Soft Pretzel Bites for Game Day
 
Prep time
Cook time
Total time
 
The perfect appetizer for game day and for anytime you crave a delicious salted snack!
Recipe type: Appetizer
Serves: 6 dozen
Ingredients
  • Dough:
  • 2½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour
  • 1 tsp. salt
  • 1 tsp. sugar
  • 2¼ tsp. instant yeast
  • 1 cup warm water
  • Topping:
  • 1 cup boiling water
  • 2 TBSP. baking soda
  • ---- Coarse salt or pretzel salt
  • ---- Swedish pearl sugar (optional)
  • 6 TBSP. butter, melted
  • ---- Cinnamon-sugar (optional)
Instructions
  1. Place all of the dough ingredients into a bowl, and beat until well combined. Knead the dough for about 5 minutes, until it is soft, smooth, and quite slack. Sprinkle some flour on the dough, place the bowl in a plastic bag, and allow it to rest for 30 minutes.
  2. While the dough is resting, prepare the topping: Combine the boiling water and baking soda, stirring until the soda is dissolved. Set the mixture aside to cool.
  3. Preheat your oven to 400°F. Prepare a baking sheet by spraying it with vegetable oil spray. You can also line it with parchment paper, but you should spray that with vegetable oil as well, so as to make sure the pretzels won’t stick.
  4. Transfer the dough to a lightly greased work surface, and divide it into six equal pieces. Roll the six pieces of dough into 12" to 15" ropes. Cut each rope crosswise into about 12 pieces.
  5. Pour the cooled baking soda solution into a pan large enough to hold the bites. Place the bites into the solution, gently swish them around, and leave them there for a minute or two. Transfer them to a prepared baking sheet, and top with the course sea salt.
  6. Bake the pretzel bites for 12-13 minutes, or until golden brown. Remove them from the oven, and roll them in the melted butter.
  7. Place on a rack. In you are not going to enjoy them immediately, store the bites, well-wrapped, at room temperature. Reheat briefly before serving. Serve with different mustards (like a coarse mustard or honey-mustard, or a spicy brown mustard) on the side, or, with any mustard based dipping sauce.
Notes
Note: For a sweet version, you can also top the pretzels with pearl sugar instead of sea salt and once you have rolled them in butter, you can toss them with cinnamon-sugar.
These pretzel bites are best when freshly baked but if you need to store them, place in a container and leave loosely covered at room temperature for 1-2 days. Reheat gently in a 350°F oven before serving.
Recipe by Marilena's Kitchen at https://marilenaskitchen.com/soft-pretzel-bites/