Today's recipe is brought to you by ... my daughter, who was craving her favorite treat from the mall. It only takes a few, simple pantry ingredients to make these yummy, Homemade Vegan Soft Pretzels.
I know, not the healthiest recipe in the world, but, they are fun to make and are absolutely delicious. And since we're all cooped up in quarantine together and everyone seems to be baking right now, why not?
You remember these, don't you?
Those big, soft, chewy pretzels you would buy in the mall or maybe your favorite movie theatre? Dipped in some spicy mustard or cheese sauce?
Yum!
Truth be told, I was thinking of making some kind of mustard sauce this weekend as I have a lot of kale to use and I thought that would make a good sauce for it. But then she mentioned pretzels and well, pretzels won.
We'll get to the kale though, promise.
But in the meantime, providing you have flour and yeast in your pantry, this is a fun snack to make that even the kids will like.
As far as the questions I know I'm going to get .....
I'm using King Arthur's brand All-Purpose Flour.
I don't know if you can sub GF Flour
I don't know if you can sub whole wheat flour.
I used white flour, and that worked beautifully.
So, on to the pretzel making.
Homemade Vegan Soft Pretzels
Start by activating your yeast.
You'll need 1 cup of very warm water. I usually start with cold water and microwave it for about 45 seconds to get the right temp. Stir in the brown sugar and the yeast and set it aside for 10 minutes. If it foams up, you're good to go.
To mix the dough:
I used a stand mixer with a dough hook. You can mix this by hand, but it's a fair amount of work.
To the bowl of my stand mixer, I mixed the flour and salt on low speed, then slowly added my yeast water. Mix until the dough forms a ball, and then slightly increase the speed to knead for about 1-2 minutes.
Cover the dough and let it rise in a warm place for 1 hour.
Note: I use my oven. I turn on the heat (any temp) and wait exactly 1 minute, then turn it off. It's the perfect temp for the dough to rise.
While the dough is rising:
We can prepare our baking soda bath. To a large pot, I added about 8 cups of water and ⅓ cup of baking soda. This is what gives pretzels their distinctive brown color and flavor.
Whisk until the baking soda dissolves, and then bring it to a steady simmer.
You can also preheat your oven to 450° F. I covered my cookie sheet with my Silpat, but parchment paper might also work.
To form the pretzels:
- Divide the dough into 6 equal portions.
- Roll each piece out into a 24" log.
- Make an upside-down U shape.
- Cross the ends
- Twist once
- Bring twisted ends up to rest on the top of the pretzel.
- Press to seal.
No that's not dough, I forgot to take photos as I was shaping them. So you get therapy putty instead 🙂
Place each formed pretzel on your baking sheet and keep covered with a damp towel.
Once all your pretzels have been made, carefully drop 1 or 2 at a time into the simmering baking soda bath for 30 seconds to 1 minute. Carefully remove them with a slotted utensil to drain and place back on the cooking sheet.
I made an eggless vegan egg wash by mixing unsweetened almond milk with a little maple syrup. Brush this onto the pretzels and then lightly sprinkle on your favorite toppings.
I used sesame seeds and a course, kosher salt. You can try garlic, dried onion, whatever you like.
Bake for 10-15 minutes until they are a deep, rich brown. Remove to a rack to cool.
I highly recommend my Amazing Vegan Cheese Sauce as a dipping sauce as well as your favorite spicy mustard.
Happy pretzel-making and I'll see you next week.
Homemade Vegan Soft Pretzels
- Prep Time: 90 min
- Cook Time: 15 min
- Total Time: 1 hour 45 minutes
- Yield: 6 Soft Pretzels 1x
- Category: Snack, Appetizer
- Method: Oven
- Cuisine: American, Vegan
Description
It only takes a few, simple pantry ingredients to make these yummy, Homemade Vegan Soft Pretzels.
Ingredients
- 1 cup warm water
- 2 Tbs brown sugar
- 2 tsp active dry yeast
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 ¾ cups AP flour
- 8 cups water
- ⅓ cup baking soda
- 2 Tbs unsweetened almond milk
- 1 Tbs maple syrup
- kosher salt to taste
Instructions
- Whisk brown sugar and yeast in warm water. Wait 10 minutes for yeast to bloom
- Mix flour and salt
- Slowly pour the wet ingredients into the dry and mix until a stiff dough ball forms
- Knead 1-2 minutes.
