6 Christmas dinner breads to suit your table

Christmas dinner already has enough moving parts. The bread can be a small buttered roll on each plate, a flat loaf passed around, or a warm popover with a hollow middle. Choose its job at the table before adding another bake to the day.

These six recipes make different breads, rather than six festive shapes for the same dough. None needs a Christmas-tree topping to belong beside dinner. Each link goes to John Kanell’s complete recipe for ingredients, method and timing; the notes here help you decide which bread to make.

John Kanell’s enriched yeast dough uses whole milk, butter and egg. The rounded rolls bake close together in a rectangular dish, so they arrive as a cluster of golden, buttered portions with soft centers.

This is the quiet choice beside a roast and vegetables: each person can take one without cutting a loaf at the table. If the meal needs a stronger savory note, the garlic knots below fill a different role.

John begins with prepared pizza dough and forms individual loose knots. Butter, fresh garlic, parsley and Parmesan give the finished bread its savory surface.

They are still individual pieces, but the topping makes them more assertive than the milk rolls. Let the full recipe determine dough handling and the garlic finish; this guide is only choosing their place on the menu.

John Kanell’s yeasted focaccia uses olive oil and bakes in a shallow pan. The top is dimpled, salted and can carry rosemary or thyme. It is a broad, shareable bread, unlike the separate rolls or tall popovers.

Choose it when a savory loaf suits the other dishes and table space allows a board or platter.

John’s thin batter contains egg, milk, flour, salt and butter, with no yeast. It rises high in a popover pan and makes a deep golden shell. Its hollow, airy form is the point; it is not a muffin with a cakey crumb.

The source serves these warm, so use the complete recipe to decide whether their oven and serving demands fit your actual Christmas schedule. Choose rolls or focaccia if you want a different serving form.

John’s batter combines yellow cornmeal and flour with baking powder, milk, egg, butter and honey. It bakes as individual muffins, with the crumb and honey note distinguishing it from the yeasted breads above.

Set them out when a lightly sweet bite makes sense beside a salty main; pass them as bread, not dessert.

John Kanell’s hand-mixed loaf uses buttermilk and baking soda for its rise. The round top has a scored X. Raisins or currants are optional in the source, so this choice keeps the loaf plain for dinner.

Cut it into slices at the table or beforehand. There is no yeast rise to plan, but that does not make its full baking schedule interchangeable with the other breads. Check the exact source before planning when it goes in the oven.