This easy homemade bagels recipe proves that you can make deliciously chewy bagels in your own kitchen with only a few basic ingredients and baking tools!
Today I’m teaching you how to make homemade bagels with only a few basic ingredients and kitchen tools. Today you’re going to tackle any fears of yeast and bread baking– and I’m right here to guide you along!
Bagels, crème brûlée, soft pretzels, and hot ham & cheese pockets. What do these foods have in common? Each seem really complicated to make at home, but secretly couldn’t be easier. Homemade bagels taste fresher, are cheaper, and you’ll earn the bragging rights for from-scratch baking. (PS: Each of those recipes has a video tutorial!)
Bagels Require a Lean Dough
The 1st step is to make the bagel dough. This is the same dough you use for everything bagels, a recipe already published on my blog. There’s only 5 ingredients.
- Warm Water: Liquid for the dough.
- Yeast: Allows the dough to rise. I recommend an instant or active dry yeast.
- Bread Flour: A high protein flour is necessary for bagels. We want a dense and chewy texture, not soft and airy like cinnamon rolls. Bread flour is the only solution!
- Brown Sugar: Bakeries use barley malt syrup to sweeten the bagel dough– it can be a little difficult to find, but brown sugar is a fine substitute.
- Salt: Flavor.
Notice how there is no fat? This is called a lean dough. Lean dough is ideal for recipes like focaccia, pizza dough, artisan bread, and no knead bread. Breads like dinner rolls and homemade breadsticks, and sweet bread, such as cinnamon rolls, include fat for richness and flavor.
You can prepare the dough with a mixer or by hand. Kneading the dough by hand is imperative. Bagel dough is very heavy and dense, which could rattle your mixer too much. After the dough has been kneaded, let it rise for 60-90 minutes. Punch it down, then divide into 8 sections and shape into bagels.
How to Shape Bagels
Shaping bagels is easier than it looks. Poke your finger through the center of the ball of dough, then use 2 fingers to widen the hole to about 1.5 – 2 inches. That’s it! I don’t really do anything fancy and the bagels don’t need to be perfect. Mine never are!
Bagel Water Bath
Bagels must cook for 1 minute on each side in a pot of boiling water. This is actually the most important step in the whole recipe. Why?
- Boiling the bagels gives the bagel its beautiful shine. But looks aren’t everything– this shine is actually a result of the dough’s starches gelatinizing which creates a crisp, shiny coating. I learned this from Cooks Illustrated.
- Boiling bagels cooks the outer layer of dough, which guarantees they’ll hold their shape in the oven.
Add honey or barley malt syrup to the water bath. Why? The sugar adds extra caramelization and crisp. Brushing the boiled bagels with egg wash does the same. Don’t skip either!
Homemade Bagel Varieties
- Plain Bagels: Follow the recipe below. These are excellent as the base for breakfast casserole.
- Cinnamon Raisin Bagels: Follow my cinnamon raisin bagels recipe.
- Everything Bagels: Follow my everything bagels recipe.
- Sesame Seed Bagels: Use 1/3 cup sesame seeds. After brushing with egg wash in step 9, top with or dunk each bagel into topping. Use more as needed.
- Poppy Seed Bagels: Use 1/3 cup poppy seeds. After brushing with egg wash in step 9, top with or dunk each bagel into topping. Use more as needed.
- Salt Bagels: Use 1/3 cup coarse salt. After brushing with egg wash in step 9, top with or dunk each bagel into topping. These are pretty salty, so feel free to go lighter on the salt.
- Cheese Bagels (Asiago, Cheddar, etc): Add 1/2 cup of shredded cheese to the dough when you add the flour. After brushing with egg wash in step 9, sprinkle with extra cheese.
- Cinnamon Crunch Bagels: Add 1 teaspoon of cinnamon to the dough recipe below when you add the salt. Double the cinnamon crunch topping from cinnamon crunch bread. After brushing the bagels with the egg wash in step 9 below, spoon cinnamon crunch topping on each.
Some readers have used this bagel recipe to make whole wheat bagels by replacing half of the bread flour with whole wheat flour. I haven’t tried it, but I do use some whole wheat flour when making homemade English muffins, another breakfast staple!
See Your Homemade Bagels!
