Soft Pretzels
Updated Oct. 12, 2023
- Total Time
- About 2 hours (plus at least 8 hours’ chilling and 45 minutes’ resting)
- Prep Time
- 20 minutes
- Cook Time
- 1¾ hours (plus at least 8 hours chilling and 45 minutes resting)
- Rating
- Notes
- Read community notes
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Ingredients
Yield:10 pretzels
- ¾cup/136 grams baking soda
- ¼cup/55 grams dark brown sugar
- 2¼teaspoons/1 (0.25-ounce) packet active dry yeast
- 3tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon dark brown sugar
- 3¾cups/510 grams bread flour
- 4tablespoons/57 grams unsalted butter, cut into pieces, at room temperature
- 2teaspoons kosher salt (such as Diamond Crystal)
- 1large egg, lightly beaten
- Pretzel salt or coarse sea salt, for sprinkling
For the Water Bath
For the Dough
To Finish
Ingredient Substitution Guide
Nutritional analysis per serving (10 servings)
267 calories; 6 grams fat; 3 grams saturated fat; 0 grams trans fat; 2 grams monounsaturated fat; 1 gram polyunsaturated fat; 46 grams carbohydrates; 1 gram dietary fiber; 8 grams sugars; 7 grams protein; 3738 milligrams sodium
Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
Powered byPreparation
- Step 1
Prepare the baking soda for the water bath: Heat the oven to 300 degrees. Cover a rimmed baking sheet with foil. Spread the baking soda out onto the prepared sheet and bake for 1 hour. Transfer to an air-tight container until ready to use. (The baking soda loses volume after it’s baked. You’ll need ½ cup of the baked baking soda for the water bath in Step 7.)
- Step 2
Prepare the dough: In a glass measuring cup or small bowl, combine 1¼ cups warm water with the yeast and 1 teaspoon of the brown sugar. Set aside until foamy, about 5 minutes.
- Step 3
In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the flour, butter, salt and remaining 3 tablespoons brown sugar. Using the paddle attachment, beat the mixture on low until the butter is evenly distributed. Switch to the dough hook. Add the yeast mixture and mix on medium-low until just combined, then knead on medium speed until the dough becomes smooth and elastic, 5 to 6 minutes. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 8 hours and up to 24 hours. It will puff in the fridge but will stop once it cools down.
- Step 4
Shape the dough: Set two silicone baking mats on two rimmed baking sheets. (Do not use parchment, as the dough will stick.) On an unfloured work surface, roll and pat the cold dough out to an even 10-by-18-inch rectangle. Using a pizza wheel (or a sharp knife) and a ruler, cut the dough lengthwise into 10 (18-by-1-inch) strips.
- Step 5
Working with one piece at a time, roll each strip into a rounded rope, without making it longer. Shape the dough into U, then twist the ends around each other and bring them down to overlap the bottom. Transfer to one of the prepared baking sheets. Repeat with the remaining strips. Set the two baking sheets aside, uncovered, for 45 minutes.
- Step 6
After 45 minutes, heat the oven to 425 degrees, with racks positioned in the upper and lower thirds of the oven.
- Step 7
Prepare the water bath: To a deep 10-inch skillet, add 4 cups of water and the brown sugar; bring to a simmer on medium-high. Stir in ½ cup of the baked baking soda. (Discard any remaining baked baking soda or reserve for another use.) Carefully transfer 1 to 2 pretzels, top side down, to the water. Cook for about 10 seconds per side and then use a slotted metal spatula to transfer the pretzels back to the prepared baking sheet, reshaping as necessary. Repeat with the remaining pretzels.
- Step 8
Brush the pretzels with the beaten egg and sprinkle with salt. Bake until deep golden brown, rotating the positions of the baking sheets halfway through, 15 to 20 minutes. Serve warm.
Private Notes
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Cooking Notes
V
I suggest using the extra prepared baking soda (now sodium carbonate) to boil regular spaghetti with to make alkaline (yellow-ish, chewy) noodles for dishes like “hot and dry Wuhan noodles” when the craving hits you but you can’t get any from a store. I always keep a jar of this stuff around. Just a warning that the water will froth enormously when you boil the spaghetti, so use a big pot only half filled with water.
Randi
Have been making a similar recipe for years....baking soda will still make a better pretzel than almost anything out on the streets of NYC today. Lye not needed.
Suzanne
I think you’re forgetting that most of that baking soda will be left behind in the leftover water bath.
