Homemade soft pretzels are easier to make at home than you think. So soft, so buttery, they're better than any food chain!
I have a slight obsession with soft pretzels. Where ever I am, if they are being offered, there's a good chance I'm getting one.. or three. Call it a guilty pleasure but now that I can make homemade soft pretzels that are even better than any Mall chain (Auntie Anne's, oh how I looove you), my life is practically made.
These pretzels turn out perfect every time. They have a slightly chewy exterior like a good soft pretzel should, while the inside is super soft and buttery. The flavor is out of this world! I mean, they are bathed in butter as soon as they come out of the oven. This recipe is basically like hitting the jackpot. No more standing in horrendously long lines and spending a crazy amount of money on one pretzel when you can spend that amount or less and make an entire batch!
They are easier to make than you think, too! Don't be afraid of working with yeast, it's really very simple if you follow my simple directions. 🙂
Placing the pretzel dough in a warm baking soda bath is KEY to a chewy, pretzel exterior that we all know and love! To get that beautiful golden brown color, they need to be submerged into an alkaline solution.
Also, if you'd like to make these for game day or any other event that you'd like to feed more people, you can cut the ropes of dough into 1-2 inch pieces to make little soft pretzel bites! See my recipe notes. So yum.
Homemade Soft Pretzels
Ingredients
- 2 ¼ tsp active dry yeast 1 standard packet
- 1 cup warm water
- 1 tbs unsalted butter melted
- 1 tsp sugar
- 1 tsp salt
- 3 cups all-purpose flour + up to ¾ cup more if needed
2 cups water
- 4 tbs baking soda
- 1 tbs coarse salt for sprinkling on top
6 tbs salted butter, melted
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 475 degrees and line a large baking sheet or two baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Combine yeast with warm water and sugar in the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with hook attachment. Once mixture becomes "frothy" your yeast is ready. Stir in salt and 1 tbs of melted butter. Add flour 1 cup at a time until a dough forms and is no longer sticky. You may need more or less depending on temperature differences. If you press your finger into the dough and it bounces back, it's ready to knead. Knead dough for 5 more minutes until smooth and pliable. Form dough into a ball and place it back into the bowl to rest for 15 minutes. During this time, prepare baking soda bath.
- In a medium sized pot, boil 2 cups of water with 4 tbs of baking soda. Once the baking soda is mostly dissolved, take mixture off heat and allow it to come down to a lukewarm temperature. Pour into a 9x9 baking dish once cooled down.
- At this time, 15 minutes of dough resting time should be up. Take dough out of the bowl and flatten slightly with the palm of your hand. Cut dough into 8 sections (like a pizza). Roll each triangle into a long rope, about 19-20 inches long. Shape dough into pretzel shape and place in baking soda bath for 2 minutes. If the whole pretzel isn't covered by the water, spoon it on top of the areas is doesn't reach. Once the 2 minutes is up, carefully pick pretzel up either by your hand or with the help of a fork and place on prepared baking sheet. You may have to re-shape slightly. Sprinkle the pretzel with coarse salt while still wet (optional). Repeat these steps until all 8 pretzels are prepared and on the baking sheet(s).
- Bake pretzels for 8-9 minutes or until golden brown. Immediately from the oven, brush (heavily) with 6 tbs of melted butter.
- These homemade soft pretzels are best served hot and fresh out of the oven but will keep for about 2 days stored at room temperature in an airtight container. Pop them in the microwave and they're good as new!
Notes
- Make Ahead Instructions: Prepared dough can be made one day in advance. Shape the pretzels and allow them to rest for 10 minutes before popping them into the oven. Prepared dough can also be frozen for up to 3 months. Thaw frozen dough overnight in the refrigerator.
- Freezing Instructions: Freeze baked and cooled pretzels for up to 3 months. To reheat, bake (frozen) at 375 degrees for 15-18 minutes or until center is warmed through. You can also microwave for a few minutes until heated through.
- Pretzel Bites: When rolling dough into a long rope in step 4, instead of shaping pieces into a large pretzel, cut the dough into 1-2 inch pieces. Follow the rest of the recipe instructions.
Recipe slightly adapted from King Arthur Flour.
Best Pretzel recipe ever!
These turned out really good, mine cooked a little too long. Next time I will cut the time down by a minute or so. I can't wait to try the bites. Thanks!
This recipe is the closest to the mall pretzel that I have ever tried. It is delicious! Thank you!
Optional modifications that made my life easier based on observation and investigation:
- no need to boil the water for the baking soda solution. Combine hot water and baking soda.
- use 1 tablespoon baking soda per cup of water. 4 cups of water +4 tablespoons of baking soda. This should eliminate the baking soda taste and provide better coverage of the pretzels when you dip them.
- dip the pretzels quickly in the baking soda solution, then blot on a paper towel before you place them on the parchment paper.
- I accidentally let the dough rest 30 minutes and had great results.
- if they stick, use spray, grease or butter on the parchment or baking sheet.
- if you are going to butter the pretzels, add the salt after you butter them.
- since ovens vary, you might want to try a shortened cooking, like 6 to 8 minutes. You can always leave them in longer.
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Made these with my kids, delicious, soft, salty and a great easy fun time!!
