This is one of the easiest ways to prepare homemade soft pretzels and the results are extra delicious. The soft pretzel dough only needs to rest for 10 minutes before shaping. The quick baking soda boil gives the pretzels their traditional flavor. Make sure you watch the video for how to shape pretzels!
Homemade soft pretzels are nothing new around here because this recipe has been a reader favorite for years. The dough requires just 6 ingredients and there’s hardly any rise time, so not only are these easy, they’re pretty quick too. In fact, I remember feeling pleasantly surprised at the ease and speed the first time I made them—it took us only 30 minutes to make 1 batch! Over the years, I’ve added a smidge of melted butter to the dough for improved flavor. Furthermore, we’ve introduced the baking soda bath. While it sounds strange, this step is what gives pretzels that iconic flavor, chewy texture, helps deepen their golden color in the oven, and locks in the super soft interior. If you get the water boiling ahead of time, it really only adds 5 minutes to the entire process. We do it every time now. It’s worth it!
We’ve also made them soft pretzel bites, soft pretzel knots (with various toppings), jalapeño cheddar pretzels, and soft pretzel rolls from this simple dough. There’s no wrong way to shape a pretzel, but let’s stick with tradition today. I promise you’ll no longer feel intimidated working with yeast, shaping pretzels, or the baking soda bath. Even if you have zero skill in the kitchen, you can make these homemade soft pretzels.
STEP BY STEP PHOTOS
Let’s chat about the dough. You need the simplest, most basic ingredients possible and I guarantee each one is in your kitchen right now. Warm water, 1 packet yeast, melted butter, brown or regular granulated sugar, salt, and flour.
Let the yeast foam in the warm water for a few minutes, then add the rest of the ingredients and mix. You can use a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook attachment, a hand mixer, or—like you’ll notice in the video below the recipe—no mixer at all. Work with what you have in the kitchen. And if you need extra help with kneading, see my full How to Knead Dough video tutorial.
Guess what? You don’t have to wait to let this dough rise. YES! Well, we’ll let it rest for 10 minutes while you get the baking soda + water boiling on the stove but that’s it. Don’t have any patience? This is the recipe for you. By the way, did you know that some pretzel recipes call for rising overnight? They’re remarkable pretzels but I’m satisfied with this ultra quick dough!
How to Shape Homemade Soft Pretzels
Now it’s time to shape.
Roll 1/3 cup of dough into a long 20–22-inch rope.
Twist the ends and bring the ends down. That’s a pretzel!
Now drop the pretzels into the boiling water + baking soda. Let them boil for 20–30 seconds each, then place onto a baking sheet. This pretzel dough makes 12 regular-size soft pretzels, so I use 2 baking sheets. 6 on each.
Sprinkle with coarse salt and bake in a hot oven. That’s it, you’re done.
Make-Ahead Tip
If you are making pretzels in advance, do not top them with coarse salt before baking. The salt draws the moisture out of the pretzels, and once you’ve placed the baked and cooled pretzels in an airtight container or bag, it doesn’t take long before you’ll notice water droplets forming inside and the pretzels become soggy and wrinkled. Yuck!
If you won’t be serving the pretzels the same day you bake them, omit the salt-topping step. Bake as directed, then allow to cool completely before placing them in an airtight container, and store at room temperature. When you are ready to serve them, place the pretzels on a baking sheet and brush them lightly with water, then sprinkle with coarse salt. Bake them in a 350°F (177°C) oven for 5–10 minutes, or until warmed through.
Same goes for freezing homemade soft pretzels: wait to top with salt until you’re ready to serve them. Cool the unsalted baked pretzels completely, then freeze in an airtight freezer-safe container or zip-top bag for up to 3 months. To reheat, brush frozen pretzels (no need to thaw) with water and sprinkle with coarse salt, then bake at 350°F (177°C) for 20 minutes or until warmed through.
And if you want to kick your soft pretzel status into major high gear, add some spicy nacho cheese sauce.
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Easy Homemade Soft Pretzels
- Prep Time: 25 minutes
- Cook Time: 15 minutes
- Total Time: 40 minutes
- Yield: 12 pretzels
- Category: Snacks
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
This is one of the easiest ways to prepare homemade soft pretzels and the results are extra delicious! The dough is a family recipe and only needs to rest for 10 minutes before shaping. The quick baking soda boil gives the pretzels their traditional flavor. Make sure you watch the video for how to shape pretzels!
