Sesame Seed Breadsticks
These crispy breadsticks will keep for weeks if refrigerated. Make them with all purpose or bread flour or a mix of whole wheat and white. A KitchenAid stand mixer does all the work, or you can knead the dough by hand. The dough needs to be a little sticky to hold the seeds. If not, rub a bit of olive oil on your hands when rolling. - Jenny Jones
Prep Time: 30 minutes
Cook Time: 50 minutes
Total Time: 2 hours
Makes: one dozen
Ingredients:
- 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour (or 3/4 whole wheat + 3/4 cup all purpose flour)
- 1 teaspoon instant or rapid-rise yeast
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 teaspoon sugar
- 1 teaspoon olive oil
- about 2/3 cup warm water (120 - 130°F)
- 1/3 cup sesame seeds
Instructions:
- Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Spread sesame seeds on wax paper.
- In a mixing bowl combine flour(s), yeast, salt & sugar.
- Add oil & enough water to make a soft dough. Knead for one minute with a KitchenAid mixer or about 50 times by hand on a barely floured surface. DO NOT ADD TOO MUCH FLOUR WHEN KNEADING.
- On an unfloured surface, roll into 12 8-inch sticks & coat each stick with sesame seeds. If seeds don’t stick, rub a little oil on your hands when rolling.
- Place on baking sheet & let rise in a warm place until double (45 min – 1 hour)
- Preheat oven to 325° F and bake for 25 minutes.
- Turn the breadsticks over and bake another 20-25 minutes.
- Test the fattest breadstick and if it’s still soft in the middle, turn oven off and prop open the door. Let the oven cool down for about 20 minutes. Return baking sheet to the oven with the door open a few inches for up to an hour until breadsticks are totally dry throughout.
- Cool completely. Store in a sealed container.
How do you store them, so they stay crispy?
I typically shy-away from anything with yeast (I’ve had so many failures). But I fell in love with sesame sticks on a trip to the middle east, so I want to give these a try! As a total novice, I’m confused about Step #9. Question 1) what if the fattest bread stick is not soft in the middle? Do you just let them all cool outside the oven and then store? Question 2) If the fattest bread stick is soft in the middle, do you return them all back to the oven after 20 minutes, or just the fattest one (or however many are that size)? Hope I’m not being obtuse! I’m just a little tired of going to the effort only to have disappointing results. Thank you for your website (and I hope you respond to my question).
Just made these tonight. I doubled the recipe and made half sesame and half everything but the bagel seasoning from Trader Joe’s. Excellent! This recipe is a keeper.
I have been searching for good sesame bread sticks for a long time, these are the best and better than any store bought by far.
Two things I changed after several successful batches:
1. I love sesame seeds and the seeds just fell off too easy and I could not get as many to stick as I wanted, so I whip an egg white and some water and dip the bread sticks in that and then roll them in a bunch of sesame seeds. They stay completely covered.
2. Rolling them into thin round sticks was time consuming and was difficult to get consistency in the shape. I now roll the entire dough with a rolling pin until it is between 1/4 and 1/8 of an inch thick and them use the back of a plastic knife to cut strips, I use the knife to lift the strips and then dip in the egg white mix and then sesame seeds. When they rise, they take a round shape.
Thanks for the great recipe.
Love all your recipes, can I make these breadsticks and just bake them a little less so they are not as crunchy but a little bit softer?
Hello Jenny,
Wondering if you have a recipe for pretzels? Would love to see how you would make them. Thank you for your generosity in providing all these recipes! I especially appreciate the Polish ones!
These are really, really good and very easy! I’ve bought sesame breadsticks at the store for years and am so glad I stumbled on this recipe. I will make them often!
Dear Jenny: I really enjoy your cooking videos. I want to incorporate a lot more sesame seeds in my diet. I add them to my scrambled eggs in the morning. I would like to make a bread that incorporates them as well as having them as a topping, like the Devonsheer Melba Toast. Can you find such a recipe? I have a bread machine. I may just make it by adding a cupful to a standard recipe. Sesame seeds give me a lift, but oddly, sesame candies do not. Sesame rye crackers might be the best thing as I’d like to maybe cut down on wheat consumption. What do you think?
