Savory

Soft Pretzels

Sometimes you just need a solid snack. The kind you eat for your willy nilly dinner. The kind you eat before cookie-dessert. The kind you eat while sitting on the floor in front of your coffee table.

These are perfect for eating while watching movies with your lady friends. I guess they’d be good for football watching dudes, but I’m rarely around sporty, high-fiving fellas.

But these turned out totally snack worthy. I even made a super-cheesy beer sauce for dunking. I made that at night so I don’t have photos, but you can get the recipe right here. It changed my life. I might be already thinking about making it spicy-style for nachos, and homemade taco bell crunch wraps or something… so what.

Oh, and wouldn’t it be fun to have a sandwich on soft pretzels? That sounds like a dream.

Soft Pretzels {makes 8}
Recipe from Chuck Hughes

Ingredients:

pretzel dough –

  • 1 1/2 cups warm water
  • 2 t active dry yeast (about one packet)
  • 1 T sugar
  • 2 t kosher salt
  • 2 T melted butter
  • 3-4 cups flour
for boiling –
  • 2/3 cup baking soda
egg wash/topping –
  • 2 egg yolks
  • 1 T water
  • coarse sea salt
Directions:
  1. Combine warm water, yeast and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer. Set aside until foamy, about 5 minutes. Add the salt, 3 cups of flour, and butter. Using the dough hook attachment, mix on low speed until it’ well combined. Change to medium speed until the dough is smooth and pulls away from the side of the bowl. If it’s still super sticky, slowly add another cup of flour until dough is pliable and manageable. (You can also knead this by hand.)
  2. Spray a medium bowl with cooking spray. Place the dough inside, turning to coat. Cover with plastic wrap or a tea towel and allow to rise until double in size about 1 hour.
  3. Remove dough from the bowl, and divide the dough into 8 equal pieces. Roll each out into a 24-inch rope. Make a U-shape with the rope and holding the ends, cross them over each other and press onto the bottom of the U in order to form a pretzel shape (like the image above).Place on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and lightly spritzed with cooing spray. Set aside to rise for an hour.
  4. Toward the end of the rise time bring 10 cups of water to a boil and preheat the oven to 450ºF. Once the water is boiling turn down the heat and add the baking soda. Return to a boil and one-by-one boil the pretzels for 30 seconds each. Place back on the baking sheet. Repeat for all of the pretzels.
  5. Make the egg wash by whisking together the 2 egg yolks and a tablespoon of water. When all the pretzels have been boiled brush each with the egg wash and sprinkle with coarse salt.
  6. Bake in your hot oven for 12-14 minutes. Cool for at least 5 minutes before serving. Serve with a super-cheesy sauce or spicy mustard or make a sandwich between two of these!
Pretzel dough love.

10 thoughts on “Soft Pretzels”

  1. How’d you know I needed a soft pretzel recipe in my life? I guess you just know stuff!

    and…homemade crunch-wraps?! Sean would want to be you bff for realz.

  2. Yes! You should totally make these and eat them like a champ.

    And whoa. Crunch-wraps. I just want to eat a crunch-wrap that i can look in the eye, ya know?

  3. Megan I feel like there was a recipe similar to this, where you linked to a recipe for a cheesey dipping sauce with beer & cheddar cheese & spicyness. I’ve searched and searched through your recipe index and can’t find it. Maybe I’m just losing my mind and it wasn’t even here. Does it ring any bells to you??

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