Homemade bagels that are perfectly chewy and delicious, made right in your own kitchen! Using simple ingredients that you likely already have in your pantry, you can easily make bagels in any flavor you like.
These homemade bagels are exactly the kind of bagels we love in our home. They are deliciously chewy, loaded with seasoning, and, believe it or not, pretty easy to make too!
Whether you are enjoying them with a smear of cream cheese, a bit of butter, or turning them into a delicious sandwich, these bagels are sure to satisfy. If you ask me, any breakfast of lunch sandwich made with a freshly baked bagel is 100x better than anything you can get at the store. You truly can’t get a more fresh bagel than the one out of your own oven!
While it may seem like a difficult thing to do, making homemade bagels is surprisingly pretty easy! While homemade bagels do require a few steps to make, they are is so worth the effort and don’t require any fancy skills or equipment (though a stand mixer does make this as so much easier). If I can do it, you can too!
Other bonuses for making your own bagels? Having full control of the ingredients is always important since there are no preservatives needed when you eat fresh food! Also being able to play around with seasonings or even mix-ins is so much fun!
Ingredients in Homemade Bagels
- Warm water: provides the moisture in the dough.
- Active dry yeast
- Brown sugar: used to sweeten the dough. The brown sugar also serves to “feed” the yeast so that it activates and rises.
- Bread flour: will help achieve that dense, chewy texture bagels are known for.
- Salt
- Olive oil: Used only to grease the bowl the dough will rise in. It is not used in the dough itself.
- Honey: added to the water the bagels are boiled in. The honey helps them achieve that beautiful golden brown crust as they caramelize in the oven. In commercial kitchens barley malt is often used in place of the honey but it is far more difficult to find and honey does the trick.
- Egg white: brushed onto the bagels to help then achieve a nice golden color.
- Seasonings: everything bagel spice, sesame seeds, poppy seeds, sea salt.
**Note: Ingredient quantities and full instructions are in the recipe card at the end of this post.**
Making homemade bagels
The process of making homemade bagels takes a bit of time – about 2 hours to be exact. 1 1/2 of those hours is really just letting the dough rise and so it isn’t too much work when you think about it.
The full details are in the recipe below but the process essentially requires a few simple stages:
- First, you make the dough and let it rise. A stand mixer is great if you have one as it can do some of the kneading for you.
- Shape the bagels and give them a quick boil.
- Season them and bake them.
This is obviously a simplified list of steps and there is more info in the recipe card below but it really is pretty easy! If I can do it, you can too!
Bagel seasonings and mix-ins
While you can leave your bagels plain, adding seasonings or mix-ins makes them extra tasty. Some of my favorite seasonings include:
- sesame seeds
- poppy seeds
- everything bagel spice
- Cheese: shredded cheddar or asiago, for example.
- salt
In addition to simply topping your bagels with seasonings before baking them, you can also mix-in ingredients to the actual dough. Some options include:
- raisins (add cinnamon as well for a delicious cinnamon raisin bagel)
- blueberries
- cheese (in addition to topping the bagels with cheese, you can mix some cheese right into the dough).
What to serve with bagels
I love a simple bagel smeared with butter or cream cheese. In addition to this classic breakfast, you can also top them with mashed avocado or other spreads like Hummus or Baba Ganoush.
Turning bagels into sandwiches is a favorite in our home. Egg and cheese breakfast sandwiches are always a hit here as are lunch time classics like tuna salad sandwiches or deli meat sandwiches.
How to store bagels
Homemade bagels can be stored in an airtight container or ziploc bag at room temperature for a couple of days or in the fridge for about 5 days.
Can you freeze bagels?
Yes, you can freeze homemade bagels. Once they are cooled completely, transfer them to a freezer bag and then freeze them. They will keep in the freezer for a couple of months. When you want to enjoy a bagel, just take it out and allow it to thaw.
If you give these homemade bagels a try, let me know what you think!
Happy baking!
-Cathy
Looking for more homemade bread recipes? Be sure to try:
Easy Dinner Rolls
Homemade Crescent Rolls
Homemade Sandwich Bread
Yogurt Flatbread
Homemade Bagels
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups warm water
- 2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
- 2 teaspoons brown sugar divided
- 3 3/4 cups bread flour + more for kneading
- 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
- 1 teaspoon olive oil to grease the bowl
- 3 tablespoons honey
- 1 egg white
- seasonings (everything bagel spice, sesame seeds, poppy seeds, sea salt)
Instructions
- In a bowl, mix warm water, yeast, and 1 teaspoon brown sugar. Let it rest for 5 minutes.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer with the dough hook attached, pour the yeast mixture, remaining sugar, salt, and flour and mix on low speed for approximately 2 minutes, until dough comes together.
- Transfer dough to a floured surface. Knead by hand for 5 minutes and form into a ball. If the dough is too sticky, sprinkle with flour. If it is to dry, sprinkle with water but be careful not to add too much at once.
- Grease a bowl (can use the bowl of your stand mixer) with oil and place the dough in it. Cover it with plastic wrap or a clean dish towel. Let the dough rise for 1 1/2 hours or until it doubles in size.
- Preheat oven to 425F and line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Punch down the dough and divide it into 8 pieces. Form each piece into a ball. Using your fingers poke a hole in the center of each ball and begin to stretch it out into a bagel shape.
- Bring 6 cups of water to a boil in a large pot. Add of honey. Working in batches of 2-4 bagels (as many as can fit in the pot with space to float), boil the bagels for 1 minute on each side. Place bagels on baking sheets.
- Beat the egg white with 2 teaspoons of water to create an egg wash. Brush the bagels with the egg wash and sprinkle with your seasonings. Alternatively, brush the egg whites onto the bagels and dip them into a bowl filled with your seasoning for a more substantial coat of seasoning.
- Bake bagels for 18-23 minutes or until they turn a nice golden brown. Transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely before slicing.
Note: Metric ingredient measurements are provided as a courtesy using a third-party calculator and are rounded to the nearest unit. The recipes provided on this site have not been tested with metric measurements and their accuracy cannot be verified.
Nutrition
The nutritional information provided is based on third-party calculations and is an estimate only. Accurate nutritional facts will vary based on the particular brands used, portion sizes, measurement accuracy and more.
