Cardamom and Tea

I’m almost afraid to post this particular bagel recipe because the shortcut in it is so off-the-wall. And that shortcut is… pizza dough.

Wait wait wait, don’t close that tab. Hear me out!

This recipe makes actual bagels. Not something approximating bagels. Bagels. Like, the kind with that pretzeley caramelized crust on the outside and a dense, chewy interior. Just look at em!

Why pizza dough actually makes good bagels

Pizza dough is nearly identical to bagel dough. They are both lean, relatively low-moisture unenriched doughs.

Professional bagels often include malt extract, but that’s not an ingredient in most home kitchens, so it’s often omitted in recipes anyway. If omitting malt extract is a dealbreaker for you, you might want to find a from-scratch recipe. Otherwise, this one will save you the kneading and rising.

Besides, the thing that really makes a bagel a bagel is boiling in alkaline water. In my experience, most recipes don’t have you add nearly enough baking soda. I like to add a lot, so they turn out halfway to pretzeley. If you’d like them to be less caramelized, simply use more water or less baking soda.

If you’re ready to start baking, jump to the recipe, or read on for a few important notes:

A few words of caution:

1. Be cautious using homemade pizza dough for this recipe.

It’s almost silly to say—you’re obviously here because you’re looking for a shortcut, not to make your own dough. But in case you’re hoping to use up some old pizza dough you made and froze, proceed with caution.

Most homemade pizza dough recipes have you add a lot of olive oil (I suspect to make the dough easier to work with). Most store-bought pizza doughs and authentic Neapolitan homemade crusts are very low-fat or fat-free. Which brings me to my next point…

2. Look for a store-bought dough that is low-fat or fat-free.

A dough with a fat content of up to 2% of its total mass is ideal. To check: look at the serving size in grams, look at the fat content for that serving size in grams, and divide fat by serving size. That’s your percentage fat.

In my experience, store-bought pizza doughs tend to be very lean, so yours probably is too. Just check, because bagels aren’t made with an enriched dough. This ain’t focaccia!

3. Refrigerated vs. frozen (it’s hard to say!).

You can use either, as long as you know what you’re getting into. Refrigerated doughs can develop a sourdough-like flavor, especially from supermarkets with low turnover. As long as the dough is still food safe, this isn’t necessarily a problem—just an aesthetic preference. Frozen doughs are a slightly safer bet for a more neutral flavor.

4. Seek out a high-quality pizza dough (but don’t stress about it).

A dough that is overworked, under-hydrated, or over-proofed can still make really good bagels. They just might not be pretty. With store-bought dough, you never know what you’re gonna get.

So just keep in mind that how beautiful your bagels turn out is largely a function of how good your dough is. The pizza dough I used for these photos was beautifully made, but I’ve also made this recipe with a really crap pizza dough, and they still turned out tasty (albeit ugly because the gluten structure was both overworked and beginning to break down 🥴).

A good dough will feel soft (not stringy) and the surface should not look dry and wrinkly.

5. In case you want to make your own dough (… I’m questioning why you’re here, but here’s my recipe!)

If you want to make the dough from scratch, you should probably just find a regular bagel recipe. But I’ve also made these bagels with my homemade pizza dough, and they turned out great. These are the proportions I use for bagels, pizza, and other lean breads (bring the ingredients together as you would with any dough: knead, proof until doubled in size, etc.):

4 1/3 cups [560g] flour
1 1/3 cups [315g] water
2 tsp [11g] salt
1 tsp [3g] instant yeast

a bagel with hummus on a plate with a salad and eggs

Easiest-ever Bagels (using pizza dough)

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Yield: 8 bagels

Ingredients

2 lb [910g] pizza dough, at room temperature
3 quarts [2.8 liters] water
2 Tbsp [30 g] baking soda*
Toppings (optional): Sea salt, sesame seeds, poppy seeds, everything bagel mix, granulated onion