Many readers tried this recipe as part of a baking challenge! Feel free to email or share your recipe photos with us on social media. 🙂
Homemade Bagels Recipe
- Prep Time: 2 hours, 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 25 minutes
- Total Time: 3 hours
- Yield: 8 bagels
- Category: Bread
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
Make fresh bagels right at home with this tested dough recipe. Don’t skip the water bath and egg wash– both provide an extra chewy and golden brown crust.
Ingredients
- 1 and 1/2 cups (360ml) warm water (between 100-110°F, 38-43°C)
- 2 and 3/4 teaspoons instant or active dry yeast*
- 4 cups (520g) bread flour (spoon & leveled), plus more for work surface and hands*
- 1 Tablespoon granulated sugar or packed light or dark brown sugar (or barley malt syrup)*
- 2 teaspoons salt
- coating the bowl: nonstick spray or 2 teaspoons olive oil
- egg wash: 1 egg white beaten with 1 Tablespoon water
For Boiling
- 2 quarts water
- 1/4 cup (60g) honey (or barley malt syrup)*
Instructions
- Prepare the dough: Whisk the warm water and yeast together in the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with a dough hook attachment. Cover and allow to sit for 5 minutes.
- Add the flour, brown sugar, and salt. Beat on low speed for 2 minutes. The dough is very stiff and will look somewhat dry.
- Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. With lightly floured hands, knead the dough for 6-7 minutes. After kneading, the dough should still feel a little soft. Poke it with your finger—if it slowly bounces back, your dough is ready to rise. If not, keep kneading. The dough is too heavy for the mixer to knead it.
- Lightly grease a large bowl with oil or nonstick spray. Place the dough in the bowl, turning it to coat all sides in the oil. Cover the bowl with aluminum foil, plastic wrap, or a clean kitchen towel. Allow the dough to rise at room temperature for 60-90 minutes or until double in size.
- Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.
- Shape the bagels: When the dough is ready, punch it down to release any air bubbles. Divide the dough into 8 equal pieces. (Just eyeball it– doesn’t need to be perfect!) Shape each piece into a ball. Press your index finger through the center of each ball to make a hole about 1.5 – 2 inches in diameter. Watch video below for a visual. Loosely cover the shaped bagels with kitchen towel and rest for a few minutes as you prepare the water bath.
- Preheat oven to 425°F (218°C).
- Water bath: Fill a large, wide pot with 2 quarts of water. Whisk in the honey. Bring water to a boil, then reduce heat to medium-high. Drop bagels in, 2-4 at a time, making sure they have enough room to float around. Cook the bagels for 1 minute on each side.
- Using a pastry brush, brush the egg wash on top and around the sides of each bagel. Place 4 bagels onto each lined baking sheet.
- Bake for 20-25 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through. You want the bagels to be a dark golden brown. Remove from the oven and allow bagels to cool on the baking sheets for 20 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Slice, toast, top, whatever you want! Cover leftover bagels tightly and store at room temperature for a few days or in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.
Notes
- Overnight Make Ahead Instructions: Prepare the dough through step 4, but allow the dough to rise overnight in the refrigerator instead of at room temperature for 60-90 minutes. The slow rise gives the bagels wonderful flavor! In the morning, remove the dough from the refrigerator and let the dough rise for 45 minutes at room temperature. Continue with step 5. I don’t recommend shaping the bagels the night before as they may puff up too much overnight.
- Freezing Make Ahead Instructions: Baked bagels freeze wonderfully! Freeze them for up to 3 months, thaw overnight in the refrigerator or at room temperature, then warm to your liking. You can also freeze the bagel dough. After punching down the dough in step 6, wrap the dough tightly in plastic wrap, then a layer of aluminum foil. Freeze for up to 3 months. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator, then punch the dough down again to release any air bubbles. Continue with the rest of step 6.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): Stand Mixer | Baking Sheets | Parchment Paper or Silicone Baking Mats | Large Pot (such as a large 5.5 quart dutch oven) | Pastry Brush
- Yeast: Use instant or active dry yeast. If using active dry yeast, the rise time may be up to 2 hours. 1 standard packet is about 2 and 1/4 teaspoons, so you will need a little more than 1 packet of yeast. Reference my Baking with Yeast Guide for answers to common yeast FAQs.
- Bread Flour: Bagels require a high protein flour. Bread flour is a must. Here are all my recipes using bread flour if you want more recipes to use it up. All-purpose flour can be used in a pinch, but the bagels will taste flimsy and won’t be nearly as chewy.
