Sourdough bagels are savory, chewy, crusty, and deliciously tangy. These are an amazing way to start your morning or to enjoy for a yummy brunch.

Sourdough may be one of my favorite ways to start the morning, whether it be breakfast strata, pancakes, English muffins, crepes, or these delicious bagels.
Itโs a delicious, easy, and filling way to start our busy days, fueled up.
Bagels may seem intimidating, but I promise that they really arenโt that difficult. It’s much like making any baked sourdough recipe, with the added step of cooking it in boiling water for a few minutes before baking.
These sourdough bagels have a yummy and tangy flavor, pairing really well with sweet or savory dishes. Theyโre a wonderful comfort food.
I love slathering cream cheese or homemade butter all over them.
Below, I share a few different variations and a bunch of bagel sandwich ideas.
Sourdough Bagel FAQ
Are all bagels sourdough?
No. They are typically leavened with either sourdough or commercial yeast. Unless they are specifically labeled as sourdough, you can expect bagels to be made with commercial yeast.
Why is there a hole in a bagel?
There is a hole for more even cooking throughout. This also helps with crust development.
Are bagels bad for you?
While they tend to be higher in calories, these simple sourdough bagels are made with wholesome ingredients and healthy fermented grains.
What do you eat bagels with?
There are so many ways to eat bagels. Most commonly, they are served with cream cheese. See below for sandwich recommendations.
Why are bagels boiled at first?
You boil bagels first to set the crust, which allows them to hold their shape in the oven. The longer you boil them, the thicker the crust. Boiling for 60 seconds on each side yields the perfect result. Although this step may seem silly, donโt skip it – it is one of the most important.
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Tips:
- Use a slotted spoon or โspiderโ strainer to flip and pull the bagels out of the boiling water.
- If you donโt have a sourdough starter, you can check out this post, where I show you exactly how to make a starter from scratch.
- Cook 2-4 bagels in the baking soda water at a time. Donโt overcrowd your pot.
- You can knead the dough by hand or use a stand mixer. A stand mixer is much easier and less time consuming.
Tools you may need:
Measuring cups and spoons
Large pot or dutch oven
Parchment paper
Topping ideas
- Shredded cheddar cheese
- Sesame seeds
- Dried onion/dried garlic flakes
- Poppy seeds
- Everything But The Bagel seasoning
- Cinnamon sugar topping
Additional Bagel Add-Ins:
Mix in these extras into the dough right before forming into bagels:
Blueberries – add fresh blueberries
Cinnamon and raisins
Chocolate chips
How To Make Sourdough Bagels From Scratch
Add sourdough starter, water, honey, salt, and two cups of flour to a stand mixer.
Mix until it comes together, about 10 minutes on low speed. The dough will be really stiff and difficult to incorporate.
Add remaining flour, half a cup at a time. Use a dough hook and knead until it is smooth and pliable. You could also knead by hand, but the stand mixer makes this process much easier.
Cover dough with wet tea towel, plastic wrap, or beeswax wrap; allow to ferment for 8 to 12 hours. Donโt just cover with a dry towel, because it will create a hard skin on the top of your dough, which you donโt want.
After the dough has fermented, divide into 8 equal pieces.
Roll the dough into balls, flatten them down a bit, and poke a hole in the middle with your finger. Stretch the hole a bit to widen.
Cover with a tea towel and allow the dough to rise in a warm spot for two hours or until puffy. The time will depend on how warm your house is. It could take 1 to 4 hours.
Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
Bring a large pot of water to a boil and add the baking soda and sugar.
Using a slotted spoon, gently add bagels to the water and boil for one minute, flip, then boil for another minute.
Shake off excess water and dip into desired toppings (optional).
Place boiled bagels on parchment-lined baking sheet.
Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until golden on top.
Sourdough Bagel Sandwich Ideas
Truly, a sourdough bagel is a vessel for the yummy toppings you want to add.
- Breakfast sandwich – add a fried egg, bacon or sausage, cheese, and some lettuce for a yummy way to start your morning.
- Cream cheese and veggie. Spread cream cheese on bagel, add slices of tomato, cucumber, avocado (optional). Sprinkle with salt and enjoy.
- Avocado… bagel. Rather than toast. Add sliced avocado and sprinkle with salt.
- Locks – cream cheese and smoked salmon (locks) make a really delicious sandwich any time of day.
- Turkey club. Really any of your favorite lunch meat will do; top with slices of cheese, tomato, avocado, and an egg.
- Ham and cheese. Top with ham and a slice of Swiss or cheddar cheese. Bake it in the oven until the cheese starts to melt. Honey mustard takes this up a notch.
