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You are going to love this Kings Hawaiian Rolls Recipe. It is so easy to make and tastes just like the real thing. Save yourself some money and make Kings Hawaiian Rolls at home.
Everyone in my family loves these King’s Hawaiian Recipes, but I typically only buy them around Thanksgiving. But we enjoy them year round made into sliders.
We love making Homemade Quick Bread Recipes for any occasion. You will to serve them with our homemade garlic butter and it is perfection. Check out these other delicious recipes – Easy Homemade Artisan Bread or Quick 30 Minute Dinner Rolls.
Table of Contents
What are Kings Hawaiian Rolls?
Kings Hawaiian Rolls are a sweet bread that is loaded with flavor. They have a soft, fluffy texture and the perfect roll to serve with your holiday turkey.
They are easy to make with simple ingredients and always a family favorite.
Ingredients:
- Warm Water
- Granulated Sugar
- Yeast
- Vegetable Oil
- Salt
- All purpose Flour
For the full list of ingredients and recipes, scroll to the bottom for the recipe card.
Variations:
- Seasoning – Feel free to add in fresh herbs or seasoning to the dough mixture. Stir in minced garlic, or rosemary, thyme and parsely are great options. We have even added in brown sugar and vanilla extract for added flavor.
- Shredded Coconut – Shredded coconut is always a great addition to the Hawaiian Bread Rolls.
- Melted Butter – After shaping the doughs brush the tops with melted butter and cinnamon and sugar. This adds the perfect amount of sweetness to these favorite roll recipe. You can even mix melted butter with poppy seed.
Step by Step Instructions:
- Step 1 – Mix together water, sugar and yeast. Let stand about 10 minutes, or until yeast begins to activate (small bubbles will form).
- Step 2 – In a stand mixer with a paddle attachment, slowly add in oil, salt and flour. Mix until well incorporate and then continue to knead for about 2-3 minutes.
- Step 3 – Oil sides of bowl. Remove dough from mixing bowl and place in glass bowl, turning to coat with oil. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and let rise for about an hour or until doubled in size.
- Step 4 – Spray an 8″ x 8″ glass baking pan with cooking spray. Divide the risen knead dough into 9 similarly sized balls.
- Step 5 – Arrange in the prepared dish, leaving some space around each ball to allow for rising. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise about 30 minutes, or until doubled in size.
- Step 6 – Once risen again, bake rolls in 350 degrees oven for 15 minutes or until golden brown on top. Remove from oven and immediately butter the top of each roll. Enjoy these warm, fluffy melt rolls.
Recipe Tips:
- Fresh Ingredients – Make sure when making homemade bread recipe that your yeast has not expired.
- Prepare Baking Dish – Prepare the baking dish by spraying with cooking spray. This helps to easily remove the homemade Hawaiian Rolls easily.
- Combining Ingredients – We recommend using the dough hook to combine the ingredients. It is much easier using the stand mixer than doing it by hand.
Serving Suggestions:
These King Hawaiian Original Hawaiian Sweet Rolls are delicious made into sandwiches. We love these sliders recipes but have also made ham and Swiss sandwiches.
- Buffalo Chicken Meatballs Sliders
- Crock Pot Chicken Parmesan Sliders
- Jalapeño Popper Burger Sliders
- Crock Pot BBQ Chicken Sliders
Frequent Asked Questions:
Any leftovers can be stored at room temperature. Just make sure the Hawaiian Rolls are wrapped good.
More Copycat Recipes:
- CopyCat Panera Bread Chicken Noodle Soup Recipe
- Fritos Bean Dip Recipe
- CopyCat KFC Chicken Pot Pie
- Red Lobster Cheddar Bay Biscuits
- CopyCat Chick-Fil-A Lemonade Recipe
We love hearing from you. If you make this copycat King’s Hawaiian Rolls Recipe make sure to leave us a comment.
Kings Hawaiian Rolls Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 cup warm water
- 1/3 cup granulated sugar
- 1 packet active dry yeast
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 3 cups all purpose flour
Instructions
- Mix together water, sugar and yeast. Let stand about 10 minutes, or until yeast begins to activate (small bubbles will form).
