This post may contain affiliate links

These rosemary olive oil bagels are a near-perfect copycat for the ones you used to be able to get at Bruegger's Bagels in the 2000s before they changed their recipes. They're golden brown, perfectly chewy, and have a lovely herbal flavor from the fresh rosemary and olive oil.

This rosemary bagel dough is so good for making my cream cheese-stuffed mini bagels too, btw!

Golden brown rosemary bagels and fresh rosemary sprigs are arranged on a white surface. One bagel is sliced and spread with cream cheese. A small wooden bowl of cream cheese garnished with rosemary is also visible. — Fresh rosemary is amazing in homemade bagels.

My go-to bagel order for years in high school when my after-school art program bus stop was right outside a Bruegger's Bagels, was a rosemary olive oil bagel, toasted, with cream cheese. Preferably scallion cream cheese if they had it (and oh, it was a tragedy when they didn't). But honestly, any cream cheese would do.

When I first started making homemade bagels many years ago, I tried making a "rosemary bagel" by putting fresh rosemary on top of my go-to easy plain bagel recipe. I was sorely disappointed when the rosemary dried and shriveled unpleasantly in the oven.

So it took me a few tries to get my rosemary olive oil bagel recipe just right. Using even a little too much oil made the bagels fluffy and light, not dense and chewy the way a bagel should be.

I tested using an olive oil wash on the outside of the bagels instead of an egg wash, but that led to dusty, cracked bagel crusts. And if I was too shy with the amount of rosemary, well, I might as well not use it at all.

The trick is to be heavy-handed with the fresh rosemary and while using a lighter touch with the olive oil. The end result is a chewy, dense bagel with lots of fresh, savory rosemary and olive oil flavor.

5 star reader review

“Just made a half recipe. Didn’t have any fresh rosemary on hand so I used half the amount of dried rosemary. Turned out perfect, tastes exactly like the Bruegger’s bagels.”
—Gavin

Add your review →

A rosemary bagel topped with fragrant rosemary sprigs sits on a white plate beside a wooden bowl filled with cream cheese and a rosemary garnish. Scattered rosemary sprigs are on the white surface nearby, highlighting the aromatic appeal of fresh rosemary bagels.

A bagel cut in half and filled with cream cheese is on a plate in the foreground. Several rosemary bagels are stacked in the background. A knife, a bowl of cream cheese, and sprigs of rosemary are nearby.

You don't need a lot of fancy ingredients to make rosemary olive oil bagels. It's basically your standard bagel ingredients plus some olive oil and rosemary! I do recommend choosing a high-quality olive oil with a robust flavor so you can really taste it.

Make a rosemary infused olive oil for the dough

The first step of making rosemary olive oil bagels is to make a rosemary-infused olive oil. It's what it sounds like: a mixture of olive oil and minced rosemary. The longer the rosemary sits in the olive oil before you use it, the stronger the flavor will be and the softer the rosemary pieces will be.

While the rosemary infuses in the olive oil, mix the dry ingredients together in the bowl of your mixer. Break up any lumps of brown sugar with your hands or a whisk. Pour the water into the center of the flour mixture along with the rosemary and olive oil infusion.

Mix the dough until it comes together, then knead until smooth. Once the dough is kneaded, you'll put it in a bowl or bucket brushed with a bit of olive oil and let it rise until just about doubled in size.

Here's the dough before and after a 1 hour rise:

A round ball of dough, soon to become fragrant rosemary bagels, rests at the bottom of a clear plastic container with quart and liter measurements printed on the side. The dough comes up to just about the 1 qt line. The container has a lid and sits on a light-colored surface.

A round, clear plastic container with red measurement markings holds dough for rosemary bagels fully filling out the bottom of the bucket to the 1-liter (1-quart) mark. The container has a lid and sits on a light surface with a blurred background.

If "doubled in size" is a hard target for you, please know it's just a rough way of explaining what to look for before moving on to the next step.

Another way to tell if your dough has finished proofing (that's baker for "rising") is to use the fingerprint test. The indent should fill back in a little, but not completely. If the indent fills in immediately, you can let it rise a little bit longer. But if you press in and the dough deflates quickly, it has over-proofed. If this happens, give the dough a quick knead on the counter and then let it rest for 10 minutes. It will be okay.

How to Shape Bagels

The addition of olive oil in this dough makes it even more silky smooth and elastic than plain bagel dough, but otherwise the shaping process is exactly the same. Because the olive oil makes the dough a little more elastic, you'll probably want to stretch the holes out again right before you boil them or they'll close up in the oven.

Divide the dough into equal portions on an unfloured surface. If you're combining a few pieces together to make a portion, stack the smaller pieces on top of the bigger pieces. Tuck the edges up so the dough is smooth against the counter with a seam pinched together on top. Repeat until the dough ball feels fairly tight. Don't tear the dough, just stretch it.

Then, flip the dough over so the seam side is down against the counter. Cup your hand around the dough and slide it toward you. The dough will take on an oval shape. Rotate it 90 degrees and repeat to turn the oval into a round circle.

