These soft, sweet, and secretly healthy Auntie Anne’s pretzels are just as delicious as the ones you can get at the mall!
I still remember my first Auntie Anne’s pretzel.
It was in West Chester, Pennsylvania, when I was eight years old. The little shop smelled like cinnamon sugar as soon as you walked in, and a friendly lady in a striped apron smiled across the counter as she quickly and skillfully twisted long strips of dough into perfect pretzel shapes. For a while, I thought she was the actual Auntie Anne, and I dreamed about growing up and working in that shop, smelling cinnamon all day, as I learned to roll perfect pretzels.
Last weekend, Auntie Anne’s came to my own kitchen. This was my first time making soft pretzels, but I adapted a base recipe I already knew would yield a successful dough: my recipe for Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls.
All in all, these homemade Auntie Anne’s pretzels were much easier to make than I’d anticipated.
Healthy Auntie Anne’s Pretzels
(Auntie Katie’s soft pretzels)
- 1 cup milk of choice
- 1 tsp agave or honey or sugar
- 1 tbsp yeast
- 2 1/2 cups ww or white flour, or a combination of the two
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 tbsp brown sugar or coconut sugar
- 2 tbsp butter spread, such as Earth Balance OR firm coconut oil
- 1/3 cup baking soda
- Extra flour as needed
In a measuring cup, heat the first two ingredients to around 110 degrees F. (Mine reached this point after 1 minute in the microwave.) Sprinkle the yeast on top, then let it sit 5 minutes. If your yeast is good, it will bubble up. Meanwhile, in a large bowl, stir together the flour, salt, and the 2 tbsp sugar. (Do not use xylitol here.) Cut in the butter spread (or oil), using a fork or stand mixer. Combine with the yeast mixture, using your hands or stand mixer, until well-combined, then knead on a floured surface or in the bowl for 5 minutes, adding more flour as needed to keep it from being too sticky to knead. (I mixed the dough in the bowl and added a total of 6 extra tbsp flour by the end of the 5 minutes.)
Lightly grease the mixing bowl, then set the dough in the bowl, cover the bowl with a towel, and put in a warm place (such as an oven on “bread proof”) for 50-60 minutes or until it has doubled in size. Preheat oven to 350 F and lightly grease a baking tray. In a long and shallow dish or container, dissolve the baking soda in 3 cups warm water. Set aside. Now get out your risen dough: punch dough to deflate, then form evenly-sized pieces (6 for large pretzels, 12 for smaller ones). Roll each section as thinly as you possibly can (seriously, the thinner the better), then twist into a pretzel shape. Dip into the baking soda, shake to dry, then arrange pretzels on the baking tray. Baking time will vary, depending on whether you’re using whole-wheat flour or all-purpose, but homemade Auntie Anne’s pretzels are done when they have turned golden-brown and you can smell them (15-18 minutes). Scroll down for flavors.
Homemade Auntie Anne’s Soft Pretzel Flavors:
- Cinnamon Sugar Pretzels: melt some of your favorite butter-type spread or coconut oil in a shallow dish, then dip the hot pretzels into the spread. (For a fat-free version, you can spray them with oil spray instead. They just won’t be anywhere near as rich and buttery!) Immediately dip into a mixture of cinnamon and sugar (or xylitol).
- Salted Soft Pretzels: sprinkle pretzels with coarse salt before baking
- Coconut Pretzels: dip each pretzel in melted coconut butter. Sprinkle shredded coconut over top.
- Homemade Soft Pretzel Dip Ideas: dip pretzels in ranch dressing, maple-mustard dressing (combine mustard with pure maple syrup), or even peanut sauce or a nutritional-yeast cheese sauce.
That’s not to say I have anything against the real Auntie Anne’s. Their soft pretzels are certainly not the worst snack you can get at a mall food court! And if you ask them to hold the butter, the following Auntie Anne’s pretzels are actually vegan: Original, Cinnamon Sugar, Almond, Garlic, Jalapeño, and Raisin. If you are a super-strict vegan, you’ll want to skip the pretzels due to the processed sugar. (It’s a personal choice; my goal with my veganism is to present the lifestyle as do-able, fun, and easy, not to show that I’m getting bogged down with tiny details like processed sugar. I feel that would just turn more people off to the lifestyle, which is opposite of my goal. So when I’m out with friends, I jump at the chance to eat “normal” food when we all stop at the mall food court.)
Link Of The Day:
I’m sure this is just me being my sleep-deprived self, but I didn’t quite understand what you mean by rolling the dough as thinly as possible. Wouldn’t that yield giant, skinny pretzels? Or do they really expand that much in the oven? Your pretzels look deliciously fat!
