These bagels are chewy, crusty and properly dense New York Style Bagels. The overnight rise creates the perfect texture and flavor – and you’ll have fresh, hot bagels for breakfast or brunch less than an hour after getting out of bed.
I promise you if you follow this recipe correctly you can make a good bagel at home. I mean, there are loads of really bad bagels in the world and life is just too short to eat a bad bagel.
What is a true New York Style Bagel?
A good New York Style Bagel (really, is there any other kind?) must have a nicely dense and chewy texture with a toothsome crust.
To get that characteristic chewiness we’ve got to develop some really strong gluten in the dough.
Scroll through the process photos to see how to make this recipe:
Pastry Chef’s Tips for making bagels overnight:
- Allow the sponge to rest for 30 minutes before mixing the dough. During that rest the water has time to hydrate the flour and gives us a head start on gluten develop. This little bit of hands off time also improves the flavor of the final product.
- Use unbleached bread flour for maximum gluten development. Bread flour has a high protein content. More protein means more gluten development. Kneading also helps develop the gluten.
- You can substitute molasses for the Malt syrup, but the malt syrup does give the bagels an authentic taste and color.
- You could skip the overnight rise in the refrigerator and go straight ahead and boil and bake the bagels, but that long, cool rise is what gives these bagels their chewy texture and deep flavor.
- Boiling the bagels in sugar/baking soda water is what gives them a super chewy yet crisp crust. If you skip this step your bagels will have a crust similar to a roll or bread.
- Bagels should be baked in a very hot oven for a quick oven spring and good crust development.
- Bagels are best the day they are baked. For longer term storage slice the bagels about 3/4 the way through and pack them into freezer bags.
- Previously frozen bagels are best if toasted before serving.
Fresh, hot delicious bagels for breakfast or brunch. They also freeze beautifully for future enjoyment. Now all you need is a schmear of cream cheese!
If you’ve got a sourdough starter, I highly recommend my Homemade Sourdough Bagels for a real treat.
If you love this recipe as much as I do, I’d really appreciate a 5-star review.
Overnight Bagel Recipe
Chewy, crusty and properly dense, New York style bagels. They rise overnight so you can have fresh bagels for breakfast or brunch. All they need is a schmear of cream cheese.
bagels
Ingredients
- 16 oz warm water (2 cups (about 100°F))
- ¼ oz instant yeast (2 ¼ teaspoons)
- 25 oz bread flour (5 cups, divided)
- 1 ½ oz barley malt syrup ( 2 tablespoons, see note)
- 1 tablespoon table salt
- 2 oz granulated sugar (¼ cup (for boiling))
- 2 teaspoons baking soda (for boiling)
- 1 egg white (whisked lightly)
- Topping (Sesame seeds, poppy seeds, caraway seeds or coarse sea salt)
Instructions
- In a bowl for a stand mixer or a large mixing bowl combine the water, yeast and 3 cups of the flour . Mix to form a thick batter. Cover the bowl and set aside for 30-60 minutes.16 oz warm water, ¼ oz instant yeast, 25 oz bread flour
- Add the barley malt syrup and salt. If using a stand mixer, switch to the dough hook. Add the remaining flour and mix to combine. Knead 5 minutes on medium/low speed. If working by hand, stir in as much of the flour as you can, then turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead in the remaining flour. Knead 5 minutes. Form the dough into a smooth ball.1 ½ oz barley malt syrup, 1 tablespoon table salt
- Put the dough into a lightly oiled bowl, turning once to coat the dough. Cover the bowl and set aside to rise until doubled in size, about 1 hour.
- Line a half sheet pan with parchment paper. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead briefly. Divide the dough into 10 even pieces. Use a cupped hand to roll each piece into a smooth, tight ball.
- To form a bagel, poke your finger all the way through the center of a ball to make a hole. Use two fingers to gently widen the hole. Continue gently stretching to form the bagel or twirl the dough around your fingers to widen the center hole (see photos). The hole should be 1 – 1 ½" wide.
- Place the bagel on the prepared sheet pan and continue to form the remaining bagels. The dough will probably spring back a bit so you can go back and re-stretch them once you're done forming all the bagels. Cover the pan with plastic wrap and leave at room temperature for 15 minutes then place the pan in the refrigerator overnight.
- In the morning, take the pan out of the refrigerator. The bagels should be noticeably fuller. Leave the tray out until the bagels come to room temperature, about 1 – 1 ½ hours.
- Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 450 °F. In a large pot combine 1 gallon of water with the sugar and baking soda and bring it to a boil. Reduce the heat to keep the water at a rolling simmer. Set a cooling rack over a clean sheet pan and place it next to the stove.2 oz granulated sugar, 2 teaspoons baking soda
- Lift a bagel off the sheet pan and lower it into the boiling water, bottom side down. Boil the bagels for 30-45 seconds on each side. Depending on the size of your pot, you can boil 3-4 bagels at a time. As you remove the boiled bagels from the water, set them on the cooling rack to drain.
- Line two half-sheet pans with parchment paper or silicone baking mats and generously sprinkle with cornmeal (or flour). Place 5 of the boiled bagels on each sheet pan. You could fit them all on one pan but they may rise enough to stick together as they bake. I like all the sides to be crusty so I leave plenty of room between them.
- Brush the bagels with egg white. You can leave the bagels plain or add the topping of your choice. To make "everything" bagels combine a tablespoon of each of the seeds & salt with a pinch each of garlic salt and onion powder. Adjust toppings to your taste.1 egg white, Topping
- Bake until golden brown, about 20 minutes.
