Homemade Soft Pretzels

Learn how to make salty, soft, bakery-style pretzels from scratch.

Yesterday, I watched the movie Chef and was pretty enthusiastic about it and how well I could connect. In the film, the main character owns a food truck, which for quite some time, I myself wanted to do – only I aimed to sell cupcakes, not sandwiches 😉 The movie reminded me of how much I love food, and how lucky I am to be working with something that I deeply and truly love. Everything about food just makes me happy (well, except the threat of weight gain).

I got so hungry while watching that I could barely wait to bake something today! Thank goodness I at least had some popcorn and chocolate with me. As you can probably tell, although I have a sweet tooth that’s unparalleled, I enjoy baking savory treats as well. While I will always prefer a smooth chocolate lava cake over nearly anything else, I simply love all food.

Since I was craving something rather salty today, I decided to make what I consider the ultimate salty snack – pretzels. Soft on the inside and crunchy on the outside, these taste just like they’re fresh from the bakery. This won’t be the only time you’ll see me post savory recipes here (especially ones that are bread-based), so prepare yourself 🙂

Working with yeast is easy once you understand the basics and a few tricks on how it’s done. I’ve had my failures, but once I got it, it became much simpler and so much more rewarding. The process of letting the dough rest and rise may take a while, and I’ve learned that staring at the dough doesn’t help much and to instead do other, more important things in the meantime. To me, the process really is worth the effort.

However, if you’re new to working with yeast, you may want to use the guide presented in my cinnamon rolls recipe. Although the recipe is different, it can help you understand the stages and effort that goes into making yeasted dough.

When making pretzels, there’s an extra step not present in other bread recipes. This step involves mixing water and baking soda together in a large pot, bringing it to a boil, and placing each shaped pretzel into the simmering water. While shaping them, they might look a bit small, but once they’ve been dipped in the water, they will puff up and expand. For this reason, don’t crowd too many pretzels at once.

The pretzels will look doughy and puckered while in the water. Due to the baking soda, though, this step helps the pretzels to have a fresh baked flavor. Once you taste it, you’ll understand exactly what I mean.

Right before baking, you’ll need to brush the pretzel tops with egg (mixed with a tablespoon of water) to help them brown.

Here’s how to shape the pretzels:

If you’re a foodie like me, go watch Chef – it will make you hungry and give you a push to work in the kitchen and make these salty treats. They are simply perfect!