Easy Homemade Bagels

Easy Homemade Bagels

If you’ve ever been afraid to finagle your way through a bagel recipe, you’re not alone. Many home chefs are daunted by bagels because they assume they’re difficult to make. Though it’s true that bagels do require a few unusual steps, like boiling the dough before baking, they’re incredibly easy to make in your home kitchen. Plus, you can experiment with different toppings and flavors once you get the hang of the recipe.

Benefits of Making Your Own Bagels

If you’re a bagel lover and buy bagels regularly, one of the main benefits to making homemade bagels is that you’ll save some dough on your grocery or takeout bill. While bagels don’t usually break the bank, they’re even cheaper when you make them from scratch. That’s because they only require a few ingredients: warm water, yeast and bread flour. Alternatively, you can use self-rising flour as a shortcut, as demonstrated in our 2-ingredient bagel recipe below.

The other perk of homemade bagels is that you get to experiment with flavors. So if you’ve been dying to make a hybrid everything-Asiago combo, you can! Experimenting with seasonal fruits and veggies, your favorite spices (za’atar bagel, anyone?) and other flavors can also yield delicious results.

The Basics of Bagel Dough

Bagel dough is a lean dough, which means that it typically doesn’t contain butter, dairy, sugar or eggs. While sugar or dairy are sometimes added to sweeten the bagel, it’s not strictly necessary to create the dough. Other examples of lean doughs include sourdough, focaccia and pizza dough. Like bagels, each of these only require flour, water, and a yeast or starter, which means you can often create a delicious bread from what’s already in your pantry.

What’s with the Water Bath?

After the dough has risen and you’ve shaped the bagels, you’ll notice that the next step in many bagel recipes is to boil the bagels in a pot of water, usually with some type of sugar. Though this may seem strange, it serves two important functions. First, it helps to give the outside of the bagel a glossy shine. And second, partially cooking the outside of the bagel helps to retain its shape in the oven.

Simple 2-ingredient Bagel Recipe

Ready to get started? Our 2-ingredient bagel recipes takes a few shortcuts, which makes it great for beginners. The 2 main ingredients are selfrising flour (which eliminates the need for yeast as a separate ingredient) and Greek yogurt for extra protein.

Ingredients

• 1 cup self-rising flour, plus more for dusting
• 1 cup nonfat Greek yogurt
• 1 egg, whisked with 1 tsp. water, optional
• Everything bagel seasoning, optional
• Asiago cheese, optional
• Cinnamon-sugar mixture, optional

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375°F. Line baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. In large bowl, mix together flour and yogurt to form dough. Transfer to lightly floured surface; knead by hand about 5 minutes, dusting with flour as needed.
3. Shape dough into circle; cut into 4 equal parts. Shape each part into ball.
4. Using your thumb, make a hole in the center of each ball. Gently stretch dough into 4 rings. Arrange bagels on prepared baking sheet. Brush with optional egg wash and add desired optional toppings.
5. Bake 20-25 minutes, until bagels are golden brown, rotating halfway through.
6. Store any leftovers in an airtight container.

Now that you’re ready to bake up your own homemade bagels, it’s time to start shopping. You can easily shop everything you need online, or use the app to create a list and help you find your items in-store.