Hi Jenny I am wanting to know if I can add zataar to these breadsticks.
Yes, you can add it to the dough or roll the breadsticks in the herbs before baking.
I made this because I was trying to add more seeds to my diet. I used the whole wheat 50/50 option, added chia seeds to the dough, made the sticks 1/2 the size and moistened them before rolling them in sesame seeds. I ended up with very stiff sticks that stood up to dense cheeseball (an intended use.) I’ll be trying it again soon.
I make a braided italian loaf from King Arthur flour site. They recommend lightly spraying the counter and your hands with oil. It helps me to knead and shape. Might work with this. I will be trying the recipe SOON! Thanks!
Hi Jenny
I recently bumped into your website and took me all day printing recipes for my recipe box. First try on the breadsticks was great. Now I am hooked. Love whole wheat bread too. Your ingredients and procedures are very easy and your funny ( warming the egg in your breast). You crack me up……I thank you for sharing them to all of us,,, aspiring cooks???
Hi Jenny,
I have been searching for a sesame breadstick recipe since my bakery closed. I am making them today. I do not have a stand mixer and am a horrible kneader. I used a hand mixer with a dough attachment. Problem is that dough is too sticky so needed to add extra flour just to be able to handle it. Should I mix the dough longer? It was already climbing up the attachment or should I add additional flour to the ingredients?
Thanks I will though continue trying
Mixing the dough longer should not be necessary. I would just get the dough onto a floured surface and add just enough flour so you can get it into a ball. You can probably knead it a little with a scraper. It can be tricky when shaping the breadsticks because a sticky dough will hold more sesame seeds but it’s harder to roll. I find it easier to roll it into sticks when it’s fairly smooth but not so sticky, them rub each stick with a little oil to roll into the seeds. I hope I’m making sense. By the way, I have the exact same problem with kneading attachments and never use them!
Using dough hooks instead of a kneading attachment solves the climbing problem. I like to knead dough with the dough hooks on a hand mixer until the dough is shiny and just comes loose, as Jenny shows when making flatbread – but I make all her recipes by the numbers the first time and they turn out wonderfully.
Jenny is great. Better, actually, than all of the signature chefs I have looked at. Don’t let her near your autographed baseball, though. Just sayin’.
About the “climbing dough” problem on your mixer, if you have two spinning attachments, that means you have the two reversed. Swap them, and then they’ll “push” down instead of “pull” up.
Dear Jenny, Shortly after my fiance and I met, I asked him if he liked sesame sticks, meaning the little snacks you can buy either packaged or now by weight from bins in some grocery stores, so I bought some to put in his work lunches. Apparently, there was a misinterpretation on one of our parts, and when I put those in his lunch, he came home and told me he meant crunchy sesame breadsticks, which, despite the plethora of Italian meal accompaniaments available in stores, I had a hard time finding in the retail community, so I went to the web and found your recipe for them and made him some. He LOVES them! Although they are pretty time-consuming, I usually make a double batch, as once around is just not enough, and they keep so well if you let them cool and store in a ziploc bag. When he told me more specifically what he really wanted, I stated that I could probably find a recipe. He was doubtful, as he told me he and his late Italian grandmother had to tried to master them forever, with no success. Well, I felt challenged, as I have always loved to cook and I found your recipe, and it has been successful every time. Last time I made them, I even made heart-shaped ones. One thing I vary with the recipe is that I also mix sesame seeds into the dough, which makes them even more tasteful. Thank you so much for this recipe and your site!
Great recipe. Very resourceful tips. Thank you for sharing them.
That was so cool. I’m going to be making those while watching your video. thank you !!!
yay.. love these
THANKS 🙂
made these today, but I rolled mine in parmesan cheese yummy ^^.
i tried this its deeelicious
Hi Jenny. I want to thank you for the beautiful, easy to make, nice breadsticks. We all liked it a lot. The nuns were so surprised. You are a blessing. We sold a lot, too. Take care and God bless.