- In a stand mixer with a dough hook attachment, slowly add in oil, salt and flour. Mix until well incorporated and then continue to knead for about 2-3 minutes.
- Oil a glass bowl. Remove dough from mixer bowl and place in the glass bowl, turning to coat with oil. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and let rise for about an hour or until doubled in size.
- Spray an 8″ x 8″ glass dish with cooking spray. Divide the risen dough into 9 similarly sized balls. Arrange in the prepared dish, leaving some space around each ball to allow for rising. Cover tightly and let rise about 30 minutes.
- Once risen again, bake rolls in 350F oven for 15 minutes or until golden brown on top. Remove from oven and immediately butter the top of each roll.
Yes I think you can make it the day before, but I haven’t tried that yet.
These are very easy to make and delicious. I thought they tasted a little oily so going to use butter this time. Can I make the dough a day before? Any suggestions?
I haven’t tried that yet, but I would think it would work great.
Hi! What are your thoughts on using butter instead of vegetable oil? Thanks!
Delicious! I wanted to eat all of them myself! We ate some alone and then used the other rolls as buns for BBQ chicken sandwiches. I think they taste more like yummy yeast rolls than Hawaiian rolls, but we loved them! I will definitely make these again!
Awesome and easy. Thank you.
I’m so glad you enjoyed this recipe! Thank you for sharing!
So tender and tasty. Would say Kings but maybe slightly sweet dinner roll. I let them rise as balls 1/2 hour second time making/came out more flulffy! Not as sweet as King but still delicious. They’re alittle more dense than Kings/hold up better for sliders/sauce. Will definitely make again.
I made these last night and they were a huge hit here in my house. As another users comment, my dough was very sticky also, but nothing a little extra flour couldn’t help. ?? I also added 3 tablespoons of Honey into the dough and topped with it a butter honey glaze at the end. They were superior! Thank you for sharing this recipe with us. ??
I can hardly wait to make them. They look so good thanks for the recipe I love them and I can’t get to the store so often but now I have this recipe Thanks again
I’m not sure what could have caused it to still be sticky as there are many factors that can effect that including the humidity in the kitchen, brand of flour, etc. I’m glad that you enjoyed the rolls!
I haven’t tested that yet so I’m not sure. If you try it out, please let me know how it works! Thank you
Can this be made into a loaf? If so can you provide a few details as to how? Thanks
These were great! The only thing is that my dough came out extremely sticky, even after adding the 3 cups of flour and allowing my mixer to knead the dough for three minutes after all of the flour was fully incorporated. I still had to add an extra 1/2 cup of flour. Do you know why this could’ve happened?
Yes, instant yeast works with this recipe.
I bake these rolls at 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
I would bake them in a 9X13 baking dish when doubling the recipe.
If I want to double or triple the recipe, should I bake them in a casserole dish?
Made a triple recipe this morning and they are outstanding and easy!
Definitely a keeper!
Only change I made was the addition of a little diastatic malt (it’s a long story)
Could you use instant yeast? Thats all I have…
I’m thinking it was too much flour. Make sure you don’t pack the flour when you measure.
II gave the recipe because it does taste like Kings Hawaiian dinner rolls, but my dinner rolls were on the dense side. What did I do wrong? I let the dough rise for almost 2 hours. Thank you.
150 F ot 350 F?
I’m so glad you loved the recipe.
I just made these. They are incredible. Highly recommend this recipe!
These rolls were so good.
We love these. I double the recipe and use it to make kolaches. Usually we get 25 some we add sausage and others ham or cheese and jalapeno. Thank you for the great recipe!
So I’ve and fluffy! For the second proofing, I sprayed olive oil all over and proofed in my oven warming drawer, then after baking smothered butter on the tops. They were nice and fluffy!
Thanks so much for commenting. I’m glad you loved them.
These were delicious! I love to bake bread and this was such a super simple recipe, instructions were easy to follow, and the taste was really close to King’s Hawaiian. Next time I’m going to add a little more sugar and I think it’ll be a perfect copycat!