Ingredients
- 1 and 1/2 cups (360ml) warm water (lukewarm– no need to take temperature but around 100°F (38°C) is great)
- 2 and 1/4 teaspoons (7g) instant or active dry yeast (1 standard packet)
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 Tablespoon brown sugar or granulated sugar
- 1 Tablespoon (14g) unsalted butter, melted and slightly cool
- 3 and 3/4-4 cups (469-500g) all-purpose flour (spooned & leveled), plus more for hands and work surface
- coarse salt or coarse sea salt for sprinkling
Baking Soda Bath (See Recipe Note)
- 1/2 cup (120g) baking soda
- 9 cups (2.13L) water
Instructions
- Whisk the yeast into warm water. Allow to sit for 1 minute. Whisk in salt, brown sugar, and melted butter. Slowly add 3 cups of flour, 1 cup at a time. Mix with a wooden spoon (or dough hook attached to stand mixer) until dough is thick. Add 3/4 cup more flour until the dough is no longer sticky. If it is still sticky, add 1/4–1/2 cup more, as needed. Poke the dough with your finger—if it bounces back, it is ready to knead.
- Knead the dough: Keep the dough in the mixer and beat for an additional 5 full minutes, or knead by hand on a lightly floured surface for 5 full minutes. (If you’re new to bread-baking, my How to Knead Dough video tutorial can help here.) If the dough becomes too sticky during the kneading process, sprinkle 1 teaspoon of flour at a time on the dough or on the work surface/in the bowl to make a soft, slightly tacky dough. Do not add more flour than you need because you do not want a dry dough. After kneading, the dough should still feel a little soft. Poke it with your finger—if it slowly bounces back, your dough is ready to rise. You can also do a “windowpane test” to see if your dough has been kneaded long enough: tear off a small (roughly golfball-size) piece of dough and gently stretch it out until it’s thin enough for light to pass through it. Hold it up to a window or light. Does light pass through the stretched dough without the dough tearing first? If so, your dough has been kneaded long enough and is ready to rise. If not, keep kneading until it passes the windowpane test.
- Shape the kneaded dough into a ball. Cover lightly with a towel and allow to rest for 10 minutes. (Meanwhile, I like to get the water + baking soda boiling as instructed in step 7.)
- Preheat oven to 400°F (204°C). Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats. Silicone baking mats are highly recommended over parchment paper. If using parchment paper, lightly spray with nonstick spray or grease with butter. Set aside.
- With a sharp knife or pizza cutter, cut dough into 1/3-cup sections (about 75g each).
- Roll the dough into a 20–22-inch rope. Form a circle with the dough by bringing the 2 ends together at the top of the circle. Twist the ends together. Bring the twisted ends back down towards yourself and press them down to form a pretzel shape.
- Bring baking soda and 9 cups of water to a boil in a large pot. Drop 1–2 pretzels into the boiling water for 20–30 seconds. Any longer than that and your pretzels will have a metallic taste. Using a slotted spatula, lift the pretzel out of the water and allow as much of the excess water to drip off. Place pretzel onto prepared baking sheet. Sprinkle the top with coarse sea salt. Repeat with remaining pretzels. If desired, you can cover and refrigerate the boiled/unbaked pretzels for up to 24 hours before baking in step 8.
- Bake for 12–15 minutes or until golden brown.
- Remove from the oven and serve warm with spicy nacho cheese sauce.
- Cover and store leftover pretzels at room temperature for up to 3 days. See Make Ahead & Freezing Instructions in recipe Notes below for more storage info. To reheat, microwave for a few seconds, or bake at 350°F (177°C) for 5 minutes.
Notes
- Make Ahead & Freezing Instructions: If planning to freeze baked pretzels, do not top them with coarse salt before baking. Cool completely, then freeze in an airtight freezer-safe container or zip-top bag for up to 3 months. To reheat, brush frozen pretzels (no need to thaw) with water and sprinkle with coarse salt, then bake at 350°F (177°C) for 20 minutes or until warmed through, or microwave frozen pretzels until warm. The prepared pretzel dough can be covered and refrigerated for up to one day or frozen in an airtight container for 2–3 months. Thaw frozen dough in the refrigerator overnight. Refrigerated dough can be shaped into pretzels while still cold, but allow some extra time, about 1 hour, for the pretzels to puff up before continuing with the baking soda bath and baking.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): Electric Stand Mixer or Glass Mixing Bowl | Wooden Spoon | Baking Sheets | Silicone Baking Mats or Parchment Paper | Pizza Cutter | Large Pot (such as a Dutch oven)
- Baking Soda Bath (Step 7): The baking soda bath is strongly recommended because it helps create that chewy texture and distinctive pretzel flavor. If skipping, brush the shaped and unbaked pretzels with a mixture of 1 beaten egg + 1 Tablespoon of dairy or nondairy milk. This is known as an egg wash. Sprinkle the brushed pretzels with salt. The egg wash will help the salt stick. If you don’t have an egg, simply brush with 2 Tablespoons of dairy or nondairy milk.