(Or, cup your hand around the dough with your pinkie-side flush against an unfloured counter and your thumb and forefinger making an O- or C-like shape above the dough. Move your hand in quick circles without picking your pinkie off the counter, and the dough will quickly shape itself into a nice smooth ball of dough.)

animated gif: pieces of dough stacked on top of each other with the smaller pieces on top of the bigger ones — step 1: stack dough

animated gif: the edges of the bagel dough being tucked up hiding the smaller pieces in the center — step 1: stack dough

Once the dough has been shaped into balls, coat your hands in flour and stick a thumb through the bottom seam of the dough. Slide your other thumb in and gently squeeze and stretch, rotating the dough through your hands until the bagel hole is at least the same width as the sides of the bagel if not bigger.

You may want to repeat the stretching process again before boiling to keep the hole from closing up in the oven.

Once the bagels are shaped, you'll boil them for about a minute per side. Boiling gelatinizes the starches in the crust and gives you that classic shiny, smooth, chewy bagel exterior. If you skip this step you'll end up with bagel-shaped bread. It might look like a bagel, but it will be missing that thing that makes bagels uniquely... bagely.

Once they've been boiled, all they need is a quick egg wash to make them shiny and golden brown. Then you bake them!

💭 Have More Bagel Questions?

I've rounded up answers to common bagel questions and how-to guides, including:

How to knead bagel dough by hand and what it should feel like
Why bagels are always boiled
Step-by-step guides for bagel shaping and baking techniques

See my bagel-making 101 guide for more!

📖 Recipe

Rosemary Olive Oil Bagels (Bruegger's Copycat)

Servings bagels

Author Rebecca Eisenberg

These rosemary olive oil bagels are a near-perfect copycat for the ones you can get at Bruegger's Bagels. They're golden brown, chewy and tender, with nice herbal flavor from the olive oil and fresh minced rosemary. Best served toasted with cream cheese!

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 30

Cook Time 20

Resting & Shaping Time 1 30

Total Time 2 20

Recipe Notes

Once you shape the bagels, the dough will fill out while it rests and again when you boil it so don't be shy about making the holes slightly bigger than you think they should be. The bagel hole should be at least the same width as the sides of the bagel, if not slightly bigger.
Bagels will stay good in an airtight bag up to 5 days.
To freeze, slice bagels almost all the way through, then place in an airtight bag in the freezer.

Ingredients

15 grams olive oil
5 grams minced fresh rosemary
500 grams all-purpose flour (or bread flour)
1½ tablespoon brown sugar (white sugar will also work)
1½ teaspoon diamond crystal kosher salt
6 grams instant yeast
285 grams warm water

Instructions

Cook ModePrevent your screen from going dark

Finely mince rosemary and combine with olive oil in a small bowl. Set aside.
Whisk flour, sugar, yeast, and salt together in the bowl of a stand mixer. Make a well in the center and pour the water and minced rosemary-infused olive oil into it. Run the mixer on low speed to mix the dough, pausing occasionally to scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed. This may take several minutes.

If you live somewhere very humid, hold back a few tablespoons of water and only add them if the dough really needs it. If you live somewhere very dry, you may need to add a few extra teaspoons of water (but only do this if absolutely necessary!).

If the dough seems really dry, drizzle in water 1 teaspoon at a time, letting the mixer run after each addition until it comes together on its own. You're looking for a fairly low hydration dough, so resist adding water unless absolutely necessary.

Once the dough has mostly come together in a shaggy mass on the dough hook, increase the mixer to medium and knead for 3 minutes until the dough is smooth and slightly tacky. Dust in additional flour if needed to keep the dough from sticking to the sides of the bowl.
Shape the dough into a ball and drizzle a little bit of oil into the mixer bowl. Plop the dough inside and turn it around to coat it with oil. Cover and let it rise in a warm spot for about an hour, until it just about doubles in size. Use the fingerprint test to tell when the dough is ready to shape.

If you want to intensify the flavors you can let the dough rise overnight (8-10 hours) in the fridge. This gives the rosemary more time to infuse in the dough.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and gently deflate it with your fingers. Divide the dough into 8 equal portions (use a kitchen scale for precision). Shape each portion of dough into a round dough ball with the smooth side on top and the "seam side" underneath.
Starting with the first dough round you shaped, dip your thumb in flour and poke it through the bottom of the dough and out the other side. Slide your other thumb through next to it and begin stretching and squeezing the dough as you rotate it through your hands. Be careful not to tear the dough, just gently stretch it.
Repeat with the rest of the dough rounds, then cover them with a damp paper towel and let them rest for 10 minutes.
While the bagels rest, preheat your oven to 425°F and fill a large, high-sided skillet about halfway with water — just enough that there's room for the bagels to float without resting on the bottom. Bring to a low boil.
Working in batches, boil the bagels 1 minute per side. For a larger bagel hole, stretch the bagels again immediately before boiling.
Remove the boiled bagels to a silicone mat or parchment lined sheet pan sprinkled with corn meal.
Whisk an egg with a pinch of salt, and brush it over the boiled bagels.
Bake the bagels for 20 minutes in a 425°F oven. Remove to a rack to cool at least 10 minutes before slicing, if you can bear to wait that long.