Marty and I miss many of our favorite foods because of our gluten-free diet. One of those things is a soft pretzel, the kind you get from a pretzel vendor on the streets of NYC. I’ve never been a fan of the ones at the mall; they taste too fancy.
It’s been a long time since we have eaten soft pretzels. We found pretzel nuggets once at a GF bakery called Against the Grain. We dream about soft pretzels. When I worked at a hotdog pushcart in Manchester, VT, I had to make pretzels for customers, which was torture.
In the last couple of months, members of a gluten-free group on Facebook called Guten-free Albany have been posting photos of soft pretzels they are making with Trader Joe’s GF raw pizza dough. The pretzels look amazing. We knew we needed to make some. Stat.
On Thursday, when Marty was out making deliveries in NY, he stopped at Trader Joe’s, as I mentioned in a previous post. When I saw the pizza dough, I knew he would make pretzels! I was still too sick on Thursday to even help. Not too sick to eat them, though.
Trader Joe’s Gluten-Free Pizza Dough Pretzel Bites
Ingredients
1 Trader Joe’s pre-made gf pizza dough
5 cups Water
1/3 cup baking soda
2 tbsp melted butter
Coarse salt
Directions
Preheat oven to 450. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper; spray parchment with GF pan spray. Next, boil 5 cups of water and 1/3 cup of baking soda.
Marty’s way, as demonstrated in the photos, cut the pizza dough into equal pieces to form ping-pong size balls. Next, shape the balls into nugget shapes.
My way, divide the pizza dough into 4 equal pieces. Roll each piece with your hands, forming a snake. Using a knife or bench scraper, cut into equal size nugget pieces. You can make them any size you wish.
Working in batches, drop a few nuggets into boiling water for 60 seconds. Gently swirl the water with a slotted spoon to prevent the pretzels from sticking to the bottom of the pot. Repeat until all the nuggets are boiled.
Drain the nuggets with a slotted spoon and put them on the prepared baking sheet pan. Next, brush the pretzel nuggets with melted butter, then sprinkle with coarse salt.
Bake pretzel bites for about 10-12 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool and enjoy!
This recipe can be made with regular (non-gluten-free) pizza dough available at supermarkets and pizzerias.
That’s it for now, guys. Have a great week. 🥨
Congratulations on the pretzel success! Tell Marty it’s the only thing making you well, so he has to make some every night! 😝