Yield: 12 pretzels

Air Fryer Soft Pretzels (With a Baking Soda Bath)

A full-size soft pretzel recipe for the air fryer that keeps the baking soda bath most top recipes skip, with a temperature range, a color cue and a freeze-after-the-bath plan.

Prep Time30 minutes

Cook Time8 minutes

Rising and resting1 hour 20 minutes

Total Time1 hour 58 minutes

Ingredients

Dough

• 1 1/3 cups warm water, 296 g, at 100-105 F (38-41 C)
• 1 1/4 teaspoons instant yeast, 3.75 g; or 1 1/2 tsp active dry yeast, bloomed in the water for about 5 minutes
• 4 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour, 540 g
• 3 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter, 49 g, melted
• 2 tablespoons white sugar, 30 g
• 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt, Diamond Crystal; use 3/4 tsp table salt instead

Baking soda bath

• 1/2 cup food-grade, aluminum-free baking soda, about 110 g by our conversion
• 9 cups water, about 2.1 L by our conversion; stir the soda in while the water is cold

For the basket and the top

• neutral oil, a light film on the basket, or use a parchment liner; not counted in the nutrition
• coarse pretzel salt, optional; add right after the bath

Instructions

Dough

1. Mix the dough. Stir the yeast into the warm water (if you use active dry yeast, let it bloom for about 5 minutes). Add the flour, melted butter, sugar and salt and mix until a shaggy dough forms.
2. Knead. Knead for 5 to 8 minutes, by hand or with a stand mixer, until the dough is smooth and elastic.
3. Let it rise. Cover and leave the dough at about 85 F (29 C) for about 1 hour, until doubled in size. This rise follows our pillar recipe. Two air fryer pages skip the rise, but we did not combine that with the bath.
4. Divide and shape. Divide the dough into 12 pieces of about 75 g each. Roll each into a rope, shape a U, cross the legs twice and press the ends down to seal. Cheat Day Design cut a slit across the bottom of its pretzel at this point.
5. Rest the shaped pretzels. Leave the pretzels uncovered on a parchment-lined sheet for 20 to 30 minutes.

Bath and air fry

1. Make the bath. Stir the baking soda into 9 cups of cold water in a wide nonreactive pot, then bring it to a boil. Adding soda to water that is already hot makes it foam up and boil over.
2. Preheat the air fryer. Preheat the air fryer to a point in the 350 to 390 F range (about 175 to 200 C by our conversion) while the bath comes to a boil. Cheat Day Design preheated, and says skipping the preheat may add about 2 minutes.
3. Dip. Lower one or two pretzels at a time into the bath for 20 to 30 seconds. An adult should do this step, because the water is hot. Lift each pretzel out with a slotted spoon and let it drain.
4. Salt and load the basket. Sprinkle coarse salt over the wet pretzels. Put a light film of oil on the basket, or use a parchment liner, and set the pretzels in a single layer with space between them. They swell as they cook.
5. Air fry and check early. Cheat Day Design cooked one large pretzel for 8 minutes at 350 F (about 175 C), flipped after 6 minutes. Other pages list shorter and longer times for smaller pretzels, so start checking at the low end of your chosen temperature. Pull them when they are deep golden. If the dough still looks doughy, add a little time.
6. Repeat in batches. Cook the rest in batches rather than crowding the basket. Serve warm.

Notes

Dough formula, weights, bath ratio and 75 g pieces follow our pillar recipe (baking soda bath for pretzels), which was written for the oven. This page has not been baked in an air fryer by us.

The 8 minute cook time on the card is the Cheat Day Design figure for one large pretzel of a different (yogurt) dough, at 350 F. It is a starting point to check against, not a promise for this dough. Air fryers vary.

Prep time is our estimate. Rising (about 1 hour) and the rest (20 to 30 minutes) count as passive time.

Nutrition values are estimates calculated from typical USDA FoodData Central values, per 1 of 12 pretzels. They count the dough only, with unsalted butter approximated as in our pillar recipe. The bath sodium, the oil on the basket and any coarse salt on top are not counted. Fiber is left out because we have no value for it.