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. This recipe is such a fan favorite, that it deserved a spot in print! You’ll also find this recipe in my cookbook, Sally’s Baking 101 (which has become a New York Times Best Seller!).
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’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 the classic 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 bet each one is in your kitchen right now. Warm water, 1 packet of yeast, brown or regular granulated sugar, melted butter, salt, and flour.
Mix the yeast and sugar in the warm water, let it sit for a minute, then whisk in the butter and salt, then add the flour. You can use a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook attachment a big bowl and wooden spoon. 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.
You don’t have to wait to let this dough rise for an extended period of time. Just 10 to 30 minutes does the trick. Don’t have a lot of time on your hands? This recipe is for you. If, however, you want to extend the rise time, you certainly could. Doughs that leave time for bulk fermentation (when the dough rises before shaping), typically have a more enhanced, developed flavor. In fact, some pretzel recipes require an overnight rise in the refrigerator. If you have the time for that, do it! However, I find a brief rise suitable for today’s pretzels, especially if I’m making them with younger bakers.
How to Shape Homemade Soft Pretzels
Now it’s time to shape.
Roll about 1/3 cup (75g) of dough into a long 20- to 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.
Print
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 for beginners, and the results are extra delicious! The dough is a family recipe and only needs to rest for 10 to 30 minutes before shaping. The quick baking soda boil gives the pretzels their traditional flavor, and I do not recommend skipping it. This recipe is also in my New York Times best-selling cookbook, Sally’s Baking 101.
Ingredients
- 2 and 1/4 teaspoons (7g) instant or active dry yeast (1 standard packet)
- 1 Tablespoon brown sugar or granulated sugar
- 1 and 1/2 cups (360ml) warm water (around 100°F/38°C)
- 1 Tablespoon (14g) unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 3 and 3/4–4 cups (469–500g) all-purpose flour (spooned & leveled), plus more as needed
- coarse salt, for topping
Baking Soda Bath (See Recipe Note)
- 1/2 cup (120g) baking soda
- 9 cups (2.13L) water
Instructions
- Whisk the yeast and sugar into warm water. Cover and allow to sit for 1 minute.
- Whisk in the melted butter and salt. Add 3 cups (375g) of flour. Mix with a wooden spoon (or dough hook attachment if using a stand mixer) until combined. Add 3/4 cup (94g) more flour until the dough is slightly tacky and pulls away from the sides of the bowl. If it is still sticky, add up to 1/4 cup more (31g) flour, 1 Tablespoon at a time, 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 3 to 5 full minutes, or knead by hand on a lightly floured surface for 3 to 5 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 to 30 minutes. (Meanwhile, I like to get the water + baking soda boiling as instructed in step 8.)
- 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 75g sections, which is about 1/3 cup of dough 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. Repeat with remaining pretzels. If desired, cover the boiled, unbaked pretzels with lightly oiled plastic wrap and refrigerate for up to 24 hours before baking (step 9).
- Sprinkle the tops of the pretzels with coarse salt. Bake for 12–15 minutes or until dark golden brown.
- Remove from the oven and, if desired, 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 fully 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 at room temperature before continuing with the baking soda bath and baking. You can also freeze the boiled, unbaked pretzels and here’s how: after boiling the pretzels in step 8, place them on a lightly greased parchment paper- or silicone baking mat-lined baking sheet. Freeze the pretzels for about 1 hour, then transfer them to an airtight freezer-safe container or zip-top bag (squeeze out as much air as possible from the bag before sealing) and freeze for up to 3 months. To bake, brush frozen pretzels (no need to thaw) with water and sprinkle with coarse salt, then bake at 400°F (204°C) for 15–20 minutes or until dark golden brown.
- 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 8): 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 9. 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 taste best the day they’re made 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.
Reader Comments and Reviews
Great Recipe! My family ate all of them within 30 minutes!
I made six batches of this recipe for snacks for a Vacation Bible School, and they were a real hit! Everyone raved about them!, and they actually gave me a big round of applause for them at the closing service!!! So easy to make and they turn out just perfect every time I make them.
Sally never lets me down! Followed the directions exactly (except substituting vegan butter), and they came out perfect.
so yummy my family finished them so quick, not hard at all to make either
So easy to make!
Chewy on the inside and golden brown on the outside.
My husband said they taste just like the pretzels at the ballpark!
I was so surprised how easy these were! It really felt like magic!
I have enjoyed making this recipe several times with my grandkids. It is good practice in counting and measuring and lots of fun making snakes and shapes. Had your team experimented with bread flour and found that the AP flour worked better?
