Chewy and soft sourdough pretzels are like the classic recipe, but with that flavorful sourdough tang. Top them with salt, cinnamon sugar, or some fresh parmesan cheese for a delicious snack.
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Is there a more comforting snack than warm, homemade, soft sourdough pretzels topped with coarse salt? No way. These homemade pretzels have that classic chewy crust and soft interior.
With more than 100 sourdough recipes on the blog, I’m constantly trying to find creative ways to use up my homemade sourdough starter and bring more recipes to your home.
I’m often asked if I ever don’t want to cook, or if I get stuck in a food rut.
Truth be told, making food from scratch has been a passion of mine for a long time, and there is just no contest between store-bought and homemade.
I absolutely love being able to provide my family and yours with these delicious recipes. From sourdough brioche cinnamon rolls to zucchini lasagna and everything in between.
Being creative in the kitchen and coming up with these recipes also helps me keep the food spark alive.
This recipe is a great way to be creative. Pair it with this delicious cheese sauce.
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
Easy: Once you get the hang of sourdough recipes, they are usually not very difficult. Just mix the pretzel dough and allow it to rise, then shape, rise, boil, and bake. I swear it’s not that hard and requires very little hands-on time. This recipe is really quite similar to my sourdough bagels.
Delicious: Soft and chewy, they make the perfect snack or treat. Serve with your favorite dipping sauce, like kefir ranch dressing, or top with cinnamon sugar for a yummy dessert.
Perfect for parties or to make ahead: These pretzels can easily be stored in the freezer for a few months at a time. What’s great is preparing a bunch of them and keeping them in the freezer for a party or when you are just craving a soft and chewy pretzel.
Ingredients
Dough
Sourdough starter – Active and bubbly.
Honey – You could also substitute the honey with maple syrup.
Salt – Adds so much flavor to the dough, and bread without salt is bland.
Unbleached all-purpose flour – Store-bought or fresh-milled.
Water Bath
Baking soda – This gives the pretzels a deep golden color, a cracked exterior, and a pleasantly chewy interior. You will find it is very similar to making sourdough bagels. The baking soda makes the water alkaline and gelatinizes the exterior, which prevents the bagels from fully rising during the baking process, giving them a chewy texture.
Egg Wash
Egg – Gives it that lovely, deep, golden color.
Pretzel salt – Is there anything better than a salty pretzel? You want to use coarse sea salt so it stays nice and chunky.
A full ingredient list with exact amounts can be found in the recipe card below.
Tools You May Need
Stand mixer with dough hook attachment
Slotted spoon or spider strainer
How To Make Sourdough Pretzels
Step 1: Add active sourdough starter, water, honey, salt, and flour to the bowl of a stand mixer.
Step 2: Mix the dough on the lowest speed for 5-10 minutes with the dough hook. You could also knead by hand for 10-15 minutes. The dough should pass the window-pane test. Cover the bowl and let rest in a warm place for 8-12 hours or until doubled.
Step 3: Shape. Divide the dough into 15 equal pieces (image 3). Roll each piece into an 18” long rope, then create a U shape (image 4). Take the two ends of the rope and create a twist with the dough (image 5). Twist it twice, then press the ends of the dough into the bottom of the U shape (image 6). Cover the dough and let the dough rise for about an hour.
Step 4: Preheat the oven to 425°F. Bring water in a large stockpot to a boil and add 2 tablespoons of baking soda and 2 tablespoons of brown sugar. Place the pretzels in boiling water for 30 seconds on each side (image 6). I like to do 4 pretzels at a time so that they aren’t overcrowded.
Step 5: Take out with a slotted spoon or kitchen spider strainer, shaking off excess water, and place on a parchment-lined baking sheet (image 6).
Step 6: Brush each pretzel with egg wash and sprinkle with coarse pretzel salt (image 7). Bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown.
Tips
- You want to use active sourdough starter to make this light and fluffy.
- This is the perfect master recipe that is delicious with just a little salt, or you can customize with additional delicious toppings.
- Sourdough discard can be used instead of active sourdough starter, but you may have to let the dough ferment longer. Or try my sourdough discard pretzel recipe that has active dry yeast.
- You don’t need to be confined to just creating the pretzel shape. Try shaping them into pretzel buns, knots, twists, or rolls!
- If you are new to sourdough, I have a whole post on how to make a sourdough starter and another on how to care for a sourdough starter.
- Some people are sensitive to baking soda, so if you know this is the case, skip the baking soda and just use sugar in the boiling water.
Baker’s Timeline:
Feed your sourdough starter.
Mix the dough. Cover and ferment.
Shape dough and allow to rise for an hour covered. Preheat oven and bring water to a boil.
Boil and bake pretzels.
Reheating Pretzels
To reheat pretzels, gently moisten the pretzels with a little bit of water and place in a 325°F oven for 5 minutes until warm.
You can also reheat in the microwave. Cover with a damp towel and reheat in 30-second intervals until warm. This is not the preferred way, as the results will leave something to be desired.
Pretzel Topping Ideas
Before adding toppings, brush the baked pretzels with melted butter.
- Coarse salt
- Cinnamon and sugar, or even pumpkin spice
- Parmesan cheese
- Everything but the bagel seasoning
- Top with shredded cheese and place in a 350-degree oven until just melted. Serve with some warm pasta sauce to make pizza pretzels.
Recipe FAQ
Place in an airtight container for up to three days, or freeze for up to 3 months in a freezer-safe container or bag.
Yes, most definitely. They are the perfect salty snack. Since the dough is fermented, the vitamins and minerals are more bio-available for your body to absorb, and there is less gluten, making them easier to digest.
