These homemade Hawaiian Dinner Rolls are soft and sweet, baked until golden brown. They are a wonderful addition to any meal. They will even make great sliders, hotdog and burger buns substitution, or an exceptional base for bread pudding!
I love Hawaiian Dinner Rolls, and we would never have a shortage of them thanks to Costco 32 count pack. 😉 They’re good, they’re cheap, why would you want to make them yourself? Because baking is fun, of course. I would never say no to a chance to play with yeasted dough. And because when you make it yourself, you know exactly what you are feeding your family.
I used canned pineapple juice for these Hawaiian Dinner Rolls. But if you are game and want to juice a fresh pineapple, go for it! The pineapple juice gives these rolls a little tanginess, and it makes me feel all tropical and fuzzy inside. I’m obsessed with pineapple, and have been eating them all summer long after we came back from Maui. These rolls give me a chance to take my pineapple obsession to the next level.
Recipe Tips and Tricks
- To make dough by hand (if you don’t have a stand-mixer), mix all ingredients in a large bowl with a wooden spoon, then knead the dough on the counter with your hands for the same amount of time or slightly longer.
- Rub your hands with a little bit of cooking oil when kneading dough. This will discourage the dough from sticking to your hands. This way you don’t have to add too much extra flour to the dough.
- Active dry yeast is very sensitive to temperature. It is optimal to bloom the yeast at around 100°F, but no hotter than 110°F. Too hot, and the yeast will die. On the other hand, colder than 100°F is okay. You can bloom the yeast with room temperature water, but it will take a bit longer.
- If the yeast mixture doesn’t puff up when bloom, it is best to redo this step until you get an activated yeast mixture. If you accidentally killed the yeast, your dough will not rise.
- Rising time can vary, depending on the environment: temperature, humidity, barometric pressure. The dough will rise faster in warmer weather compared to colder weather, in higher altitude compared to lower altitude, etc. But it will rise, it will just take time and patience.
- If you want to bake in the morning, you could let the dough rise overnight. If you want to bake before dinner, you should start the dough early in the morning.
- For the second rise, you want to be careful and don’t allow the dough to overproof. When over-proofing happens, the dough will rise to the max and then fall back on itself. This is not a big deal for the first rise, but not okay when you are preparing to bake.
If this is your first time baking with yeasted dough, have patience. 🙂 Once you’ve mastered it, it will be easier than cake!
Hawaiian Dinner Rolls Recipe
📖 Recipe card
Hawaiian Dinner Rolls
Ingredients
For the dough
- 1 teaspoon of active dry yeast
- ¼ cup of warm water ~100°F
- 1 teaspoon of granulated sugar
- 1 cup of pineapple juice
- 4 ounces of unsalted butter - melted and cooled
- 1 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract
- 3 ½ cup of all-purpose flour
- ⅓ cup of light brown sugar - packed
- 1 teaspoon of kosher salt
- Extra flour
For egg wash
- 1 large egg
- 1 tablespoon of water
Instructions
- Mix warm water with the granulated sugar in a small bowl, sprinkle the yeast in the bowl and let it bloom for 10 - 15 minutes.
- Add flour, brown sugar and salt in a medium bowl and mix well with a whisk.
- In the bowl of your stand-mixer, add pineapple juice, melted butter and vanilla extract, mix with a whisk.
- Now add the flour mixture along with the activated yeast to the liquid mixture in the stand-mixer bowl.
- Knead with the dough hook on medium speed for 1-2 minutes just until the dough starts to come away from the side of the bowl.
- Turn dough out on a lightly floured counter, shape into a ball, put it back into the bowl and allow to rise at room temperature overnight or until double in size, this may take a few hours or longer.
- The next day, or when the dough has risen enough, turn it out on a lightly floured counter again. If the dough stick the the side of the bowl, just use a scraper to get it all out.
- Divide dough into 15 portions and shape them into round balls.
- Butter and flour a 9x13 baking dish.
- Place the dough balls in the baking dish and let them rise for about 2 hours.