- Add chicken salad
Find More Sourdough Recipes:
If you try this recipe and love it, I would love if you could come back and give it 5 stars!
Sourdough Bagels
Ingredients
- ยฝ cup sourdough starter, bubbly and active (113 grams)
- 1 cup water, 236 grams
- 2 tablespoons honey, 21 grams
- 2 teaspoons salt, 10 grams
- 4 cups unbleached all purpose flour, 560 grams
For boiling the bagels
- 2 quarts water
- 1 tablespoon baking soda
- 1 tablespoon brown sugar
Instructions
- Add sourdough starter, water, honey, salt, and two cups flour to a stand mixer.
- Mix until it comes together, about 10 minutes on low speed. The dough will be really stiff and difficult to incorporate.
- Add remaining flour, half a cup at a time. Use a dough hook and knead until it is smooth and pliable.
- Cover dough with wet tea towel, plastic wrap, or beeswax wrap and allow to ferment for 8 to 12 hours.
- After fermentation, divide into 8 equal pieces.
- Roll the dough into balls, flatten them down a bit, and poke a hole in the middle with your finger. Stretch the hole a bit to widen.
- Cover with a tea towel and allow the dough to rise in a warm spot for 1-4 hours or until puffy.
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
- Bring a large pot of water to a boil and add the baking soda and sugar.
- Using a slotted spoon, gently add bagels to the water and boil for one minute, flip, then boil for another minute.
- Shake off excess water and dip into desired toppings (optional).
- Place boiled bagels on parchment-lined baking sheet.
- Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until golden on top.
Notes
- Use a slotted spoon or โspiderโ strainer to flip and to pull the bagels out of the boiling water.
- Cook 2-4 bagels in the baking soda water at a time. Donโt overcrowd your pot.
- You can knead the dough by hand or use a stand mixer. A stand mixer is much easier and less time consuming.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Unfortunately, my dough was sooooo dry and hard that my mixer started to overheat trying to mix it. I don’t understand – if the initial mix with 2 cups of flour is hard to incorporate and then I add more flour, how does it become soft and pliable? Mine was just crumbly. I had to add a little water – because I added flour to my initial 2 cups of flour because it was so stretchy – not hard to incorporate at all. I’m assuming my starter was a little too runny.
Hi Lisa,
Thank you for the awesome recipes. I appreciate all the hard work you do to create them. I wanted to let you know that when you change the quantity of the recipe (double or tripling it) and you click on the 2X or 3X, the grams do not change (the cups and tablespoons do). I found this out the hard way and had to throw out my double batch of bagels since I didnโt follow the cups/tablespoons measurement but rather only the grams.
Thank you for letting me know. I am working on fixing it.
Until this recipe, I had never made bagels of any kind. These became my new favorite thing to bake! The recipe is easy to follow, the bagels are fun to make and they are delicious. The only downside is they disappear fast. ๐
Hi there- can you leave the brown sugar out, or is there a substitute for sugar?
It helps to give them a sweet flavor and also helps to brown them during the baking process.
Hey. When you click to double or triple this recipe it does the cups but did not convert the correct grams! They did not change from the 1x amount. We love this recipe. The only thing we do different is we just use 2T honey in the boiling water.
Thank you. We are trying to get this fixed.
Made this recipe and my family loves them! Very simple recipe and great for a busy momma. Thank you!!
Can you long ferment this with a cold proof? When would you do that? Before shaping with the first proof or after shaping with the second?
My favorite sourdough recipe so far, turned out wonderfully. The dough was so smooth and supple and then it baked up great. Just as a bagel should be!
Hi there! I’ve made these once before and just started another batch, but I’m having a bit of trouble. My first ones never got puffy, and were subsequently very small mini bagels ๐ But they tasted great! So I’m trying again…However, I’ve noticed both times that during the first round of mixing, when the recipe says the dough should be difficult to work with, mine is very stretchy and almost runny? I’ve double and triple checked the recipe and I’ve followed it to a T, so I’m not sure what’s going wrong! Would love some advice! Thanks โบ๏ธ
That’s interesting! I would add a bit more flour to your recipe then.
Made it twice, incredibly dense and dry out of the mixer both times. Is 10 min really necessary? It all came together in about 3-4 min but I added a few more minutes just in case and now I suspect itโs overworked. Wish I stopped it much earlier. Can you show what the dough should look like when youโre guesstimating how much flour and water you add. Iโm sure you know based on experience but being new to this recipe I wish there were images or videos to look at
They are supposed to be dry and dense out of the mixer because when you boil them, it takes on the extra water. That’s what creates the chewiness.