Hi Mike, so glad you and your grandkids enjoy this one! You can definitely use bread flour instead of all-purpose flour in this pretzel recipe. Same amount with no other changes to the recipe. Bread flour yields even chewier pretzels.
Thank you! These pretzels turned out smaller than I thought but they ended up being the perfect size for us. I my 6 year old even enjoyed making them!
Great recipe! I’ve made pretzels many times but never this recipe. I appreciate that they’re ready to eat in no time! Thank you!
Delicious and easy! I made them following the instructions and they came out perfect. Thank you for another great recipe Sally!
I can’t believe how cnn professional these looked and how great they tasted.
Could I use Barley Malt Syrup instead of the brown/white sugar in this recipe? If I can, would it be a 1-1 substitution?
Hi Casey! Absolutely, that’s a great 1:1 substitution.
I love my old cookbooks, but I rarely use them because it’s so much easier to come to you! Another perfect recipe. Thank you!
I’ve made this recipe twice, once without a mixer and once with. I find my dough was a lot more chewy and dense when not using a mixer so I definitely recommend using one. Also I suggest that if you are doing this by yourself don’t leave the pretzels too long before putting in the oven as they go rock solid and don’t bake well.
First time ever making soft pretzels, and it was super easy. I did not have white flour, so I used whole wheat, and they still turned out fabulous!
Great recipe, made by hand, no mixer. Made 12 pretzels, one batch with salt, one with sesame and salt. Next time will go easy on the salt on top. Brushed with an egg yolk and 1tbsp of water before sprinkling with salt/ sesame seeds. Brushed with butter when they came out of the oven. So good.
As with 99% of baking recipes on the internet, if you don’t own expensive machines you will be kneading for at least 15 minutes, not the three suggested here. Unless you want to make bread soup when you drop them in the soda bath,
These were perfect and the directions were so easy to follow! Perfect way to spoil our Father on Father’s Day. I exchanged the water with a stout beer and it was a hit
I just made these for gifts for Father’s Day! I doubled the batch and they came out perfect. A super easy recipe to follow and I was so proud of myself after. Thank you for always posting the best recipes.
Made in food processor, needed much more flour. Next time I think I will drop it to 1 cup water. Delicious and my first time using yeast and I didn’t fail
I cannot wait to make this for my busband! Do you use bread flour or all purpose flou for the preztels? Also, do you use instant or active dry yeas for the pretzels? Thank you.
Hi Laura! Do you see the recipe and ingredients in the gray recipe card above? We use all purpose flour and instant or active dry yeast – both work here!
First time making pretzels! Super easy and tastes delicious.
These were delicious! Super easy recipe. My husband took one bite and said “these taste just like Auntie Anne’s, but BETTER!” (and we LOVE auntie Anne’s). You will not be disappointed in this recipe!
OMG! I’ve been gluten free for nine years and have missed these the most. After visiting Italy and being able to eat pasta, bread and pastries I got some 00 organic Italian flour from Amazon. I made two batches of these amazing pretzels. The shape of the first batch was not pretty but the second batch was close to perfect. Delicious! Thank you so much Sally sharing this recipe.
My family loved these! My sister said they were better than Auntie Anne’s. We made a batch of buttered & salted pretzels and a batch of cinnamon-sugared ones. I can’t decide which I like more, so I recommend making both! Thank you to the author for this recipe.
Can i use this same dough but increase the sugar for homemade oven-baked doughnuts?
Hi Doug, the doughnuts would be quite dense. You could try using milk instead of water and adding an egg for a richer, lighter texture too. And increase the sugar. This would require some testing, so let me know if you try it out!
This recipe was great especially for a bread beginner. This was my first time using yeast and making pretzels, they came out really good
My husband wanted a large Bavarian pretzel as we recently got home from Germany so I halved the recipe and made one large pretzel. I have to say this was better than the Bavarian pretzels we ate. Absolutely delicious. Will be making again! Super easy and super delicious. Far exceeded expectations.
So glad to hear that, Chelsea!
Can the pretzels be shaped before freezing and boiling?
Hi Doug, Yes! If you want to freeze the shaped, unbaked pretzels, we do find it’s best to do the baking soda bath right before baking– even drop them into the bath while frozen. That being said, we have frozen these shaped pretzels AFTER the bath too. It doesn’t make a huge difference either way.
Can these be made gluten free?
Hi Candace, we haven’t tested this recipe with gluten-free flours, but some readers have reported success using 1:1 flour substitutes. If you try it, let us know how it goes!