Name: homemade egg bagels
Prep time: 45 min
Cook time: 20 min
Total time: 155 min
Ingredients: 500 grams flour ((3½ cups)); 19 grams brown sugar ((1½ TBSP)); 11 grams kosher salt ((1½ tsp)); 2 tsp yeast; 3 eggs ((150g)); 3 egg yolks ((54g)); 100 grams warm water ((95-105°F)); ⅛ cup cornmeal ((optional, for crisp bagel bottoms)); 2 TBSP poppy seeds ((optional, for topping))

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a straight on shot of an egg bagel that's been sliced in half with the top half resting half of the bottom half

an overhead shot of a bagel on a cooling rack. the bagel has been sliced in half and the top half is resting half off the bottom, revealing the crumb inside.

a vertical shot of an egg bagel with cream cheese and bacon in it sits on the end of a wire cooling rack. more egg bagels are visible in the background along with a small bowl of black sesame seeds.

an overhead shot of a bagel topped with black sesame seeds. the bagel has pieces of bacon and cream cheese oozing out the sides.

Egg bagels or plain bagels — what’s your preference? If you’re all about the egg bagel, keep reading. (If you said plain bagels, click here.)

I don’t know about you but egg bagels were the standard in my house growing up. My mom bought those bright yellow frozen Lender’s egg bagels that came in sleeves of six. I eschewed the toaster in favor of defrosting them in 10-20 seconds bursts in the microwave to give them a nice chewy texture before slathering them with butter that melted into the crumb. As a kid I always assumed egg bagels were superior to plain bagels the same way egg matzah is superior to plain matzah. For much of my early childhood, egg bagels were the only bagel as far as I was concerned.

Of course my palette grew as I did, and these days I’m more adventurous in my bagel eating. I love a Bruegger’s rosemary olive oil bagel, a pumpkin bagel, everything and sesame bagels, asiago bagels, garlic and fennel bagels, you name it. And most bagels use a plain water bagel as the base. But a few weeks ago I found myself craving a good old fashioned egg bagel — the kind that rises high with a chewy exterior that sticks in your teeth. So I started tinkering with my trusty 3-hour bagel recipe to see if I could adapt it to work with eggs. And I could! Which means you can too.

Egg bagels get their yellow color and chewy, airy texture from the addition of, you guessed it, eggs. I started by swapping some of the water in my usual bagel recipe for egg yolks, increasing the number of yolks with each batch. I wanted to use the fewest number of egg yolks possible to still produce a bagel that was unmistakably an egg bagel. A good egg bagel, imo, should have a deliciously chewy and light texture with a thin crust and that distinctive yellow color (without any help from food coloring).

Most of the egg bagel recipes I saw in my research used eight or more (!!!) whole egg yolks. I didn’t want to end up with eight leftover egg whites, so the final recipe uses 3 egg yolks and 3 whole eggs. To give the egg bagels a slightly more intense flavor I used brown sugar instead of white sugar, and dissolved 1/8 cup of brown sugar in the water I boiled them in. They’re so, so, so good.

an overhead shot of 8 egg bagels on a wire cooling rack over a white linen napkin. dried flours as visible in the top corner of the photo, a small bowl of cream cheese and a small bowl of black sesame seeds sits next to the bagels.

how to shape bagels

Here’s a quick refresher on how to shape bagels. One note: Unlike plain bagels, egg bagels need to rest for 10 minutes after you shape them into rounds (step 3) and before you poke the holes (step 4).

Divide your dough. If combining a few smaller pieces, stack them with the smallest on top.

Fold all the edges of the dough across the center creating a smooth surface against the counter.

Flip the dough smooth side up. In a cupped hand, slide it toward you. Rotate 90 degrees and repeat.

Flip the dough over and use flour-coated hands to poke a thumb through the “seam” at the bottom.

Stick your other thumb in and squeeze while rotating the dough to stretch it.

Stretch, don’t tear. The hole will shrink when it bakes. It should be ~1/3 the width of the bagel.

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some quick notes on egg bagels

Large egg yolks weigh 18 grams and whole large eggs (minus the shell) weigh 50 grams. If you want eggier egg bagels with an even bolder yellow color, you can use up to 8 egg yolks and no egg whites. Egg whites are 90% water, so you’ll just need to adjust the amount of water accordingly.

Boiling the bagels helps set the crust before they bake. You’ll notice the outside texture of the bagel becomes slightly gelatinous after boiling. The longer you boil them the thicker that crust will be. I like a thinner, chewier crust on my egg bagels, so I boil them for 30-60 seconds per side. If you prefer a thicker crust, you can boil them for up to 2 minutes per side.

When shaping the dough into rounds before you poke the holes in them, use an unfloured surface and don’t flour your hands. You want the dough to stick slightly to the counter to help create tension and give the dough rounds a smooth exterior.

You want the bagels to be as smooth as possible on the outside before you boil them. Boiling sets the crust in place, so if the underside of your bagels have visible seams where the dough hasn’t fully stuck to itself again, let the bagels rest 10-15 more minutes before boiling to give the dough time to smooth out.

If you want to refrigerate the bagels overnight, reduce the amount of yeast to 1½ tsp and cover them with a damp paper towel and then loosely with plastic wrap so they don’t dry out.

Save one of the egg whites to use as an egg wash for the egg bagels, and you can save the other egg whites for making a scramble, for Swiss meringue buttercream, or to make a standard meringue for a pavlova. You can also freeze egg whites in an airtight container if you aren’t planning to use them right away.

The most traditional egg bagel topping is poppy seeds (I used black sesame seeds here because I couldn’t find poppy seeds) but you can really use any topping you like. Use an egg wash whether or not you use a topping to get a nice shiny exterior.