Soft Sourdough Pretzels

These soft and chewy sourdough pretzels, with their shiny golden surface and coarse salt, are fun to make and delicious to eat!

This sourdough soft pretzel recipe with a sourdough starter is very similar to my sourdough bagels recipe and is easy to make at home without a mixer. It uses sourdough starter as the yeast component in the dough and no commercial yeast.

The dough undergoes a long cold proof in the refrigerator which adds great flavour as well as texture.

Check out more sourdough recipes!

Soft pretzels with sourdough

Soft sourdough pretzels are known for their softness and their chew. They are bigger than the snack-sized hard pretzels found at the supermarkets. The shape and the sprinkle of coarse salt on top are the same though.

This soft sourdough pretzel recipe makes pretzels that have a deep golden brown colour and shiny surface thanks to a baking soda bath. The baking soda solution water bath gives the pretzel its iconic flavour too.

Soft pretzels are made with yeast but unlike other yeast bread, they don’t undergo a proper second rise before baking. Historically pretzels were made with only flour and water, so there was no yeast at all. The addition of yeast creates a slightly lighter pretzel. Though, as there is no long second rise before baking, the pretzel still remains fairly dense with a chewy texture.

If you don’t have your own sourdough starter, this sourdough recipe post shows how to make one.

The flour

Bread flour is best for these sourdough pretzels to give them their chew. If you have no bread flour, use strong all-purpose flour with a high protein content of at least 11-12%.

The sourdough starter

The leaven for this recipe is made up of 50g sourdough starter, 50g flour and 50g water. This is a feeding ratio of 1:1:1 so for an active stater, I would expect it to double within around 4 hours at a room temperature of around 22°C or higher. I use it once it has doubled or tripled but before it passes the peak and collapses.

My starter is always getting refreshed so it has low acid content. This is crucial to all my sourdough bread recipes as an acidic starter can break down the proteins in the gluten. Avoid an acidic starter by refreshing it often, using it before it passes its peak and keeping the seed starter amount small. 

If you want to know more about sourdough starters then check out my sourdough starter guide and also my sourdough troubleshooting guide.

The sourdough pretzel dough

Once the starter is ready to go, carry on with the recipe.

In a large bowl combine the starter, flour, water, brown sugar and salt and mix it together into a thick dough.

The dough needs to be worked and kneaded for a good 10 minutes to develop the gluten until it’s smooth and strong. This can also be done in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook attachment but it’s a very stiff dough, so it might be a bit hard on the stand mixer.

Knead the dough on a lightly floured work surface until smooth and strong and place it in a lightly oiled bowl. Cover the bowl with beeswax wrap or compostable plastic wrap to stop the dough from drying out. Let it bulk ferment in a warm place for 3-6 hours. How long to leave the dough depends on your room temperature. In a warm kitchen with temperatures around 25°C or more, a 3-hour ferment will be sufficient, whilst dough in a kitchen with a temperature below 20°C will be better with a 5-6 hour ferment. The dough rise won’t be very much at this point.

After this bench-rest, place the dough in the fridge overnight ( a minimum of 8 hours, or for a long time all the way up to 24 hours.)

The pretzel shape

The next day after the cold dough rest, remove the dough from the fridge and pull it from the bowl onto a lightly floured work surface. Cut the dough into 8 equal pieces. Let the pieces sit and rest for 15 minutes. This will make them easier to shape.

Preheat the oven to 220°C/430°F regular oven or 200°C/390°F fan-bake.

Take a piece of dough and roll it out into a 50-60cm dough rope (20-22 inches). Take the two ends of the long rope and bring them together at the top and twist the ends of the rope together. Fold the twisted ends down. See the picture below.

Continue with the remaining dough pieces. Place the homemade pretzels onto a floured board. Let them rest for around 20 minutes.

Poaching and baking

Bring 2 litres of water to a boil in a large saucepan. Once boiling, add 4 tablespoons of baking soda. Be careful because it will foam up.

Poach the pretzels, one at a time, in the boiling water for 20-25 seconds. Remove them with a slotted spatula and allow the water to drain for 10 seconds before placing the poached pretzel onto parchment paper or a silicone baking sheet. Sprinkle with coarse salt. Repeat with the remaining pretzels.

Bake the pretzels in the oven for 12-15 minutes until deep golden brown.

Serving and storing

Serve them hot, with your favourite dipping sauce, such as this cheesy pretzel dip.

Once baked and cooled, the pretzels can be frozen for up to 3 months. They can be reheated in a medium temperature oven or in the microwave.

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