Okay you guys…it’s almost St. Patrick’s Day and, in our world, that means corned beef and rye bread! We love our bread around here and we have tried many, many rye bread recipes. We finally found the secret ingredient that makes our New York Rye Bread the best: dill pickle juice! Who knew, right? Our recipe is super easy to make (even easier if you use a bread machine for the dough) and we love the moist crumb and chewy crust. We also love the crunch of caraway seeds in our rye bread but they are optional if you don’t like them.

This bread is not only wonderful with corned beef but also with tuna salad, egg salad, avocado toast or even toasted for breakfast with jam!

You have time to make a loaf before the big day on March 17^th. We hope you try it and enjoy!

Gather your ingredients.

Place ingredients in pan of bread machine.

Mix until dough looks shaggy.

The dough should be higher than the pan for the final rise.

New York Rye Bread

(adapted from Allrecipes recipe for Real NY Jewish Rye Bread)

• 1 cup lukewarm filtered water
• ¼ cup canola oil
• ¼ cup dill pickle juice
• 3 TBSP potato flakes
• 1 ½ TBSP honey
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 ½ cups bread flour
• 1 ½ cups dark rye flour
• 2 ½ tsp instant (bread machine) yeast
• 2 TBSP caraway seeds (optional)

In the bowl of a stand, mix together the flours, potato flakes, seeds, yeast and salt until well combined (we use a whisk).  Add the water, oil, pickle juice and honey and, using the dough hook, beat on low until dough is roughly mixed and looks shaggy. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let sit for 30 minutes.

Coat a large bowl with canola oil.

Remove plastic wrap and beat dough with dough hook until smooth, firm and only slightly sticky – about 8 minutes.

If you have a bread maker and you want to use it to make the dough, place all ingredients in the bread pan in the order listed. Start the dough cycle and let the bread maker mix the dough until it forms a shaggy ball (ours takes about 10 minutes). Pause the machine (or turn it off) and let the dough rest covered in the machine for 30 minutes. Turn on the dough cycle again and let the machine finish the dough cycle.

Form the dough into a ball and place into the oiled bowl, turning to coat. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and place in a warm place to rise until doubled in size, about an hour.

Grease a 9×5 loaf pan and place the dough ball into the pan, gently forming it to the rectangular shape of the pan. Cover with a clean kitchen towel and let rest in a warm place until the dough has risen above the top of the pan, 60 to 90 minutes.

Place rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 350° F.

Bake until loaf looks golden brown, about 35 minutes. If loaf browns to quickly, loosely cover with aluminum foil.

Remove from bread pan and cool on wire rack.

Makes 1 loaf.