Oh. My. God....just made these pretzels and they are INCREDIBLE! You’re totally right, better than any chain. And super easy to make. Thanks so much!!!!
Hey, I'd really like to try making these! Can I use instant yeast instead of active dry yeast?
Sure
hi, how much water do you add with yeast? thankyou
There's too many ads on your blog - it makes it so that when I try to scroll to the recipe, I end up clicking like 5 ads and it takes me away from the recipe. Then when I finally got to the recipe, there were so many pop up ads that I only had about 2 inches of screen to read off of. That's the worst part about blogs nowadays.
Anyways, I made these and they're really good 🙂
It took me reloading the website 4 times to look at the recipe because of spam adds that I didn’t even click on loaded me to iPhone winner viruses.
Could I just freeze some of the dough itself for use later?
Hey Jessica< I was just wondering if you have posted any cinnamon rolls.
I have made soft pretzels and they turned out good, but your recipe looks more like what I really want from my soft pretzels. Thank you so much for posting! I am going to make some tomorrow. God bless....
How Long does it take for the yeast to become frothy?
About a minute or two.
Mmmm!!! I saved this pin ages ago, and finally got around to making this recipe! I wish I hadn’t waited so long!!! Simply delicious!! We had a homemade Oktoberfest at our place this weekend, and this was a huge hit! I need to work on my pretzel shaping, but the taste is spot on! Thank you, Jessica!!
Woo! Thank you for letting me know!
Hi Jessica,
These look nice! Do you think the recipe would turn out ok if you didn't add sugar? Looks really good!
Sure. The taste may just be off a bit.
This recipe is amazing!! I wasn’t too sure if it was going to turn out right but they are soooo good. My dough was a little tough to roll into pretzel shapes, so I ended up cutting it in little bite sizes and doing some pretzel bites. (Mostly because I was too lazy to work with the dough) Thankyou so much for sharing this recipe. Will be using it again for Super Bowl appetizers 🙂
Bite size pretzels are great too! These would make the perfect Super Bowl appetizers - I will probably be making them for that too! 🙂
Hi! I’m a New Yorker who loves soft pretzels, but I love ve in New Zealand where they’re hard to come by. I have not made pretzels since I was a brownie and that was basically my mom making them and me sprinkling salt.
This recipe was easy (and I’m dough-fearing) and the pretzels are delicious. Thank you!!
Aw, such a cute memory! I'm glad you loved them, Betz! 🙂
Hi! I just made some pretzels using your recipe and I they turned out perfect! I never realised soft pretzels were this easy to make! They're not readily available in the UK either so this is a total bonus! Thanks for sharing! xxx
Oh, that's wonderful then that you can make them at home now!! 🙂
Jessica, what a gorgeous idea! We absolutely love pretzels! Definitely need to try these!
Just made them. Amazing! I was skeptical of not letting them rise, just rest, but they turned out great. Nice and chewy with brown outside. The 6 TBSP of butter (melted) to brush with was about 2tbsp too much I had a lot leftover, and I even drowned them. But alas, my 13 y/o said, "Hey, butter dip!" And it all worked out well!! I also used 4TBSP soda and it was too much. It precipitated out when it cooled and I did have a slight taste of soda after they were done but it wasn't really that bad and I didn't find it strong enough to be objectionable.
One question, my dough was very elastic and difficult to roll out. I think I may have added too much flour (about 3C + 2 tbsp). Do they normally take a lot of work to roll out? They just kept springing back. I really had to work at it to get long, thin ropes.
Overall great recipe and my family thinks I'm a genius!! Thanks Jessica
Yes, it does sound like too much flour was added. Next time, try adding a little at a time until the dough is no longer super sticky but soft and elastic enough to roll out. Temperature does plays a large roll in dough making and so this may have played a factor when you added the flour - something to think about! 🙂
I have a slight obsession with all soft carbs - especially fresh baked ones - so fresh soft pretzels are totally up my ally! I know this will sound really silly but I had no clue you could make them. I mean, I know you can make anything per se but this is such an easy recipe to follow. This might be a new breakfast option for us:) Thanks for sharing...
LOL, me too! They are so simple to make that they're almost dangerous, right?!
These pretzels were delicious! My roommate and I have followed a variety of soft pretzel recipes, as its a great way for us to destress after a long week, and we both agreed this was the best! The baking soda bath was extremely low stress, especially because the water was cool enough it wouldn't burn us if we got splashed, so we already knew this was a great recipe, but the butter coating at the end just made it perfect! Thank you so much for taking the time to share this recipe, I'm looking forward to trying out some of your others 🙂
Also, we used vegan butter for this recipe and had no issues, for others who are interested.
thanks you for this recipe 🙂 looks yummy.
Thank you, Daisy!
I just made these and they are awesome!!! Thanks! I linked your website to my facebook post too. 🙂
That's so great to hear! And thank you!
Hi! These were delicious. My husbands co-workers would love me to send some in. However, I’d like them to be as fresh as possible. Would I be able to make them the night before and then do the baking soda bath and baking right before he leaves for work? If so, how would you suggest I store the pretzels overnight before the baking soda bath? Thanks!
So Delicious!!! Everyone LOVED them. We put a little cinnamon and sugar on one batch too!