Stacey and the girls really love soft pretzels. The giant ones at the fair, little pretzel nuggets, you name it. Like so many other things that I have just always bought from a store I never really thought about trying to make them at home. I assumed it would be some long, multi-step process that took hours. I was wrong.
The whole process only takes 20-30 minutes from a bowl of flour to enjoying hot pretzels right out of the oven. You can watch and follow along on the video here or read the basic instructions with the recipe below.
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Soft Pretzels
Save to BigOven Easy scratch recipe for soft and delicious hot pretzels. Includes substitutions for vegan preparation.
- 1 3/4 Cups Bread Flour
- 1 1/2 tsp sugar
- 1 1/2 tsp yeast
- 1/2 tsp salt + course salt for finishing
- 3/4 Cup warm water (not boiling)
- 1 Egg* (to make these vegan, replace the egg with 2 Tbsp melted margarine)
- 1 Tbsp water
- Preheat oven to 400° F
- Dissolve the sugar and yeast in the warm water. Stir well and set aside for 5 minutes.
- Mix the bread flour and table salt in a medium bowl.
- Stir in the water and yeast mixture into the flour. Stir with a large spoon until it forms a raggedy dough, then continue mixing with your hands until all the dough holds together.
- Knead the dough on a floured surface for about 5 minutes until it becomes smooth and stretchy.
- Divide the dough into six equal parts.
- Roll each piece of dough out into a rope about 18-20 inches long. Just like rolling out snakes from clay when you were in elementary school art class. I find it help to dip your fingers in a little water before rolling them out.
- Shape the dough into a pretzel and place on a baking sheet covered in parchment paper.
- In a small bowl, beat the egg with about 1 Tbsp of water.
- Brush the egg wash on each pretzel, then sprinkle with coarse salt (Kosher salt or sea salt works well) * For vegan preparation brush the pretzels with melted margarine instead of egg wash).
- Bake for 15-20 minutes until golden brown.
If you don’t have parchment paper for baking you can use a silicone baking sheet or grease your baking sheet with shortening.
