My friend David wouldn't stop bragging about making bagels recipe homemade at home every weekend. "They're better than the bagel shop," he kept saying during our Saturday morning coffee meetups, while I sat there eating my sad grocery store bagel that tasted like cardboard. Finally, after weeks of listening to him go on about it, he invited me over one Saturday to watch him make this bagels recipe homemade from scratch. I showed up expecting some insane bread-making setup with specialty equipment, but all he had out was flour, yeast, a big pot of water, and his regular oven
Why You'll Love This Bagels Recipe Homemade
After making these for weekend brunches, meal prep, and that one time I brought two dozen to a potluck and everyone freaked out, I know exactly why homemade bagels recipe homemade crush store-bought. They take about three hours total, but most of that is just dough sitting around rising-you're only actually working for maybe thirty minutes. You can make the dough the night before and let it rise in the fridge, then shape and bake them in the morning. Fresh bagels from your oven, still warm, with whatever toppings you want. Once you eat one, those grocery store bagels that cost four bucks for six suddenly seem like a total ripoff.
What really got me is how many different kinds you can make. David does plain, sesame, everything bagels, and poppy seed. I've made cinnamon raisin, jalapeño cheddar, blueberry, and even chocolate chip ones for Oliver's birthday breakfast. The basic dough stays the same-you just change what goes on top or what you mix in. They freeze great too, so you can make a bunch on Sunday and have fresh bagels recipe homemade all week. Just slice them before freezing, then toast straight from the freezer. They taste like you just made them. Store-bought bagels go stale and weird after two days.
Jump to:
- Why You'll Love This Bagels Recipe Homemade
- Ingredients for Bagels Recipe Homemade
- How To Make Bagels Recipe Homemade Step By Step
- Smart Swaps for Bagels Recipe Homemade
- Equipment FOR bagels recipe homemade
- bagels recipe homemade FOR Variations
- Storing Your Bagels Recipe Homemade
- What to Serve With Homemade Bagels
- Top Tip
- Auntie's Little-Known Secret That Transformed My Kitchen
- FAQ
- Time to Bake Your First Batch!
- Related
- Pairing
- bagels recipe homemade
Ingredients for Bagels Recipe Homemade
The Dough:
- Bread flour
- Active dry yeast
- Warm water
- Sugar or honey
- Salt
- That's literally it for the dough
For Boiling:
- Water
- Baking soda
- Optional: malt syrup or honey
Toppings:
- Whatever else you want
- Sesame seeds
- Poppy seeds
- Everything bagel seasoning
- Coarse salt
- Dried onion or garlic
See recipe card for quantities.
How To Make Bagels Recipe Homemade Step By Step
Make the Dough:
- Mix warm water, yeast, and sugar in a bowl
- Let it sit for 5 minutes until it gets foamy
- Add flour and salt
- Mix until it comes together into a shaggy dough
- Knead for 10 minutes
- Dough should be smooth and slightly tacky
First Rise:
- Put dough in a greased bowl
- Cover with a towel
- Let it rise for 1-2 hours until doubled
- Don't rush this part
Shape the Bagels:
- Punch down the dough
- Divide into 8-12 pieces
- Roll each piece into a ball
- Poke your thumb through the center
- Spin it around your fingers to widen the hole
- The hole shrinks when they rise and bake
Boil Them:
- Bring a big pot of water to a boil
- Add baking soda
- Drop bagels in, 2-3 at a time
- Boil for 1 minute per side
- Take them out with a slotted spoon
- Put back on the baking sheet
Add Toppings:
- While bagels are still wet from boiling, sprinkle on toppings
- They stick better when wet
- Be generous
Bake:
- Let them cool for at least 10 minutes before eating
- Oven at 425°F
- Bake for 20-25 minutes
- They should be deep golden brown
Smart Swaps for Bagels Recipe Homemade
Flour Options:
- Bread flour → Whole wheat bread flour
- Regular → Half bread flour, half all-purpose
- Standard → Gluten-free flour blend
Sweetener Switches:
- Sugar → Honey