- Cover and let rise 1 hr in a warm place.
- Dissolve baking soda in 8 cups water and bring to a simmer
- Preheat oven to 450° F oven and line cookie sheet with parchment or silpat
- Divide dough into 6 portions
- Roll each ball into a 24" log, and then form into pretzels
- Drop pretzels into water bath for at leatst 30 seconds to 1 minute
- Remove carefully and place on cookie sheet, repeat.
- Brush pretzels with eggless wash and sprinkle on kosher salt
- Bake 10-15 minutes or until browned
- Serve with vegan cheese sauce, mustard, or eat plain.
Julia
Another perfect recipe! Had to use soy milk because I didn’t have any almond but they turned out! I have made your amazing recipes too many times to count. Thank you for sharing!
Jodi
Delicious! Making them for the second time, I used more flour so the dough would be easier to work with and I stretched each log as far as I could, then let it rest, then continue stretching and resting. This batch resembles pretzels! The first batch were round blobs that I used as pretzel buns.
Susan Haines
I have not made your pretzels yet, but i am sure they are delicious, as are all of your recipes!
Donna Best
Made these tonight! They were wonderful and the hubby loved them. I love so!any of your recipes!
Abby
These were excellent! Made for a great date night activity.
Sandy Lynn Stevens
Delicious! By the way, like pizza dough as you shape them you just need to keep patting it in place in order to keep the shape.I did some with plain kosher salt and some with what turned out to be my favorite topping: generous amount of nutritional yeast and onion powder and sesame seeds. Excellent - didn't need a dip. Next time I might try adding mustard to the eggless wash.
Karen
Can I use Rapid rose instant Yeast?
Julie Fuller
Made these over Mother's Day weekend. We LOVED them. Thank you for another great recipe. I do have a question about the elasticity of them. Do you happen to know why we would not be able stretch them far enough to make them traditional pretzel shapes? We ended up with rings, twisted logs, blobs, and only one traditional shape. We just couldn't get them to stretch. Did I do something wrong? I hand kneaded. Maybe I should have done it longer? Shorter? Either way they were a hit. Thanks again!!
Annie G
Julie,
Usually, dough will relax a bit if left to rest 10-20 minutes. This allows the gluten to relax and become more pliable. Working the dough makes it more elastic and hard to stretch out.
Susan
Mine just came out of the oven. Do I have to wait till they cool down? Seriously? I skipped the eggless wash and just sprinkled lots of everything bagel seeds on top.
Diane Bolton
Thank you so much for this perfect recipe, those Pretzels taste were superior then expected. (Coming from my first experience) it will be a weekly family regular treat. I could go on how yummy and soft they were. My problem was to stretch them the 24 inches required, so they were a little shorter and very puffy. Can they be frozen or how to keep them fresh, at room temperature or refrigerator? Thanks BNV I love everything you publish xxoo truly appreciated DB.
Diane Bolton
WOW I'm impress, they came out very soft and delicious, I need practice to shape them perfectly, they were a little too short so they were thick more puffy but still super soft. My husband eat 3 right away, ,, now that's a first. I put coarse salt on some and sesame seeds on the others. Didn't have the cheese sauce today, used mustard that was perfect. My question is 'how to keep them fresh?"
Eileen Rodrigues
Do you think this recipe would work if I formed the dough into a bagel shape?
Lisa
The pretzels turned out amazing! The recipe was super easy and the tips were very helpful. Thank you so much for sharing this recipe!!!
D. Rogers
These were great! I’m so glad the email
showed up today. I made them to go with chili for dinner and they were a hit! Thanks
Carolyn Blakeney
In the past for regular bread recipes I have often mixed white whole wheat flour in equal proportions with all purpose flour and it worked great. And just a couple weeks ago I was able to get white whole wheat berries online from Palouse so will be making my own flour with my home mill. Soft pretzels (with mustard!) have a permanent place in my heart so I will try this recipe with a half all purpose, half whole white wheat mix.
Lesley Nicol
Thank you for sharing your experience and this recipe.
Do you have a recipe for the mustard sauce dip please?
Chuck Underwood
I just mixed equal parts yellow mustard and spicy brown mustard
Angie
Do you think this would work with Gluten Free All Purpose Flour?
Chuck Underwood
I cover that in the post