Homemade Soft Pretzels

Meggan Hill

• Updated

5 from 14 votes

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Homemade Soft Pretzels that are soft and chewy on the inside and crackly brown on the outside. Knot or twist your way to the BEST soft pretzels you’ve ever had!

A platter of soft pretzels with a bowl of cheese sauce.


 

The Oktoberfest pretzels in Munich are legendary: Soft, chewy, and probably the size of your head. What’s not to love?

But good things come in small packages, too, and these Homemade Soft Pretzels are the perfect addition to your Oktoberfest celebration, Football potluck, or Friday night cocktail party.

Dip your homemade pretzels in Cheese Sauce and Mustard, as per tradition, or branch out and try Ranch dressing or Marinara Sauce. No sauce needed either! You’ll love these pretzels as-is, plain, with just a crunchy topping of salt.

Table of Contents

  1. Recipe ingredients
  2. Ingredient notes
  3. Step-by-step instructions
  4. Recipe tips and variations
  5. Frequently Asked Questions
  6. Homemade Soft Pretzels Recipe

Recipe ingredients

Labeled ingredients for homemade soft pretzels.

At a Glance: Here is a quick snapshot of what ingredients are in this recipe.
Please see the recipe card below for specific quantities.

Ingredient notes

  • Baking soda: Dunking the knots into a boiling baking soda bath before baking gives you that crackly brown outside on your pretzel.
  • Homemade Cheese Sauce:  Transfer to a slow cooker on the “warm” setting for serving if desired. Or, substitute store-bought cheese sauce.

Step-by-step instructions

  1. Bloom the yeast in a mixture of warm water (110 degrees) and dissolved sugar until foamy, about 5 to 10 minutes.
Yeast bloomed in water.
  1. In the bowl of a standing mixer with the dough hook attached, combine flour, salt, and remaining 2 tablespoons sugar. Add melted butter and bloomed yeast mixture. Stir until the dough just comes together, pulling away from the sides of the bowl but clinging to the bottom.
A bowl of dough for homemade pretzels.
  1. Coat a large bowl lightly with oil or nonstick spray. Transfer dough to the coiled bowl and cover loosely with plastic wrap coated with nonstick spray. Let rise in a warm place until doubled in size, about 1 hour.
A bowl of dough for homemade pretzels.
  1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. Prepare the baking soda bath. In a small bowl, whisk together yolk and water. Turn out dough on to a lightly floured surface and shape into an 8-inch round disc and cut the disc into quarters. Then, cut each quarter into thirds so you have 12 pieces. Shape each piece of dough into a long rope and lay each rope in a horseshoe shape. Twist the ends together, then wrap under the knot and pull the ends through the loop. Repeat with remaining pieces of dough.
Twisting dough into a pretzel shape.
  1. Working with one pretzel at a time, drop a pretzel in the boiling baking soda water for 30 seconds.
A homemade soft pretzel in boiling water.
  1. Remove and transfer to a prepared baking sheet. Immediately brush with the egg yolk wash and sprinkle with Kosher or coarse salt. Repeat with remaining pretzels.
Brushing soft pretzels with egg wash.
  1. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes, until the pretzels are dark brown, crackly, and fragrant.
Homemade soft pretzels on a baking sheet.
  1. Cool on a rack and serve with your favorite dipping sauces.
Homemade soft pretzels on a cooling rack.

Recipe tips and variations

  • Yield: This recipe makes 12 soft pretzels and 2 cups cheese sauce.
  • Storage: Wrap leftover pretzels individually and store at room temperature for up to 2 days (they will get stale faster if stored in the refrigerator. Reheat in a 350-degree oven for 5 minutes.
  • Freezer: Store wrapped pretzels in the freezer for up to 1 month. Reheat straight from the freezer in a 350-degree oven for 10-15 minutes.
  • Proofing the dough: Turn your oven on to the lowest temperature it will go, usually 200 degrees. Once it reaches 110 degrees, turn the oven off. Place the dough in the oven and close the door. Opening the oven door will lower the heat a bit, and that’s okay (you’re aiming for 75 to 85 degrees).
  • Knotted up: I went with a less traditional knot shape, but you can twist the dough any way you see fit.
  • Everything Pretzels: For more flavor and crunch on top, sprinkle the pretzels with Everything Bagel Seasoning before baking.
  • Sweet Pretzels: Roll your pretzels in Cinnamon Sugar Topping for an extra sweet crunch. Epic dessert dips include cream cheese frosting, chocolate sauce, and caramel sauce.
A platter of soft pretzels with a bowl of cheese sauce.
Homemade Soft Pretzels with the easiest Cheese Sauce.