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Instructions

Shape your bagels: Divide the dough into 8 equal pieces. Roll each piece into a log, then have each log eat its tail, then roll the joined part out to smooth the seam (see the video). Briefly set the shaped bagels aside while the water heats.**
Place the water and baking soda in a dutch oven or another large, wide pot. Bring to a boil over high heat.
While you wait for the water to boil, place toppings (if using) in wide bowls or plates. Cover a sheet pan with parchment paper. Preheat the oven to 450°F [230°C].
Once the water is boiling, drop in as many bagels as will fit in 1 layer with plenty of room between them. Let one side boil for 1 minute, flip, and let boil for 1 more minute on the other side. Remove with a slotted spoon to the prepared sheet pan.
Before the bagels start to dry, dip one side of each bagel in the toppings, if using.
Space the boiled bagels evenly on the pan.
Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until nicely browned and baked through. Cool completely before slicing or enjoying.

Notes

* I highly recommend measuring both your water and baking soda. The ratio of soda to water is actually important in getting the right level of browning. If you like your bagels as brown as the ones in these photos, use these exact ratios. If you like them a bit paler, scale back to 1 Tbsp baking soda (or just water it down with more water). If you like them pretzeley and super dark, add more baking soda.

** The timing here is actually important. They need about 15 to 20 minutes to rise slightly, but you don’t want the proof them as much as you would bread rolls or something fluffier. Bagels are supposed to be dense, not bready. So make sure you don’t let them sit out for too long before boiling and baking.

Video note: You can find the video in the introduction to this blog post. If you don’t see it after scrolling up, please disable ad block and reload the page.

If you can zest it and juice it, you can use it in this citrus curd recipe. Key limes, cara cara oranges, ruby red grapefruits (you name it!). My personal favorite is Meyer lemon. And don’t stop at individual fruits—you can even go ahead and mix-and-match.

But the thing that makes this recipe really special is how easy it is to make. No double-boiler and no egg separating required. You can red more about how that works in my lemon curd post. If you’re ready to get zesting, jump to the recipe. Or read on for some tips for getting the most out of specific citrus fruits.

Adding red coloring (for grapefruits and oranges)

Color is something to consider for fruits like grapefruit and oranges. Citrus curd is naturally yellow, so if you want to get an orange/coral finished product, you’ll need to do a little something extra. Your options: color it naturally (I’ll explain in a second), use a drop or two of the synthetic stuff (easy!), or skip the coloring altogether if you don’t mind a paler citrus curd.

My favorite natural coloring for this is just the water left over after boiling beets. Simply boil some red beets for a salad, and then save the liquid. You’ll need about 1 tsp for grapefruit curd or 1/2 tsp for orange curd (I used 1 tsp to color the grapefruit curd in the fruit tart images below). Don’t add more than 1 tsp or you will affect the texture of the finished product. A little goes a long way!

Substituting some lemon juice (for sweet citrus)

If your citrus is on the sweet side (like oranges or tangerines), you may want to replace some of its liquid with lemon juice. Whether to add lemon juice is all about how tangy you want the final product to be, not how much lemon flavor you want it to have. So if you want a citrus curd with a sweet and sour bite, be sure to add a bit of lemon juice to the mix.

Don’t worry about missing out on orange flavor by leaving some juice out. The fact is, you get most of the citrus flavor from the zest, so substituting lemon juice won’t make much of a difference. An orange curd made with orange zest will still taste very orangey even if you use lemon juice in place of some of the orange juice.

Adding green coloring (for limes and other green citrus)

I’ve never found a natural green food coloring that works for lime curd, so I recommend going with a synthetic one or just leaving it as-is. I mean, key lime pie has always been the color of sweetened condensed milk. It’s pretty conventional to just let it be the color it’s going to be.

passion fruit curd in a stainless steel pot

A quick note on non-citrus curds:

Passion fruit, hibiscus, cranberry—the list goes on! Anything tangy (not just citrus) can be made into a fruit curd. But this recipe isn’t necessarily that adaptable. For something that doesn’t just consist of juice and zest, you’ll need a more particular recipe.

So don’t go trying to use this recipe to make a green apple cinnamon curd (although that does sound delicious, this is not the recipe for that). I’d rather be honest than leave you super disappointed with a broken, runny experimental curd.