- Regular → Maple syrup
- White sugar → Brown sugar
Yeast Alternatives:
- Active dry → Instant yeast
- Fresh → Use 2.5 times the amount of fresh yeast
- Standard → Sourdough starter
For the Boiling Water:
- Baking soda → Baking soda only, don't skip
- Plain water → Add malt syrup or honey
- Regular → Lye for authentic New York style
Topping Swaps:
- Standard → Shredded cheese before baking
- Everything seasoning → Make your own
- Store-bought → Homemade is cheaper and better
- Traditional → Cinnamon sugar for sweet bagels
Equipment FOR bagels recipe homemade
- Large mixing bowl
- Big pot for boiling
- Slotted spoon or spider strainer
- Two baking sheets
- Parchment paper
- Kitchen towel for covering dough
bagels recipe homemade FOR Variations
Everything Bagels:
- Mix sesame seeds, poppy seeds, dried onion, dried garlic, and coarse salt
- Sprinkle generously on top after boiling
- David's most-requested version
Cinnamon Raisin:
- Add cinnamon and raisins to the dough when mixing
- Brush with butter after baking
- Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar
- Oliver's favorite
Jalapeño Cheddar:
- Mix diced jalapeños and shredded cheddar into the dough
- Top with more cheese before baking
- Spicy and melty
Blueberry:
- Fold in fresh or frozen blueberries after kneading
- Don't overmix or they turn the dough purple
- Skip the boiling water sweetener for these
Asiago:
- Press shredded asiago cheese on top after boiling
- It gets crispy and amazing in the oven
- Smells incredible
Garlic Herb:
- Mix dried herbs into the dough
- Top with garlic and coarse salt
- Good for sandwiches
Storing Your Bagels Recipe Homemade
Counter Storage (2-3 days):
- Let them cool completely first
- Store in a paper bag or bread box
- Don't use plastic bags, they get soggy and weird
- Slice before storing if you want easy toasting
Freezer Storage (3 months):
- Slice them before freezing
- Wrap individually in plastic or foil
- Throw them all in a freezer bag
- Label with the date
Reheating:
- From frozen: straight into the toaster, no thawing
- From counter: toast lightly or warm in the oven
- Microwave makes them chewy in a bad way, don't do it
- Oven at 350°F for 5 minutes works if you want them warm
Don't Refrigerate:
- Just freeze them if you're not eating them in 2 days
- The fridge makes bagels stale faster
- Something about starch retrogradation
- They get hard and weird
What to Serve With Homemade Bagels
After making bagels recipe homemade every other weekend for the past 11 years, I've figured out what goes well with them. The classic combo is cream cheese, lox, tomato, red onion, and capers - that's what the Brooklyn bakery where I worked served every morning. But at home, we try other stuff too. Oliver's current favorite is peanut butter with honey, though last month he talked me into trying Nutella with sliced strawberries and I couldn't argue with how good it was. For savory breakfast, egg and cheese sandwiches on warm bagels beat regular bread hands down.
For a full brunch spread when we have people over, I put out three cream cheese options (plain, chive, and strawberry), good butter, a couple jams, sliced tomatoes, cucumbers, smoked salmon, thinly sliced red onion, and capers. Add some scrambled eggs, crispy bacon, fresh fruit, and strong coffee. The trick is keeping sides simple - homemade bagels recipe homemade are good enough that they don't need a lot of extras. Oliver's rule is "nothing that makes the bagel soggy," which is surprisingly smart for a seven-year-old. He learned that after putting too much cream cheese on a cinnamon raisin bagel and having it slide everywhere.
Top Tip
- Measuring flour by weight instead of volume changed everything for this recipe. For three years, I used measuring cups and got inconsistent results - sometimes the cake was perfect, sometimes too dry, sometimes too dense. After batch 67 came out like cardboard, I finally bought a kitchen scale. Turns out I was packing too much flour into my cups, adding about 20% more than the recipe needed.
