So bread is life and I have always maintained that. But you know what makes a burger or sandwich better than a normal hamburger bun or bread? A pretzel roll. Or even better, easy pretzel rolls. Do you know what’s better than just a dinner roll? That’s right, a pretzel roll. Who doesn’t love a mall pretzel? I don’t really go to the mall that much these days but if I did? I’d be getting that pretzel. With the lack of mall pretzel in my life I had to find another way to integrate soft pretzel into my life. Enter easy pretzel rolls. Because the only thing better than delicious, is easy AND delicious.
Why are they easy pretzel rolls? Because who knew making soft pretzel bread at home was this simple. If you have ever made bread at home, you can make these. Making pretzels really only has one extra step. Boiling them before baking. It’s very similar to making bagels, which is how I came up with the idea for Pretzel Bagels (also because I love salt bagels).
I love using these rolls for sandwiches, sliders and burgers. You can easily make the rolls a little smaller or bigger, just dividing the dough up more or less. But honestly they are just as good to snack on or to have in place of a dinner roll.
Easy Pretzel Rolls Key Ingredients
- Bread flour – Bread flour helps this pretzel bread have that distinctive chew that pretzels have. I have made these with all purpose and you can, but if you have or can get bread flour, I always recommend that.
- Baking soda – Traditional pretzels are dipped in lye, however lye isn’t as widely available as baking soda and you need special precautions when using lye as it is corrosive and can severely burn you. So to make these EASY pretzel rolls, we will just be using regular old baking soda.
- Pretzel salt – Pretzel salt is a special kind of coarse salt that is a little bit extra salty, and doesn’t break down or melt when you bake it. If you don’t have it or can’t find it, you can use kosher salt or flaky sea salt too. I have been using this kind, and it lasts a while as you don’t need tons in a recipe.
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Ingredients
Dough
- 480 g Bread Flour 4 cups
- 2 tbsp Dark brown sugar
- 2 tsp Salt
- 2¼ tsp Instant yeast
- 1¼ cup Water warm
- 2 tbsp Milk 2% or Whole
- 2 tbsp Unsalted butter softened
- Coarse salt for sprinkling
Water Bath
- 8 cups Water
- 1 tsp Salt
- ¼ cup Baking soda
Instructions
- Weigh out your flour into the mixing bowl of your stand mixer, dough hook attached. Add salt, yeast, and brown sugar, making sure that the yeast and salt are added next to each other.
- Add in milk and water and begin mixing on low until all ingredients have come together and started to form a dough.
- Add in 1 tbsp of softened butter, letting it be fully incorporated into the dough before adding the remaining butter.
- Let mixer knead dough for about 5-15 minutes or until the dough is smooth and lightly sticky.
- Lightly grease a bowl and place dough into it, covering and placing in a warm area to rise. Depending on temperature of your house this could take 1-3 hours, however about 90 min is a good time to check and see if the dough has doubled in size.
- Prepare a baking sheet lined with parchment or silicone mat.
- Once dough has doubled in size, gently punch down dough and remove from bowl onto a very lightly floured or greased counter.
- Divide the dough into 6-10 equal pieces. Weighing them will insure each piece is equal size, however it is not imperative that they are exactly identical in size.
- Take each piece of dough and fold in all the sides to create a ball. Place the seam down onto the counter, and cup your hand over the dough and move your hand in a circular motion to further shape the dough into a ball. Place on lined baking sheet, repeat with remaining dough.
- Cover with a towel and let rise for 15 minutes
- Preheat oven to 350°F
- Add 8 cups of water into a large pot with 1 tsp of salt and bring to a boil.
- Add ¼ cup of baking soda to boiling water
- Place 2-4 dough balls into the boiling water, and flipping them over after 40 seconds. After the second 40 seconds remove and place back on baking sheet. Repeat until all dough has been boiled.
- Lightly slash each roll top with a bread lame, razor blade or sharp knife. Sprinkle with pretzel salt, coarse salt or flaky salt.
- Bake rolls for about 25-30 minutes on center rack. Rolls will be done when they are a deep brown color.
- After rolls come out of the oven, transfer to a wire rack to cool.
Notes
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