- Barley Malt Syrup: This ingredient can be a little hard to find, but truly gives bagels that traditional malty flavor we all know and love. Most natural food stores carry it. I offer alternatives such as brown sugar in the dough and honey in the water bath; I’ve made bagels with these alternatives AND with barley malt syrup and honestly love both versions.
- Bread Machine: Place the dough ingredients into the pan of the machine. Program the machine to dough or manual, then start. After 9-10 minutes, the dough will be quite stiff. Allow the machine to complete its cycle, then continue with the recipe.
- Bagel Varieties: See blog post above for various add-ins and toppings. Note that the toppings are added after the egg wash in step 9. Some readers have used this bagel recipe to make whole wheat bagels by replacing half of the bread flour with whole wheat flour. I haven’t tried it, but let me know if you do!
- Halve or Double: You can halve this dough recipe by simply halving all of the dough ingredients (do not halve the water or honey for the boiling step). No changes to the recipe instructions. For best taste and texture and to not overwhelm your mixer with excess heavy dough, I do not recommend doubling this dough recipe. Instead, make separate batches of dough.
- Adapted from a mix of recipes I’ve tried: King Arthur Flour, Cook’s Illustrated, and Complete Book of Breads
Keywords: Homemade Bagels Recipe
This is a WONDERFUL recipe! The video was really helpful and my bagels turned out AMAZING! I kept half of them plain and topped the others with flax seed, sesame seed and crushed sunflower seeds. I’ll be making more and experimenting a bit as well! Thank you for sharing your recipe, talent and skills with us!
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These turned out really well, however I’m wondering why mine didn’t turn out as “smooth”… is there a technique for making the dough smoother? LIke without cracks and lumps?
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Hi Jessica, thanks so much for giving this recipe a try! The bumpy texture is completely normal for the outside – take a look at the above pictures in the post and you can see that they are not completely smooth. But if they were cracking as well, it sounds like your dough was simply too heavy. If this happens again, work more warm water into the dough to smooth it out. Even just a few teaspoons will help– and you can drizzle it on the dough after you punch it down, then work it in with your hands. Hope this helps!
Love this recipe. But my question is, how do you keep the shape smooth and uniform? Mine were split coming out of the water bath
Hi Pam! This just takes some practice. The video tutorial should be helpful. Glad you enjoy these!
Going to give the recipe a go. Can you let the dough rise in room temperature and then put it in the fridge for use later in the day? Not sure I have enough time for a total fridge rise.
Hi Randy, we’d recommend letting the dough rest in the refrigerator and then removing it about an hour so before you’re ready to bake. You’ll want the dough to be about double in size. Hope you enjoy the bagels!
I’ve made this recipe dozens of times – so easy and delicious! I double or triple depending on time and also knead it by hand. I sprinkle cinnamon sugar on top before baking, have mixed in freeze dried berries, tried some dried blueberries, sky’s the limit!
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I love this recipe
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Hi, love the recipe! When making with bread machine, I just hit the basic button right? And secondly, after it is mixed, should I continue with allowing it to rise for 60-90min or shaping? Thanks!
Hi,
I just made this recipe but I had a very hard time shaping the bagels. I just eyeballed the sizes as best as I could but when it came time to poke the holes in them i had a hard time making uniform holes and a bunch of them ended up with off center holes. As a result of this they all cooked very differently on different sides and the dough got very lumpy I assume from me working at it too much trying to “fix” the shape. Do you have any more tips that go a little more in depth on this step? In the video its kind of glossed over as if its an easy part and I did not find it easy, haha. Thanks! -Collin
Hi Collin, thanks so much for giving these bagels a try! We wish we had a special trick to share, but we simply use a finger to poke a hole and then use 2 fingers to widen it a bit. They don’t have to be perfect—ours are always a bit different!
I made jalapeno cheddar bagels using this recipe. I was a little intimidated since I’ve never baked using yeast before, but they came out great! I wasn’t sure how much I could handle the dough in forming the bagels so the first few were a bit misshapen, but as recommended, I covered up the weird spots with the cheese on top before baking.
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This is one of the best bagel recipes out there. Simple and delicious. Had our N.J. friend visiting to N.W.MT., and she said they’re better than what she loved in New Jersey…lol
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