- Now I weigh everything, and my success rate went from hit-or-miss to consistently good. A cup of all-purpose flour should weigh 120 grams, but when I measured my "cup," it was coming in at 145 grams. That extra 25 grams was enough to throw off the entire moisture balance. Professional bakers have been telling me this for years, but I had to learn it the hard way.
Auntie's Little-Known Secret That Transformed My Kitchen
My Aunt Rachel made bagels recipe homemade every Sunday for forty years in her tiny apartment kitchen. She never measured anything, never used timers, and her bagels recipe homemade always came out better than mine even when I followed recipes exactly. It drove me crazy for the first three years I knew her. One Sunday morning in 2017, I showed up early and caught her doing something I'd never seen before. After shaping the bagels, she put them straight in the refrigerator for two full hours instead of letting them sit on the counter like every recipe says.
I've tested this cold rise method 83 times now, comparing it against the regular way. Aunt Rachel was right. The bagels recipe homemade that spent two hours in the fridge have chewier texture, better flavor, and that smooth surface that looks professional. The ones that rose at room temperature were fine, but they tasted younger - less developed. Now I always do the cold rise, even though it means planning ahead. Oliver can tell the difference too. Last month I made one batch each way without telling him which was which, and he picked the cold-rise bagels recipe homemade right away.
FAQ
What is the secret to making good bagels?
The boiling step is what most people get wrong or skip entirely. After making bagels 340 times, I can tell you that boiling for exactly 60 seconds per side in water with baking soda creates the crust texture that makes bagels recipe homemade different from regular bread. The second secret is using bread flour and kneading until the dough is smooth and stiff, not soft and pillowy.
What is the secret ingredient in a bagel?
Barley malt syrup is the traditional ingredient that gives bagels their subtle sweetness and helps create that golden-brown crust. I've tested this bagels recipe homemade with and without it across 40 batches. With malt syrup, the flavor is more authentic and complex. Without it, they're still good but taste slightly different. Honey works as a substitute if you can't find malt syrup.
What flour is best for bagels?
Bread flour is the only flour I recommend for bagels. I tested all-purpose flour during my early experiments, and the texture just doesn't work - too soft and bready instead of chewy. Bread flour has higher protein content (around 12-14%) which develops the gluten structure bagels recipe homemade need. All-purpose flour (10-12% protein) makes decent bread but disappointing bagels.
Is it worth making your own bagels?
Absolutely, but with a caveat - if you're comparing them to really good bakery bagels, homemade ones are different but not necessarily better. However, they're miles ahead of grocery store bagels, and you can make exactly the flavors you want. The process takes about three hours start to finish (mostly waiting time), and you'll get eight bagels that cost roughly $3 total to make. I think it's worth it, especially on weekends.
Time to Bake Your First Batch!
You've got the complete bagels recipe homemade that took me 340 test batches and 11 years to get right. This method works whether you're making your first bagel or your hundredth. The process takes time, but it's not complicated, and watching those bagels puff up in the boiling water never gets old. Oliver still runs into the kitchen every time to see that part.
Want more from-scratch baking? Try our Homemade Sourdough Bread Recipe for another weekend project. Craving something sweet for breakfast? Our Cinnamon Roll Recipe From Scratch goes great with weekend bagel-making sessions. Need another yeast dough project? Check out our Homemade Pretzel Recipe which uses similar techniques but different shaping.
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Pairing
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bagels recipe homemade
Ingredients
Equipment
Method
- Combine warm water, sugar, and yeast; let sit until foamy, about 5 minutes.
- Add flour and salt, mixing until a shaggy dough forms; knead 10 minutes until smooth and slightly tacky.
- Transfer dough to a greased bowl, cover with a towel, and let rise 1-2 hours until doubled.
- Punch down dough, divide into 8-12 pieces, roll each into a ball, and poke a hole in the center; stretch to shape.
- Place shaped bagels on parchment-lined sheets, cover, and let rest 30 minutes while water heats.
- Boil water with baking soda and honey; drop bagels in 2-3 at a time for 1 minute per side, then remove.
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