Boiling them in a baking soda or lye solution. I prefer baking soda because it is much safer than lye and not poisonous.
The real difference is that pretzel dough is boiled in water with baking soda before it is baked giving it that yummy crust.
Yes. Freeze after baking in an air-tight container or freezer-safe bag. Pop in a warm oven for a few minutes to reheat.
You can also freeze the pretzel dough after the bulk fermentation and after you have shaped the dough. Place on a cookie sheet for 2-3 hours or until completely frozen, then transfer into a freezer-safe bag. To bake, allow the dough to thaw completely and then rise for another hour. Boil and bake as directed.
More Sourdough Recipes from the Farmhouse
- Sourdough Brioche
- Sourdough Banana Bread
- Fluffy Sourdough Donuts With Vanilla Glaze
- Sourdough Hot Cross Buns
- Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls
If you try this recipe and love it, I would love it if you could come back and give it 5 stars! Tag me on Instagram @farmhouseonboone.
Soft Sourdough Pretzels
Ingredients
- ½ cup sourdough starter, active and bubbly (113 grams)
- 1 cup water, 236 grams
- 2 tablespoons honey, 42 grams or maple syrup
- 1 ½ teaspoons salt, 11 grams
- 3 cups unbleached all purpose flour, 420 grams
Water Bath
- 2 quarts water
- 1 tablespoon baking soda
- 1 tablespoon brown sugar
Egg Wash
- 1 large egg yolk
- 1 tablespoon water
- pretzel salt
Instructions
- Add active sourdough starter, water, honey, salt and all-purpose flour to the bowl of a stand mixer.
- Mix the dough on the lowest speed for 5-10 minutes with the dough hook. The dough should pass the window-pane test.
- Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a lid and let rest at room temperature for 8-12 hours. Or until doubled.
- Divide the dough into 15 equal pieces.
- Roll each piece into a 18” rope and then create a U-shape.
- Take the two ends of the rope and create a twist with the dough.
- Twist it twice and then press the ends of the dough into the bottom of the U-shape.
- Cover the dough and allow them to rise for about an hour.
- Preheat the oven to 425°F.
- Bring water in a large stockpot to a boil and add 1 tablespoon of baking soda and 1 tablespoon of brown sugar.
- Boil the pretzels for 30 seconds on each side, being careful not to overcrowd.
- Place on a parchment lined baking sheet.
- Brush each pretzel with egg wash and sprinkle with coarse salt.
- Bake 15 minutes, or until golden brown.
Notes
- You want to use active sourdough starter to make this light and fluffy.
- This is the perfect master recipe that is delicious with just a little salt, or you can customize with additional delicious toppings.
- Sourdough discard can be used instead of active sourdough starter, but you may have to let the dough ferment longer.
- You don’t need to be confined to just creating the pretzel shape. Try shaping them into pretzel buns, knots, twists, or rolls!
- Some people are sensitive to baking soda, so if you know this is the case, skip the baking soda and just use sugar in the boiling water.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
I’m excited to make these. If the dough will be done with the bulk ferment around 9 am, but I don’t want to bake until 4 pm. Can I put the dough in the fridge after shaping the pretzels for a couple hours and then take them out for an hour prior to baking to bring to room temperature?
Yes, you can!
The recipe calls for 3 cups of flour which is 360 grams not 420 grams unless we need to add more flour? I kneaded it by hand but it was quite sticky so i’m going to let it rest now and hopefully it won’t be as sticky when i shape them.
Can these be made with einkorn flour? If so is there any change in ingredients or instructions? I’m switching over to einkorn for all my baking so it would be helpful if this was addressed in all your recipes as a side note. Thank you in advance!
It cannot be switched to einkorn without adjusting the ingredients entirely! Einkorn absorbs water differently, so the hydration is altered quite a bit!
So happy I saved some of my original starter. I can’t wait to make these!
I have to tell you I made this recipe today. I ended up using it to make little meat and potato pockets. They turned out amazing. I was worried they would open and leak out into the boiling water but they didn’t! I will definitely be using this recipe often. Thanks!
That’s a great idea! Glad it worked well for you.
Most amazing pretzels! How no idea I’d be able to make something so delicious in my own kitchen with relative ease. I make the dough day 1 and proof for 5 hours and then stick in the fridge overnight. The second day I take them out to room temperature to finish proofing so I can bake them fresh in the afternoon or evening. So easy! Thank you!
Did you shape the pretzels before or after the overnight rise in the fridge?
This dough is incredibly sticky and unmanageable. It is challenging to shape the pretzels because of how sticky the dough is.
Oh no! Sounds like a case of over fermentation. That happens when your dough ferments too long and it loses its rise and becomes a very sticky mess.
The first time I tried this recipe it was strange – they turned out super sticky and lumpy. I make pretzels often but this was my first attempt at sourdough ones. I’ve tried your bagel recipe and it was amazing! I realized looking at them side by side that they are almost exactly the same in dough ingredients but your gram measurements are off even when they are the same ingredient, for example the honey in one recipe says 2TB = 42g but 21g in another. Just wanted to point it out as this recipe might have some errors in the measurements? Or the bagel one does and I just got lucky! I can’t remember if I used the gram or cup measurements which also throws me off. Hope this message translates as trying to be helpful and not critical. I came back to experiment with it today and measure out the ingredients in both grams and tsp/cups.
My dough was sticky. Do you use flour to help roll and shape?
You can! Was this after the fermentation? If so, it may have gotten a little over fermented. That can cause the stickiness.
What about freezing and reheating these?
They freeze great after baking them. 🙂
Great recipe! Thank you for such detailed explanation and I will work on perfecting the twist!