Jeanie
Please remember that in small NYC apartments many of us do not have stand mixers. Please always tell how long to beat the dough by hand or with a hand mixer.
hurstdoc
3725mg sodium per serving? Um, no thanks. Look delicious and beautifully photographed, I must say.
muffin
I make pretzels for a living and I use baking soda because lye is completely toxic however you don’t need brown sugar in my opinion you don’t need the brown sugar and you don’t need to bake the baking soda just dissolve in the water and bring to a boil then boil them for 30 seconds on each side. Beautiful pretzels every time .
Elizabeth M
We made these according to the recipe and they turned our great! I also made a cheese sauce to accompany them, and then made fruit smoothies (with lots of spinach) and called it Fun Sunday Dinner.
Jessica
It’s misleading to say kosher salt “such as Diamond Crystal”, since not all kosher salt is the same. Salt brands should not be suggestions. I learned this the hard way and ruined fried chicken. From the excellent Food52 explainer: “Diamond Crystal is less salty and more crumbly, whereas Morton is much saltier and denser. You cannot, I repeat, cannot swap out one for the other without adjusting the amounts. Doing so will either create a much saltier recipe or a significantly undersalted dish.”
Rosana
The heavily greased parchment paper worked fine. I did not have silicone mats.
A. Johnson
This recipe is awful. The flavor of the baking soda remained on the pretzels and was inedible. I followed the recipe exactly. So disappointing. Maybe without the baking soda in the water they'd be ok. And baking the baking soda seemed to make the flavor intensify? Just awful.
Vinita cooking w her kid
We followed this recipe except we did not bake the baking soda. We read in one of the comments to boil for 30 seconds, so we did that. Unfortunately, we had to toss our batch — way too much soda bicarbonate and it tasted terrible and bitter. Where did we go wrong? Not baking the soda? Boiling for too long?
jmb
Way too much sodium carbonate. Inedible.
Adam F.
This recipe does require more work than others I have tried. But the results are worth it. Amazing color and texture with really nice flavor.
Sheyna
Have made these twice with very good results. I’ve learned to pull back a bit on the baking soda in the water because it can leave quite a bitter taste behind.
Mimi
Baking the baking soda, sodium bicarbonate, turns it into sodium carbonate. Sodium carbonate produces a more alkaline solution when added to water than sodium bicarbonate.
Ellen
This recipe makes me nervous with the casual inclusion of sodium carbonate (the baked baking soda) with no further safety notes. One is no longer dealing with baking soda at this point: it has become dangerously alkaline, and it should not be touched or especially inhaled in its undiluted powder form. I have found recipes that use a baking soda solution to produce excellent results— and to be more friendly! I form the pretzels and dunk in a room-temp soda bath, and bake. No need to wait 45 min.
JS
I am a new pretzel maker. Did some research on lye v no lye. Baking soda baked or not baked. Etc. This is the 2nd recipe I tried and decided to substitute barley malt for the brown sugar in the water bath (4.5 tbsps). I otherwise followed the recipe and these came out GREAT. (I do recommend checking the oven on the early side; may have just been my oven but they were just slightly too well done after 14 minutes.) Will definitely use for a large party I have planned next month.
Drey
These turned out great! BUT I destroyed my favorite Calphalon pan b/c I forgot to wash the baking soda wash out immediately and it ate through the anodized coating. Yikes. Also, since I didn't have a slotted spatula I used a slotted spoon plus tongs to flip & remove the pretzels, so they got about 20 seconds per side and were therefore more bitter than I'd like. But they're still pretty great. Calphalon replaced the pan ;-).
The master of cooking
You can make crispy pretzels if you know how.
Cleo
I don’t understand how you put a proofed (soft) pretzel into a warm water bath and not have it fall apart. After I proved the pretzels I refrigerated them so that I could manage them in the water. Does the water bath need to be warm? Could you spritz the pretzels with the baking soda solution?
Danny
In the middle of this recipe. I decided to add some malt. If it works out, I’ll enter a better note.
Keri
I made this with assistance from 3 toddlers. I made the dough the night before. Lots of little steps they shared like rolling the dough strips, shaping the pretzels, adding the egg wash and salt. And the pretzels were wonderful! A big hit in my book!
Tom
These turned out perfect for me! Just used all purpose flour and I didn’t have a silicone mat so I used parchment paper. They were a little tricky getting off the paper before the baking soda bath, but manageable. Definitely making again!
JS
If you "grease" the parchment paper with vegetable oil it's not a problem to remove.
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