Jeremy and I saw this on Alton Brown’s Good Eats many years ago and both of us love soft pretzels, so one day we decided to finally try and make them at home with Alton Brown’s homemade soft pretzel recipe. Although food-grade lye is the ideal way to get the lovely caramel colored crust on soft pretzels, this more home-friendly version uses baking soda instead. The results? Pretty awesome and tastes very much like a “real” soft pretzel, same salty and slightly tangy flavor, firm outer crust and a good chewy interior texture. They weren’t as awesome heated up the next day (we’d stored them in the fridge) and the big grains of salt had kind of melted into the pretzel, but still good flavor nonetheless. Note for next time, either eat them all fresh or store them at room temperature somewhere they will stay dry.

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