Equipment
My Book
KA Stand Mixer
Half Sheet Pans
Parchment Sheets
Cooling Rack
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Notes
You can use 1 tablespoon molasses plus 1 tablespoon of honey instead of barley syrup.
Nutrition
Serving: 1bagel | Calories: 292kcal | Carbohydrates: 60g | Protein: 9g | Fat: 1g | Saturated Fat: 0.2g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g | Monounsaturated Fat: 0.1g | Sodium: 923mg | Potassium: 79mg | Fiber: 2g | Sugar: 8g | Vitamin A: 1IU | Vitamin C: 0.002mg | Calcium: 14mg | Iron: 1mg
Have you tried this recipe?Mention @eileen.bakingsense or tag #bakingsense!
Tom Sams
Monday 5th of December 2022
I have a couple of questions/comments about this recipe...I hope you will respond to me. Admittedly, I'm not an expert bread maker but I have baked quite a few types of bread and have advanced a little beyond beginner. Here are the issues I experienced... 1. After pulling from the fridge - I let them set for 1 1/2 hours. They were flat and some were very, very wrinkled. Looked like an old prune. 2. When I was ready to boil them they were very difficult to handle. So soft and some fell into a blob. I had to try and reshape them which did not go well. 3. Baking went ok...I did add 5 minutes on to the 20 minutes to get to a golden brown. No two look alike. Size wise was my problem, I should have weighed each one when forming. Otherwise, after the bake some are flat, some very tall, some very wrinkled. 4. Taste - tops were not crispy, bottoms were crispy. Insides was less chewy and more cake-like.
Clearly, I've done many things wrong and would really appreciate some help from experts. Disclaimer: I did use molasses in place of barely malt.
Thank you in advance. Tom
Eileen Gray
Monday 5th of December 2022
The way you describe the dough being soft and like a "blob" it sounds like maybe you didn't have good gluten development. Did you use unbleached bread flour? Did you weigh your ingredients? Did you knead for 5 minutes?
Toby
Monday 17th of October 2022
A person could also use a bread machine to mix the sponge, leave it for 30-60 minutes, and then add the rest of the ingredients and let the machine knead the dough. I don't have a stand mixer and kneading is hard on my hands. I would do that but I would not have room in my fridge for the formed bagels even in half-sheet pans which I don't have]. I wish you provided an option for leaving the dough in the fridge overnight, then shaping the bagels the next morning and leaving them for as long as needed to be ready to submerge in simmering water. Then I could try this recipe with its wonderful reviews.
Eileen Gray
Tuesday 18th of October 2022
Well, you could do exactly as you described. Refrigerate the dough overnight then proceed with the recipe in the morning. The rise time will be a little longer, but otherwise should work well.
U-77 Miss Wahoo
Tuesday 3rd of May 2022
These were the best bagels I've made in recent memory. I made this first batch plain, since seeds hide a multitude of problems and I wanted to taste and see what they were actually like. That sponge may have been key in how flavorful they were. Excellent warm out of the oven; and the split/wrapped/frozen ones taste great and have a nice chew after toasting. But the crust itself was a bit chewier than I was expecting, perhaps since I had to knead them a little longer. The dough was quite wet and sticky when I was almost at the end of kneading in my stand mixer, and had to add an extra cup of flour in total, which may have made the crust more obstinate. My bread flour was 13.3% PRO. The temps here are 65-70F indoors, 60-ish outside. It hadn't been raining excessively and humidity is ~50% (if it WERE muggy, baking is the last thing I'd be doing). I'd measured most ingredients by weight, and the H2O by ml/cups. My measurements were as correct as I could make them. So, I'm curious why my dough was as wet as it was, as it seems like if it were due to the protein in the flour, it should have been drier, not wetter? That said, I'll make these again once we're done with the ones in the freezer. Coatings of sesame seed and poppy seed are next on the menu, now that I know they have nothing to hide.
Maria Lopez
Wednesday 29th of December 2021
Just finished making these bagels, had no problems at all. I followed the recipe the only thing I did different was that I knead it for almost 7 minutes. Would make again.
Andrew Barilr
Tuesday 23rd of November 2021
So for everyone having trouble with their bagels deflating. There could be a few reasons. I’ll list them and also give tips on how to fix it.
1.) Check the temperature of your refrigerator. Make sure that the thermostat is set at the right number.
*Place your tray of bagels at the very bottom of the fridge. It’s the coldest part. Try not to open the fridge so much while these are fermenting. Every time you open the door it takes about an hour for your fridge to bounce back.
2.) Reduce the amount of yeast called for in the recipe.
*When fermenting dough overnight in the refrigerator it’s best to only use about a third of the amount that the recipe calls for. Why? Well since the dough will be proving for a long period of time, you don’t want the yeast to work to quickly. The more yeast the faster the dough becomes over proofed. Not only will the dough lose its shape it can also start to smell and taste like alcohol due to the yeast consuming all the starch. I recommend about 2 grams of yeast for this recipe.
3.) Check the temperature of the water.
*Lower the H2O temperature to about 66-68 degrees. (Depending on the temp of your house. The warmer the kitchen the more cold your water should be. A loe temperature water guarantees your dough to rise slower. Thus preventing over proofed bagels.
Thank you. Let me know if this helps any.
AJB