- Cinnamon Sugar Pretzels: Skip the coarse salt topping (and skip the egg wash, see note above, if you aren’t doing the baking soda bath step). Bake as directed in step 8. Meanwhile, melt 4 Tablespoons (56g) of unsalted or salted butter. Brush the baked and warm pretzels with melted butter, then dip the tops into a mix of cinnamon and sugar. I usually use 3/4 cup (150g) of granulated sugar and 1 and 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon. Cinnamon sugar pretzels are best served that day because the melted butter topping causes them to become soggy after a few hours.
- Reference my Baking with Yeast Guide for answers to common yeast FAQs.
I substituted everything seasonings for the kosher salt on top – absolutely wonderful recipe
These are so delicious and so easy. I was intimidated by the boiling but it’s super easy. Thanks for the detailed instructions! These freeze well after baking.
Delicious recipe! I used vegan soy free butter since we have a dairy allergy. They came out perfect. I used bread flour since that is what I had. It was my son’s first time having a pretzel as he can’t have one at a restaurant due to cross contamination. Plus I think these ingredients are better.
I have made this recipe a few times and loved it. Can M make the dough beforehand and finish them the next day?
You bet! See recipe Notes for details.
Great recipe! Soft pretzels are my favorite. These are so much better than the frozen pretzels I get from the grocery store. Thanks for the detailed recipe.
I use this recipe everytime I make pretzels, I love it.
These were perfect! My family loved them. When they came out, I brushed a little melted butter on them. I’m making more today, just going to do pretzel bites this time!
So good! I used the dough setting on my bread machine to knead and pulled it out before it could rise. The dough was perfect.
I loved this recipe and it turned out perfect! My friends are gluten free, would this recipe turn out using gluten free flour or other types of flour? Or would there need to be adjustments?
Hi Nikki, we haven’t tested a gluten free version of these pretzels, but let us know if you do any experimenting.
The dough for this recipe turned out perfect, easy to roll and shape BUT by the time I got done shaping they all were stuck to my silicone mat and I got them all stretched out putting them in the baking soda bath. What did I do wrong? (By the way, despite the funky shape they tasted amazing!
Hi MaeMae, thank you so much for trying these soft pretzels! Is your kitchen particularly warm? Or was this a humid day? It sounds like the dough became sticky as it sat at room temperature. Regardless, a little extra flour always helps. The dough can be a little soft, but use enough flour so you can shape the pretzels and not have them stick to the mat. Hope this helps for next time.
This was so easy and delicious! A keeper for sure.
I love the recipe but I always need drastically more flour than the recipe calls for, or else it always stays sticky.
Biggest waste of time and materials I’ve ever had the displeasure of trying. Following the directions to the letter, at no point did the dough stop being sticky, and while trying to get it to stop being sticky it wound up overworked and unusable. Not sure how anyone here managed to get this nonsense to work but I won’t be wasting my time and energy on it again. This was my first introduction to one of Sally’s recipes and I’m not sure I’ll be trying more of them in the future. What a disappointment.
You probably had a flour with too low protein content. I have this trouble with flour from Aldi. If you ever care to try again, try using a name brand flour. I had no issues with Walmart brand.
I love those recipe. They are delicious and super easy. I double the recipe so I can freeze some. No more buying frozen dough pretzels.
What an easy recipe. I helped my grandkids make them over Christmas. They loved the whole process, and the rest of the family ate them as fast as we could bake them!
Wowsa!! I love Sally’s recipes, and this one did not disappoint! My husband has been asking me to make pretzels for him for ages, and I have always been so intimidated by the idea of finding and using lye! So I was so excited to see an alternative that was so much easier (just baking soda!) and they turned out GREAT! I could not believe how fast we were able to make them also! I am so excited to have this recipe at the ready for whenever I need to whip some up! They turned out so puffy and had a beautiful texture!
Great easy pretzels, I never make pretzels because most recipes take so long this was super easy and delicious!
Everytime I make these I forget to add the butter but even without it it’s the easiest and best recipe I ever followed. Thankyou for this amazing recipe 🙂
I found this recipe disappointing, especially because I used premium flour, thinking they’d be great. Is there not some rising time missing, maybe after rolling the dough out into ropes, or even just after forming the pretzels? If I ever attempt this recipe again, I’m definitely going to make sure a second rise is in there, because when I dropped these in the boiling water, they just got lumpy. Not hard – I was careful not to overwork or put too much flour in the dough – just…lumpy. Not attractive. I went ahead and sprinkled on the salt and put them in the oven. They did brown up nicely, and were quite tender and delicious, but to my horror, after covering and putting them away overnight, I woke up to find them shriveled up! Is there no way to safely store these even just overnight? I had planned to chocolate dip a few of them in the morning, but that plan is dashed now. I don’t want to waste these, and hope at least the toaster oven might perk them up a bit, but this really was a disappointment, and I don’t see any similar problems in the comments, which is why I’m posting mine. I do wonder if some solid second rising time would’ve created a nicer appearance and stopped the shrivel after they cooled.