These rolls are really good….6/5 for yumminess. My kids gobbled them up and argued over the last one. But we all agreed, they are not the same as *name brand* Hawaiian rolls, so as a copy cat recipe…1/5. Now please excuse me while I go bake another batch 😉
Yes, that would work.
Can this be made with butter instead of vegetable oil?
I made these in the bread machine using bread flour. Add the ingredients in the order recommended by your bread machine and use the dough setting (no need to proof the yeast separately). I also put the 9 rolls in a 9×9 inch square baking pan and let them raise for 1 1/2 hours. Absolutely delicious! I had been looking for a Hawaiian roll recipe that did not use pineapple juice, since King’s Hawaiian Rolls do not list pineapple juice as an ingredient. This is the recipe I have been looking for!
The recipe I have calls for Pineapple juice for the Hawaiian rolls and they do taste like Hawaiian made them for a Christmas party at the Church everyone wanted the recipe
I use vegetable oil for this recipe. I have updated the post and the recipe card to be more clear. Thank you!
I didn’t see what kind of oil you were using…
I use All Purpose Flour for this recipe.
You do not mention what type of flour…
Thanks for sharing – It’s good to know how to adjust the cooking time for a high altitude area!
I live in high altitude, and the first time I made these rolls, I baked for 5 minutes longer, 20 minutes, but they were still a bit doughy. Baked them this time for 27 minutes and they look perfect!
Brenda – Sorry for any confusion. I only knead once for this recipe right before the dough is added to the glass bowl to allow it to rise and then form it into rolls at this time.
In your answer to Jessica in 2019, you mentioned she could freeze the rolls after kneading the rolls and shaped. However, in your directions, I cannot find any instruction to knead after the first rise. It seems that there SHOULD be a second kneading but I don’t see it. Should I knead or not? If so, his long should I knead?
Awesome! I’m so glad that worked out in your bread machine too. Thank you for sharing.
I made these in a bread machine. I mixed the water, yeast and sugar in a bowl, separately and waited for the yeast to proof. Then I measured the flour, salt and oil into the bread maker, set it on “dough” and added the liquid. I live in a very dry climate and I had to add an additional 1/3 cup of water to make the dough come together properly. At the end of the 45 minute dough cycle, I pulled the dough out and rolled it into 9 balls in a greased square glass pan, and let rise in the refrigerator .
for several hours. They rose appreciably while in the refrigerator and when baked rose a bit more. They were delicious and fluffy.
So, in step #2, you also add the yeast mixture to the oil/flour mixture for kneading? Or is #1 done *IN* the stand mixer bowl before #2, I guess? Wonder if bread machine (“rapid-rise”) yeast could work. I live in Tulsa, so I know of the record-breaking temps/weather of which you speak. Crazy. My prayers for the Texans. They’ve suffered far more than us.
Yes, I think that’ll work great!
Hello!
I would like to make the dough the night before, let it rise once, then refrigerate till I am ready to continue making the rolls. My question is if that’s possible. Thank you!
Can you make these in a Bread Machine?
Yes, Jessica, these can be frozen. I would freeze them after you knead the rolls and formed them into balls. Then we you bring them out to defrost them allow them to rise at that time. Thank you!
Hi! Can this dough be made ahead of time and frozen for later? If so, at what part would I freeze them (before rising the second time, for example?)
Thanks!
Made these rolld for Thanksgiving and they turned out perfect. The only thing I would change is add a tiny bit more sugar. I could not stop eating them, so good
has anyone tried this with gluten free flour?
Yes, they could. You would just need to do more kneading.
It is a little sticky – just add a tad more flour if you need to do make it more easy to manage.
These tasted wonderful!! My dough was very sticky so it was hard dividing the dough. Was yours sticky?
Recipe sounds sooo good…We love King’s Hawaiian Rolls!! Can these be made in a bread machine using the recipe “as is?”
Can these rolls be made without a stand mixer with dough attachment?