Recipe || Soft Pretzels with Roasted Jalapeno Cheese Sauce

Posted on March 12, 2013

Last Friday Sam and I were having a junk food and trash TV night after a very stressful week. But our “junk food” night included salad… so does that still count? Anyways I busted out a Soft Pretzel with Jalapeno Cheese recipe to snack on while we watch reruns of “Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares”.

I love soft pretzels. Last year when I was in Zurich one of my favourite things were the massive soft pretzel stands on every corner. Like Starbucks everywhere else.

So without further ado…

Soft Pretzels with Roasted Jalapeno Cheese

Adapted from Smells Like Home

(So golden….so good)

Ingredients:

Pretzels:

1 1/2 cups warm water
1 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons kosher salt
2 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast
4 1/2 cups of flour
2 oz melted butter
10 cups water
2/3 cup baking soda
2 tablespoons butter, melted
salt to top as desired

Cheese:

2 small jalapenos
2 tablespoons melted butter
2 tablespoons flour
1 cup milk
8 oz cheddar cheese, shredded
1/4 cup cilantro chopped (coriander)

(Does it remind you of something you’d buy at the mall as a teenager?)

Instructions:

Mix together water, sugar, yeast and salt. Add flour and butter. Mix until well combined. Knead dough in the bowl until it is smooth and pulls away from the bowls sides. (About 5 minutes. Then you can skip the gym). Lightly oil a different bowl, transfer the dough into it. Cover it and let it rise in a warm place for about 1 hour or until the dough has doubled in size.

Then turn the dough out onto a lightly oiled surface and divide it into 8 equal pieces. Roll out each piece into a 24 in long rope. Twist them into pretzel shapes. Place a damp towel over the dough and formed pretzels to keep them from drying as you make the others.

Preheat oven to 425 F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.

Only boil 1 or 2 pretzels at a time, depending on the size of your pot. Place the boiled pretzels on your baking sheet. Brush them with the melted butter and sprinkle some kosher salt on top. Bake them until the are a dark golden brown color. About 12-14 minutes. Brush them with more melted butter.

Jalapeno cheese

(Too spicey doesn’t exist in my vocabulary. I’ll try to add a spicy kick to anything)

Put jalapenos on a baking sheet and roast under the boiler until they are blackened. About 10 minutes. Allow them to cool for 15 minutes them peel the blackened skins off, leaving just the fleshy pepper. Remove the seeds and roughly chop the peppers.

In a small saucepan over medium heat, melt your butter. Stir in the jalapenos. Whisk in the flour for about 30 seconds. Do not stop whisking.

Whisk in the milk until no lumps remain. Stirring constantly, bring the milk to a shimmer until it starts to thicken, this should take 3-5 minutes. Remove the pot from the heat and stir in the cheese. Continue to stir until all the cheese has melted. Stir in chopped cilantro and a punch of salt.

*Note- Sam and I had a reasonable amount of cheese leftover. You can rewarm it in the microwave for about 30 seconds. Then he started putting it on everything. Dipping chicken and pizza into it, etc. He liked a bit with pizza the best, I believe.