Frequently Asked Questions

What makes soft pretzels different from bread?

The dough starts off the same: a combination of flour, yeast, water, and sugar. But, after the pretzel dough is shaped, the pretzels are boiled in water with baking soda and then baked. This leads to the shiny, golden color and crackly texture.

What are the best dipping sauces for soft pretzels?

Cheese sauce, mustard, (Dijon, whole grain, or yellow), marinara sauce, pizza sauce, and ranch dressing are all good choices. Personally, I’lll dip a soft pretzel in anything from Dill dip to Spinach Artichoke dip.

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A platter of soft pretzels with a bowl of cheese sauce.

Homemade Soft Pretzels

By Meggan Hill
Homemade Soft Pretzels that are soft and chewy on the inside and crackly brown on the outside. Knot or twist your way to the BEST soft pretzels you’ve ever had!
Cook Time 1 hour 40 minutes
Total Time 1 hour 40 minutes
Servings 12 servings
Course Appetizer, Snack
Cuisine American, German
Calories 158
5 from 14 votes
ReviewPrint

Ingredients 

For the pretzels:

For the cheese sauce (see note 2):

Instructions 

To make the pretzels:

  • In a small saucepan, heat 1 ¼ cups water to 110 degrees. Stir in 1 teaspoon sugar until dissolved and remove from heat. Pour yeast over the top and set aside to bloom until foamy, about 5 to 10 minutes.
  • Meanwhile, in the bowl of a standing mixer with the dough hook attached, combine flour, salt, and remaining 2 tablespoons sugar.
  • Add melted butter and bloomed yeast mixture. Stir until the dough just comes together, pulling away from the sides of the bowl but clinging to the bottom.
  • Coat a large bowl lightly with oil or nonstick spray. Transfer dough to the oiled bowl and cover loosely with plastic wrap coated with nonstick spray. Let rise in a warm place until doubled in size, about 1 hour (see note 2).
  • Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper or a silicone mat. In a 3-quart saucepan, bring remaining 2 quarts (8 cups) water and baking soda to a boil. In a small bowl, whisk together yolk and water.
  • Turn out dough on to a lightly floured surface and shape into an 8-inch round disc. Using a bench scraper, pizza cutter, or butter knife, cut the disc into quarters. Then, cut each quarter into half so you have 8 pieces.
  • Shape each piece of dough into a long rope and lay each rope in a horseshoe shape. Twist the ends together once or twice, then bring the ends towards you. Separate the ends and fold them down, using water or milk to make them stick to the dough. Repeat with remaining pieces of dough.
  • Working with one pretzel at a time, drop a pretzel in the boiling baking soda water for 30 seconds. Remove and transfer to a prepared baking sheet. Immediately brush with the egg yolk wash and sprinkle with coarse salt. Repeat with remaining pretzels.
  • Bakeuntil the pretzels are dark brown, crackly, and fragrant, about 8 to 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and serve with Homemade Cheese Sauce.

To make the cheese sauce:

  • In a small saucepan, add cheddar cheese and cornstarch and toss until cheese is evenly coated.
  • Stir in evaporated milk and salt and pepper to taste (I like 1 teaspoon salt, and ¼ teaspoon pepper). Heat over medium-high heat, whisking occasionally, until cheese is melted and smooth, about 3 to 5 minutes.

Recipe Video

Notes

  1. Baking soda: Dunking the knots into a boiling baking soda bath before baking gives you that crackly brown outside on your pretzel.
  2. Homemade Cheese Sauce:  Transfer to a slow cooker on the “warm” setting for serving if desired. Or, substitute store-bought cheese sauce.
  3. Yield: This recipe makes 12 soft pretzels and 2 cups cheese sauce.
  4. Storage: Wrap leftover pretzels individually and store at room temperature for up to 2 days (they will get stale faster if stored in the refrigerator. Reheat in a 350-degree oven for 5 minutes.
  5. Freezer: Store wrapped pretzels in the freezer for up to 1 month. Reheat straight from the freezer in a 350-degree oven for 10-15 minutes.

Nutrition

Serving: 1pretzelCalories: 158kcalCarbohydrates: 27gProtein: 4gFat: 4gSaturated Fat: 2gCholesterol: 24mgSodium: 1517mgPotassium: 42mgFiber: 1gSugar: 3gVitamin A: 109IUCalcium: 7mgIron: 2mg
Did you make this recipe?Tag @culinaryhill on Instagram so we can admire your masterpiece! #culinaryhill
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Meggan Hill is a classically-trained chef and professional writer. Her meticulously-tested recipes and detailed tutorials bring confidence and success to home cooks everywhere. Meggan has been featured on NPR, HuffPost, FoxNews, LA Times, and more.