Yes, they would be skinny. The ones from Annie’s are very skinny, and I actually wish I’d made mine even thinner than in the photos. But if you want fat pretzels then you are in luck! It’s much easier to not roll them super-skinny :).
Skinny is the way to go! It’s sort of like with bagels, thinner means chewy rather than doughy!
LOVE this pretzel. It looks so soft and ready to be pulled apart. I wanted to be a fireman when I was little. Ironic, seeing as I am not a man!!
I can’t wait to try these! I always drool at my sisters cinnamon pretzel that she always gets when we go to the mall, so now I finally have a vegan recipe for one *does happy dance*!:)
Wow, I didn’t know that the pretzels were vegan without butter! Everyday, it surprises me to learn that a crazy number of things are actually vegan 😀
When i was little, i wanted to be a ballerina when I grew up….but then I realized a teeny weeny problem: I couldn’t tell my right from my leftXD
These pretzels are so cute! I also wanted to work in the medical field at one point but the sciences drove me away. 🙂
Awesome, i was wondering when you were going to publish a year dough recipe. I wish greatly to try it.
1/3 cup of baking soda? Is that alright? What brand do you use? I’m a little confused with this, in Portugal baking soda is pure sodium bicarbonate, if I used that much it wouldn’t taste of anything other than the baking soda…
See Court’s comment directly below :).
Thank you 🙂 I only read the ingredientes…
I made these yesterday, they’re so yummy! Thank you Katie!! 🙂
Could you please give more detail about the baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) in this recipe? It seems unusual- what is the purpose and how does it affect the flavour?
The baking soda makes a crust on the pretzels. You mix it with water and dip them in it before you bake them.
Made these today with a yummy sugar cinnamon spread to go on top. They were delicious and just what i needed to satisfy my pesky craving. Thanks so much for sharing your recipe
I am so excited you already tried them. I think you were the first :).
Thanks for the post, I was scrolling, reading, looking for someone who had made them.
I was the classic “want-to-be-like-mommy” kid. She was a teacher, so obviously that’s what I was going to be, too! Not that being a teacher wouldn’t be a rewarding career, but my plans have changed a bit since then 🙂
I want to try this recipe out, as pretzels are my favorite food, but my oven does not have a “bread-proof” alternative. Any suggestions?
Hi Amanda,
Just find a warm, dry, and draft-proof place. Here is a link to a discussion on Serious Eats: http://www.seriouseats.com/talk/2010/04/the-best-place-to-let-kneaded-bread-rise.html
Wow, these look so delicious!
BTW I’m the same type of vegan 😀 It’s nice to know other non-militant vegans are out there!
Hi Katie,
These look wonderful. I’m curious though, why would refined sugar not be vegan??
Hi Maddie,
Here is a link to Erin’s comment above: https://lett-trim.today/2013/04/15/recipe-homemade-auntie-annes-soft-pretzels/comment-page-1/#comment-907989%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
Oh wow, got it. Thanks!
I love Pretzels and this recipe is FAB!!
When I was a kid I wanted to be a veternarian! I just love animals!
I’ve often wondered if you took requests. Well, you don’t have to because you read my mind!! I was in the mall the other day and how I wanted one of those buttery pretzels!! I didn’t think about the possibility of asking them to hold the butter… I’m way less trusting of outside sources, I guess =) You are SO right about veganism being fun and not getting bogged down in the details… I needed that today!
I went through phases- first lawyer, then veterinarian, then social worker… I changed my mind more times than I can count when I was in undergrad but now I’m in grad school studying to be a linguist and LOVING it =)
Wow, these look awesome!
I’ve actually been kind of wanting something sweet and carb-y: I WANT THESE! 🙂
I have to ask since Auntie Anne’s was always my absolute favorite pretzel prior to going vegan (although the original w/ salt–not cinnamon and sugar). I’ve read in lots of places now that Auntie Anne’s is vegan if you ask them to hold the butter. However, anytime I’ve gone near an Auntie Anne’s in a mall (usually to get my boys one since they’re vegetarian and not vegan), there’s a sign posted that says that butter will be used in all (can’t remember exact wording); I was a little shocked when I saw that.
When you get an Auntie Anne’s pretzel have you ever seen a sign like that? Do you just ignore it and ask them to hold the butter anyway? I guess I’m a very timid vegan; I tend to just do without rather than “impose” on any food workers. I would love to have real Auntie Anne’s again, though, rather than relying on homemade (which I’ve been doing for years, anyway).
I haven’t seen that sign… or maybe I haven’t noticed. Very odd, especially since their own website has a section written in specifically for vegans (which I thought was pretty cool). They’re constantly making fresh pretzels, so they never have had a problem taking one straight from the oven for me. The worst that’s ever happened is that sometimes you have to wait ten minutes for the new batch to come out of the oven.