- Prepare egg wash by beating one egg with 1 tablespoon of water.
- Brush the top of the risen dough with egg wash very lightly.
- Preheat oven to 400°F, and bake for 18 minutes until golden brown.
- Remove from oven and let cool on a wire rack.
- Serve rolls warm with butter.
How do I adjust the ingredients for high elevation?
Hi Marlene, I don’t personally bake at high elevation so I don’t know how to adjust the recipe for it. But check out this post by King Arthur for guidance.
These rolls turned out perfectly! I love the rolls that come in a big orange bag and these came out even softer and fluffier than those. Thanks for the great recipe!
Thanks Trevor! I love those in the orange bag as well, but of course homemade is still the best when you have time 🙂
Hi! Can i use instant yeast? How much should it be?
Thank you!
Hi Kat, you can use the same amount for instant yeast but you don’t need to activate it, just mix it into the dry ingredients. Be sure to add both water and pineapple juice in this case to get the same amount of water in the dough, or increase the pineapple juice to 1 1/4 cup.
I followed the recipe exactly and they came out perfect! Serving them with instant pot bbq pulled pork for dinner. Thank you once again for a great recipe.
Excellent! So glad to hear how the recipe works for you. BBQ pulled pork sounds delicious with these 🙂
I want to make large batches of these and put them in the freezer now when I get ready to bake them do I let them thaw out first or just put them straight in the oven from the freezer
Hi Brenda, you will need to let the dough thaw and go through a second rise before baking, do not bake from frozen. I have never used frozen bread dough before, but here are my suggestions:
1. Follow the recipe through step #8.
2. Once you divide and shape the dough into balls, freeze until they are solid. You can freeze them in the pan you’re going to bake them in and keep them like that or store frozen dough ball in ziplock bag.
3. The night before you want to bake, thaw the dough in the refrigerator. If you have them in ziplock bag, make sure to place them on baking pan or something flat so they don’t stick together once thawed.
4. The next day, allow them to rise at room temperature for their second rise and bake according to the remaining recipe instructions.
These rolls look so fluffy and simply amazing! Love the texture ♥
These are DEFINITELY my favorite rolls! Love the sound of this homemade version!
YAY! I’ve been looking for a roll recipe to make for Thanksgiving. I’m definitely going to make this one, thanks so much!
These rolls look so soft with a great texture! You just can’t beat freshly baked bread!
Thanks Corina! Freshly baked bread is the best 😉
What a great recipe to have on hand! Sounds tasty
Thanks Amy!
Wow! Looks gorgeous, I love bread baking more than cakes! I had bookmarked this from from one of the sites long back! Had completely forgotten about it ! This reminds me I should bake these soon! They look awesome they have turned out beautifully !
Thanks Jayasri! With all the holidays coming up real soon, you’ll have a great excuse to bake up some bread for sure 😉
These rolls look perfectly fluffy and golden-brown on the outside! I love pineapple; I need to add this to my list of recipes to try!
Thanks Marie! I do hope you try them 🙂
Hawaiian Rolls are pretty much the best!
Thanks Jillian! So glad you stopped by.
Oh my, they look wonderful, I don’t bake very often as it rarely scales well for two but I do love the sound of these so much.
Brian, you can scale these quite easily as they do not call for eggs. Or you could freeze the left over in ziploc bag. I’ve done that before, thaw and warm in oven, they’re still great 🙂
These rolls look delicious!!
Thanks Bethany!
I have always loved these little guys and wondered what made them taste the way they do… PINEAPPLE JUICE. Thanks!
“If this is your first time baking with yeasted dough, have patience. ???? Once you’ve mastered it, it will be easier than cake!” you did that on purpose, didnt you? (unless it is a rising cake, because it is still difficult, unless you have mastered baking with yeasted dough.)
Ben LOL! I’ve made all the mistakes anyone can make with yeasted dough, hence though tips and tricks. I think I’ve mastered it to some degree but in the end we are all students in the kitchen. A new day and a new recipe always brings a new lesson 😉