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Comments

  1. Me again, I just reread to whole page again. It seems that you have your recipe written twice. Once as step by step with pictures and another where it looks like you can print it if you wanted to. However the printing instructions are more through then the Step by Step, which is what the app pulled from.

    Some of the differences are you have Kosher salt to sprinkle on the top of the pretzels in the step by step as the one you have below where you say to use course salt (which is the better one top use). Also the instructions to shape the pretzel in the step by step are not as good as the instructions at the bottom of your site.

    Reply

    1. Hi Ann, thank you for taking the time to write your comments, I’m happy that you were able to make substitutions and adjustments, and had amazing soft pretzels. I appreciate you comments and will look into the metric conversions you mentioned, noting that the water is in milliliters, and still may not be correct, and that the salt is 0.75 teaspoons, not converted to grams… which I will update. They are generated by the program, so sometimes manual adjustments are necessary. I’m so sorry about all this! I appreciate you taking the time again to point these out! Happy baking! – Meggan

  2. Hi Meggan,

    First, let me say that the pretzels turned out perfect and delicious.

    I did use the same ratio of Bread Flour instead of. All-Purpose because bread flour has a higher percentage of protein making ideal for for adding more structure and helping the pretzels to keep their shape.

    However, the metric part of your recipe is all wrong:

    Flour: You have 375 grams for three cups. However, one cup of flour is 120 grams…. So it’s 360 grams
    Salt: You have .75 grams for 3/4 teaspoon, when it is 5/6 grams (I don’t have a scale for decimals)
    Baking Soda: You have 60 grams, when a 1/2 cup is 110 grams (lightly spooned).
    Water: You have 313 grams for 1 1/4 cups, when it should be 284 grams

    Also, I use an App called Paprika 3, which is a recipe manager. This app allows you to pull recipes from different sites (minus those with pay walls) to allow you to create a recipe file. Of course when I read your recipe I thought it was something that I wanted to try and I pulled it over to the site. Here’s the weird thing…the instructions that you have on your site where different than what was transferred to Paprika. As I was reading them on the Paprika app I thought it was weird how you didn’t say how much water to use, or sugar to proof the yeast so I opened your site (the app saves the link) and saw that it was different… so weird, that has never happened before.

    I bake a lot and although I am not a professional I knew enough to see that some things were not right. So with a few tweaks they came out perfect and delicious. I actually like big pretzels so I only made six and cooked them twice as long.

    I’d be interested to hear from you…

    Thanks5 stars

    Reply

  3. DEAR MEGGIN, YOUR RECIPPES ARE UNBELIEVABE, BETTER THAN THE BEST RESTAURANTS MY SON LIVES IN WESTCHESTER AND WOULD LIKE TO KNOW IF YOU DO PRIVATE COOKING FOR OCCASSIONS MONEY IS NO OBJECT RESPECTFULLY YOURS, SANDRA

    Reply

    1. Hi Sandra, thank you! Unfortunately we are not licensed for catering so I do not do any private cooking, I’m sorry! – Meggan

  4. Meggan Hill if the test Kitchen could make a German style Pretzel then why doesn’t the Test Kitchen look into further German style health Breads and baked goods that uses Sourdough starter there are many benefits for many people health my Suggestion would be to look into this further beacuse of the many people that do have health issues that can’t eat any breads or baked goods j
    Have a wonderful Wednesday 18th of August5 stars

    Reply

    1. Hi Amy! I used regular all-purpose flour. I am not sure what the effect would be with bread flour, so unfortunately I can’t say. :-/ Sorry about that!

    2. No worries. I did use bread flour and they turned out amazing! Love these! Thank you for sharing!!

    3. You did?! Did you use the same quantity? That’s so exciting! I can’t wait to try it out myself so that I can officially add that option to the recipe. Thanks for passing along the info!

  6. Just LOVED reading this post, just as I did reading Nagi’s post about your trip. 🙂

    The food does indeed look incredible, and that view… wow!

    As for those pretzels, my mouth is literally watering at the sight of them – you nailed it, Meggan! Must check out the dip recipe too!5 stars

    Reply

  7. ??? OMG OMG! You totally took me back to our magical holiday!!!! And those PRETZELS! I need some NOW!!! Pretzels here are so sad compared to in the states, I am making these STAT!!! And thank you for the mention re: dip 🙂

    Seriously makes me so nostalgic reading this….. N xx5 stars

    Reply

    1. *Magical* is the keyword here! We seriously need to make this an annual excursion. I’m making your DIP stat, it looks so good! Glad you left out the blue cheese. 🙂