids are absorbed into the flour.

Use the right amount of sugar

Sugar in baking isn't just for sweetness. In fact, it's most valuable here in this recipe, and in many others, for tenderizing the bread, and keeping it fresh for longer.

The sugar here feeds the yeast so that it can grow. It also helps aid the browning and results in that deep brown challah crust.

Refrigerate your gf challah bread dough for easier handling

Refrigerating the raw dough in a tightly sealed container makes handling the dough easier.

First, it allows the flours time to absorb the liquid. You don't sacrifice any liquid, which the bread needs for rising and for texture, but the dough is less sticky. Second, refrigerating the dough makes it colder, making it easier to handle.

If you don't have time to refrigerate the dough, you can still work with it. It will just be a bit harder to handle and more fragile.

Give your gluten free challah bread dough time to rise

Yeast bread dough rises faster in warm (not hot) temperatures closer to 80°F that aren't drafty. It rises more slowly in colder temperatures.

It also must be covered properly as it rises, so the moisture in the dough doesn't evaporate. If the moisture evaporates, the dough will be too stiff and the yeast will not grow properly.

Add an egg wash before baking

An egg wash is just a beaten egg with either water or milk. Here, we're using water to keep it dairy-free easily.

After the braided raw dough has risen, we brush the egg wash on top of the braids and all along the perimeter. The egg wash helps the braids brown beautifully and keeps the dough from breaking through the surface during its oven rise.

Avoid letting the egg wash pool in the space between the braids. We want that portion to rise freely.

How to serve this challah bread substitute

This challah bread is amazing in the center of your Jewish holiday meal. But you don't have to celebrate Jewish holidays to enjoy this gluten free challah!

Sliced thickly, this challah makes rich, eggy, lightly sweet gluten free French toast. You'll find yourself snatching some slices from the loaf to ensure there are leftovers for gluten free bread pudding, too.

Try toasting a generous slice and topping it with light and fluffy scrambled eggs. Or just a big schmear of cream cheese and a light sprinkling of chives.

How to store and freeze your gluten free braided bread

If you're not planning to serve your bread right away, you can keep it fresh for about 8 hours at room temperature. Just wrap it tightly in plastic and eliminate as much air as possible.

For any leftover bread, be sure to slice it how you'd like to serve it, wrap it tightly in the same manner, and freeze it. Defrost it one slice at a time in the microwave or at room temperature, and refresh it in the toaster oven.

I don't recommend freezing raw yeast bread, only baked yeast bread. If the temperature drops too low, you may kill the yeast and waste all that hard work and delicious bread!

Gluten free challah bread ingredient substitutions

Is this gluten free challah bread dairy-free?

Yes, this gluten free challah bread is already dairy-free. It's made with olive oil instead of butter, and water instead of milk.

If you want to replace the olive oil, I recommend using vegan butter. Do not use a flavorless oil like canola or vegetable oil, or the flavor will suffer.

Can you make this gluten free challah bread without eggs?

It isn't as easy to replace egg yolks as it is to replace whole eggs. You can try using three tablespoons of vegan butter in place of the three egg yolks to replace the fat of the yolks.

Can you make vegan gluten free challah?

If you replace the egg yolks with vegan butter successfully, you'll need to replace the honey to have a recipe for gluten free vegan challah bread. In place of honey, try using light corn syrup.

Does it matter which gluten free flour blend you use in this gf challah recipe?

Yes! It matters a lot which gf flour blend you use. And it matters that you add the additional 75 grams of tapioca starch/flour.

I highly recommend using Better Batter (or our DIY mock Better Batter style blend) as the all purpose gluten free flour blend. It took me years to develop a reliable gluten free challah bread recipe without using our gluten free bread flour to make it easy and dairy free.

Don't use Cup4Cup gluten free flour here, even though it is one of my favorite blends. It's simply too high in starch to produce proper bread that holds its shape as intended (it would make a paler, fluffier, and more out-of-shape loaf)—and browns properly here.

This recipe relies even more than usual on true precision in ingredient selection, and in measurement accuracy. For reliable results like the photos that taste amazing, you must use the flours specified, and you must measure by weight.

How to make gluten free challah bread: an easy recipe