Oktoberfest is still chicken dancing down the road in Germany. Until October 7th, to be precise. So, even though I’m not in Munich this year to celebrate, I’m still celebrating in the kitchen with this fun, easy, and extremely flavorful Bavarian pretzel soup.
Brezln or Pretzel soup is popular in Bavaria. Tourists seem to love it as well. Even though this is a great a fall soup, it makes for good slurping any time of the year.
Although this may seem like this soup was just a scrambled assembling of leftover ingredients, it works beautifully. It probably was how it was invented though. I can just see some desperate Bavarian cook foraging in the pantry for soup ingredients and coming up with an onion and day-old pretzels.
Serve this soup for brunch. Paired with fried obatzda with an extra pretzel on the side, you have a filling and festive fall menu.
The key to this soup is to use day old pretzels. Make sure they are unsalted. If they have salt, make sure you scrape all the salt off of the pretzels first, then distribute them among the soup bowls before pouring the soup on top.
I’m aware big soft pretzels are not available at every bakery on the corner like they are in Germany. Check the frozen section of your local supermarket. Most carry them. The good part about buying them frozen is they are packaged without salt. A little salt packet is included to add to the pretzels when you bake them. In any case, Just defrost the pretzels and leave them out on the counter for a day.
Bavarian Pretzel soup may be the easiest soup you will ever make from scratch. I used chicken stock for the broth but you can keep it vegetarian and use vegetable broth. The flavor will be stronger if you use beef broth. For me, the chicken version had just the right balance of flavors.
Bavarian Pretzel Soup
Ingredients
- 2 onions
- 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
- 4 cups broth your choice, beef, chicken veggie or bone
- 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
- 2 day old large soft pretzels
- 2 tablespoons chopped chives
Instructions
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Peel the onions and dice.
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Heat the butter in a large saucepan. Add the onions and stir to coat.
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Sauté the onions until they become transparent. Add the broth to the pan and bring to a boil.
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Season with nutmeg, salt, and freshly ground black pepper to taste. Turn the heat down and let the mixture simmer for 5 minutes.
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Scrape the salt off of the pretzels and cut them into small pieces.
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evenly distribute the pretzels among 4 soup bowls and pour the broth over each.
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Scatter the chives over the top of each bowl and serve.
Try some of my other fantastic fall soup recipes:
Mustard Potato Soup
