Last updated on December 16th, 2021
These air fryer pretzel bites are the perfect appetizer or snack. Ready in under thirty minutes, these hot and salty pretzel bites go from air fryer to your favorite mustard dipping sauce in a flash.
Tips & Tricks for making Air Fryer Pretzel Bites
My number one “hack” for keeping these pretzel bites fast and easy, is using refrigerated pizza dough in a can. It works great – and if you can avoid the extra work and mess, why not? Three other ingredients round out the list. Salt, egg for wash for the air fryer, and baking soda.
You’ll also need to prepare your air fryer at this point. Depending on which air fryer your using this can mean a few different things, so follow your manufacturer’s instructions. If your manufacturer recommends preheating, do so at 350 degrees.
Spray the interior of your air fryer basket with a neutral vegetable-based cooking spray with a high smoke point.
Once you’ve assembled the 4 ingredients, along with your chosen mustard sauce, and prepped your air fryer, it’s time to get to work.
Pop open the can of pizza dough, tear off small pieces of dough and roll into balls. Each ball should be roughly the size of a peach pit or large cherry. Roll tightly, but quickly, to eliminate as many seems as possible – but don’t worry if they’re not exactly perfect.
Bring large, heavy-bottom pan of [5 cups] water to full rolling boil over medium high heat on stovetop. Carefully remove pan of boiling water from heat and add baking soda. This will cause a chemical reaction – wait for the foaming and bubbling to subside then return pan to heat to simmer. Once water has started simmering, add HALF of the dough balls and cook for approximately one minute, or until the dough balls start to float at the top of the pan and are fluffy. Use a slotted spoon to remove from pan to paper towels to dry.
Brush egg wash on dough balls using pastry brush and add remaining dough balls to water to cook.
Place dough balls in prepared air fryer basket approximately 1/2 inch apart. Work in batches to keep the pretzel bites on a single layer.
Cook for 10 minutes @350 degrees,; until the dough balls are a deep, golden color.
Serve immediately with your favorite mustard dipping sauce, and chilled beverage.
Related Recipes
Air Fryer Pretzel Bites
Ingredients
- 1 can refrigerated pizza dough
- 1/3 cup baking soda
- 1 egg beaten
- coarse salt for sprinkling
- scallions for serving
- grainy mustard for serving
Instructions
- Preheat air fryer to 350 degrees, following manufacturer’s instructions
- Spray air fryer basket with vegetable-based cooking spray.
- Open can of refrigerated pizza dough and roll peach-pit (or quarter) size pieces of pizza dough into balls.
- In large heavy-bottomed pan, bring five cups water to a rolling boil on on high heat.
- Remove pan completely from heat and carefully stir in baking soda. Wait for bubbling reaction to subside then immediately return pan to heat to simmer.
- Add half of your pizza dough balls to simmering water and cook for 1 minute until puffy.
- Remove from simmering water with a slotted spoon and place on paper towels to dry.
- Add remaining half of pizza dough balls to still-simmering water and cook for 1 minute until puffy, removing from water using same technique as before once cooking has completed.
- Brush dough balls with beaten egg and sprinkle with coarse salt.
- Place dough balls in prepared air fryer basket about 1/2 inch apart.
- Cook for 10 minutes @ 350 degrees until deep golden color.
- Serve with mustard, garnish with scallions if desired.
Almost makes me wish we hadn‘t gotten rid of our air fryer….