Easy Gluten-free Soft Pretzel Bites

Back with another easy recipe using the amazing gluten-free three-ingredient dough! These buttery, gluten-free soft pretzel bites are so quick to make and taste just like a soft pretzel from the mall! This easy recipe is ready in about 30 minutes!

In the before times, a marathon shopping day at the mall usually meant a pit stop for warm pretzels from Auntie Anne's. While I haven't been to a mall in ages and can't eat those pretzels anymore, these gluten-free soft pretzel bites will bring you right back to your snacking days in the center of the mall!

This recipe is yet another riff off of my previous recipes using gluten-free three-ingredient dough. Remember those easy gluten-free bagels and gluten-free flatbread? Well, with just a small tweak to that three-ingredient dough, you can make a wonderful soft pretzel that's also about as easy as it gets to make!

These pretzel bites are perfect for an after-school snack or even a game-day appetizer. You can make them in about 30 minutes, from start to finish! That's because these pretzels are yeast-free and don't require any rise time!

Ingredients

To make these pretzel bites, you'll need ingredients for the gluten-free dough, plus a few extra pantry items that will turn the dough into pretzel bites!

For the three-ingredient dough you'll need:

• Gluten-free flour blend: Use a 1:1 replacement gluten-free flour. I've tested this recipe and the measurements used with King Arthur Measure for Measure and Namaste Perfect Flour Blend.
• Baking powder: I use Clabber Girl, it is gluten-free.
• Plain Greek yogurt: Full fat or non-fat both work for this recipe. Regular yogurt also works but you may need more flour to get a dough with workable consistency.

For making the pretzels you'll need:

• Baking soda
• Butter
• Coarse salt or sea salt or Cinnamon-sugar

Make Three-ingredient Dough

The first step is making the three-ingredient dough. Mix the gluten-free flour and baking powder with greek yogurt.

Keep mashing the mixture with a spoon until you have a shaggy dough. Then, knead the dough a bit to form a smooth ball.

Tips for this Step

• At first, the dough may seem too dry, but try to knead it a bit to see if it comes together. For me, the ratio of ingredients has worked every time and forms a nice dough after kneading for a minute or two.
• If your dough remains too dry, knead in a tablespoon of yogurt and see if that helps bring the dough together. 
• If your dough is extremely wet or sticky (a little sticky is ok), knead in a tablespoon of flour at a time until you get a dough that isn't so sticky.
• The longer you fiddle with the dough, the harder it gets to work with because the baking powder and yogurt start to activate.

Turn Dough into Pretzel Bites

Now it's time to turn the dough into pretzels! To do this, scoop 1 tablespoon of dough and form it into an oval nugget shape.

Meanwhile, bring baking soda and water to a boil just to dissolve the baking soda and remove from heat. Then dip each piece of dough into the baking soda wash. Place the bites on a parchment-lined baking sheet.

Bake the pretzel bites until they are a deep golden brown.

Once they have baked, dip the bites in melted butter and sprinkle with sea salt. Or for a variation, you can sprinkle with cinnamon-sugar instead of salt!

That's it! Once they've been sufficiently buttered and salted, you can let the pretzels cool a bit but serve them while they are still warm. That is when they are truly the best!

Tips

• Dip quickly in the baking soda wash: You don't need or want them to soak in the baking soda water. If they soak up too much of the wash, they will get a horrible taste.
• These are best eaten fresh. Leftovers will keep for a day or two at room temp and can be reheated in the microwave, but for the best taste and flavor plan to eat or serve them soon after they have baked.

Now it's your turn to make some pretzels! Tell me in the comments what your go-to pretzel is, salted or cinnamon-sugar? Also, tell me what you plan to dunk them in!