Canned Biscuits Are All You Need For Easy Homemade Bagels

Sometimes you are craving a particular food, say a bagel, and you just don't have any. This is where resourcefulness and a bit of creativity come into the mix. To create an impromptu vehicle for your cream cheese, look no further than the can of biscuits sitting on your refrigerator shelf. You can hack that prepackaged tube of dough with a two-step cooking process that will give you a close-enough bagel: boiling and then baking.

Boiling before baking is a traditional part of the bagel-making process and helps bagels develop an outer skin and lends them their signature chewy bite. To approximate this with canned biscuits, simply flatten each biscuit, make a hole in the center, and boil for a few minutes before baking. While this hack isn't going to replace the spoils from your favorite bagel shop, it will give you bagel vibes in a pinch. Adding baking soda to the boiling water, which ups its pH, is another way to mimic traditional bagel technique and helps give your boiled rings more of a golden color.

Using packaged products to approximate other foods with a longer or more complicated prep time is almost an art form unto itself, like using boxed cake mix to make biscotti or using pancake mix to make homemade corn dogs. To make your canned biscuit bagels even more convincing, double down on strategies that also make canned biscuits taste more homemade, like adding spices and filling with lots of goodies. In the case of bagels, this may mean sprinkling with everything bagel seasoning before baking and then stuffing with traditional bagel sandwich ingredients like scrambled eggs and cheese.

Fresh herbs are another way to make bagels in a hurry taste more authentic. After slicing and spreading on some cream cheese, a few tempting pieces of smoked salmon and some fresh dill (which is part of the smoked salmon-making process) will have your mouth singing. Or, add other common accoutrements that will take your taste buds down the bagel path, like capers, freshly sliced onion, tomato, or even a squeeze of lemon. Whatever time of day or wherever you are, consider your freshly baked bagel craving satisfied.