Don't Toss Your Leftover Soft Pretzels, Repurpose Them Into Something Magical

There's nothing like a still-warm soft pretzel — they're Guy Fieri's favorite snack for a reason. But once the craving has passed, you might find you have a few leftover. That's where creativity can strike, because according to Michelle Doll Olson, senior culinary manager at HelloFresh, those leftovers have potential too. Doll Olson actually helped develop the company's Pretzel Day Kit inspired by "The Office" (remember that episode where Stanley loses his mind over pretzels?), so she knows a thing or two about the salty snack. As she told Chowhound in an exclusive conversation, with pretzels, the key is timing: "You really want to eat them the day of," she explains. "The salt dissolves into the pretzel even if you store it in an airtight container."

So if you can't manage a dozen in one go, take advice from Doll Olson and transform them into something new. For another salty snack, she recommends reheating them low and slow, around 300 degrees Fahrenheit for 10 to 15 minutes. "This will dry them out and turn them into hard pretzels which will last you a few days," Doll Olson says. And outside of just general snacking, once they are crunchy, you can find new and exciting uses for them. Doll Olson suggests smashing them in a bag with a rolling pin to give you instant upgrade for fried chicken batter — a similar approach could be used as a coating for tofu or as a savory topping to seriously upgrade mac and cheese. Those pretzel crumbs will bring a more tangy and salty depth than just plain breadcrumbs. If you're not in the mood for savory, Doll Olson also has a suggestion for a sweet way to repurpose leftover soft pretzels.

With that sort of golden hue and doughy texture they have going on, soft pretzels are already leaning into dessert territory, so Michelle Doll Olson says you might as well take them all the way there. "You could use an unsalted version in bread pudding," she suggests. According to her, the dense and chewy texture holds up really well when combined with custard. You might already be able to imagine layers of pretzel chunks soaking up notes of vanilla, cinnamon, and brown sugar. And even if some of the saltiness still lingers in the dough, that's the sort of culinary combination that works to cut through the sweetness and give the final dessert some depth.

In addition to using leftover soft pretzels in bread pudding, trying throwing them in as the base in a sweet, French toast casserole, or crushing dried soft pretzels for the crust in a no-bake cheesecake. And if making a full dessert feels like too much work, simply throw some torn homemade soft pretzels into a skillet with butter and sugar to make some sweet pretzel bites that you can dunk in caramel or chocolate sauce. Or similar to how you might use them to top mac and cheese for a savory application, simply crumble dried pretzels over ice cream for a texturally exciting topping that turns the dessert into something closer to a sundae. No matter how you repurpose them, there are plenty of ways to keep soft pretzels from going to waste.