The Reason Texas Roadhouse Rolls Taste So Delicious

There's nothing like sitting down at a restaurant and immediately being greeted with a fat basket of bread — it's a nice, warm welcome for hungry patrons. But some of the best free restaurant bread around comes from mega-popular steakhouse franchise Texas Roadhouse. Their iconic house rolls are baked fresh every five minutes, arrive at the table warm, and come with a heaping helping of honey-cinnamon butter. This doughy, savory-sweet, melt-in-your-mouth bite has become so popular it even became a TikTok challenge when a few college students took down 35 baskets in one sitting. The iconic rolls have also been sold frozen in stores over the holidays, but that's if you can get your hands on a box because they have historically flown off the shelves in a matter of minutes. Fans are even taking to the internet to share strategies on how to cop a pack of the addictive buns.

But what makes these specific rolls taste so delicious? Shockingly, it's not the rich butter served on the side or the extra helping of melted butter brushed on top — although it's safe to say that much butter can't hurt. According to Texas Roadhouse founder Kent Taylor, it was a carefully crafted recipe that came down to the simplest of ingredients that exist in every bread recipe — the right flour combined with homemade yeast. 

When Taylor was in the process of figuring out what his new restaurant franchise would become, he had the idea to offer something complimentary for guests. Surprisingly, he toyed with the idea of popcorn but quickly realized nothing could beat the alluring smell of freshly baked bread. 

So Taylor and his kitchen manager began to test every type of flour and yeast they could find in hopes of fulfilling his dream of a savory-sweet dinner roll to accompany steaks. They experimented with tons of variations, going through bags and bags of flour as they attempted to perfect their proof and baking processes — arguably the hardest step in making bread. Finally, they landed on the flour that interacted well with their homemade yeast. That's right. Texas Roadhouse rolls are so difficult to replicate because it uses yeast cultivated in-house, which workers constantly feed to help make the steakhouse's rolls the perfect combination of dense and fluffy. Taylor also wanted a touch of classic Southern hot roll sweetness but realized sugar doesn't add much flavor or interact well with yeast, so rumor has it he opted for a dash of cinnamon to really bring out the sweetness and depth of flavorful honey. Clearly, Taylor was onto something, as these rolls have now been enjoyed by Texas Roadhouse patrons for more than 30 years.