High Protein Sourdough Bagels

Real sourdough bagels made with blended cottage cheese in place of most of the water, so every bit of liquid in the dough is bringing protein with it. About 19.5 grams of protein each and no protein powder anywhere. Naturally leavened, boiled, and baked the traditional way, with a same day timeline if you start early in the morning.

Cook Time25

Course: Breakfast

Cuisine: American

Keyword: high protein sourdough bagels

Servings: 6 Bagels

Calories: 410kcal

Author: Noelle Reed

Equipment

- Stand mixer with dough hook
kitchen scale highly recommended for accuracy
Large mixing bowl
bench scraper
Large pot for boiling bath
Slotted spoon
Parchment paper
Wire cooling rack
Instant read thermometer
Pastry Brush/Paper towel optional, for egg wash

Ingredients

DOUGH

300 g cottage cheese blended completely smooth with the milk (about 1⅓ cups) SEE NOTES FOR GREEK YOGURT SUB
23 g whole milk for blending (1½ tbsp)
500 g bread flour about 4¼ cups
150 g active peaked sourdough starter 100 percent hydration (about ⅔ cup)
66 g egg whites 2 large (about ¼ cup)
13 g light brown sugar packed (1 tbsp)
11 g Real Salt fine grain (about 2 tsp)
10 g water 2 tsp, plus up to 5g more (1 tsp) only if the dough seems stiff once mixed

BOILING BATH

2000 g water about 8½ cups
21 g honey 1 tbsp, or 14g barley malt syrup (2 tsp)
14 g baking soda 1 tbsp

OPTIONAL EGG WHITE WASH

1 large egg white
15 g water 1 tbsp

Instructions

Feed your starter and wait until it is peaked, domed, and floats in water. A weak starter is the single most common reason a sourdough bagel comes out dense, so do not rush this step.
Blend the cottage cheese with the milk until completely smooth, with no curd left at all. Warm the blend about 30 seconds, just enough to take the chill off. It should be barely warm, never hot, so it does not shock the starter.
Whisk the flour and salt together in the mixer bowl. Add the blended cottage cheese, the starter, the egg whites, the brown sugar, and the water. Mix on low for 1 to 2 minutes, just until everything is brought together and no dry flour is visible.
Cover and rest 30 minutes. Dairy hydrates flour much more slowly than plain water does, and this rest is what lets the flour drink properly. Skipping it is what makes people add water the dough never actually needed.
Finish mixing on low for about 5 minutes. Do not chase a windowpane, because this dough will never give you one. You are looking for a dough that has come together evenly with a little gluten development, clearing the sides of the bowl even if it still sticks at the bottom. Use a bench scraper to pull anything off the sides back into the middle. It should stretch away without immediately breaking, and it will feel stickier than you expect. Only if it is still crumbly and will not come together, add the remaining water 5g at a time.
Cover and rest 1 hour.
Do a series of stretch and folds, reaching under one side of the dough, pulling it up, and folding it over the center, then turning the bowl and repeating until you have gone all the way around. This is where any of the gluten development that gets missed in the mixer gets built, and the stickiness largely disappears as you go.
Bulk ferment at room temperature about 7 hours, until the dough is puffy and roughly 50 percent larger. With no commercial yeast this is the real ferment, so go by look and feel rather than the clock.
Divide into 6 equal pieces, about 178g each. Ball each one tightly, pressing out any large trapped air as you go. Cover and rest 15 minutes.
Poke through the center of each ball and stretch the hole to about 2 inches. Go wider than looks right, because the hole tightens while the bagels rest and closes further in the oven.
Cover and rest the shaped bagels 45 minutes to 1 hour.
Preheat the oven to 425°F. Bring the water to a boil in a wide pot, then stir in the honey and baking soda and bring it back to a gentle boil, never a hard rolling one.
Boil 30-45 seconds per side, laying each bagel in top side down first. The side that goes in first sets against undisturbed water, and the top is the face people see. Lay them in gently by hand rather than dropping them, and flip with a slotted spoon or spider.
Lift each one out, hold it over the pot a few seconds to drain, and rest 1 to 2 minutes on a cooling rack. Move to a parchment lined baking sheet.
If you are using the egg white wash, whisk the egg white with the water and brush it on now, once the surface has gone from beading wet to matte and slightly tacky. Skip the wash entirely for the most even color, since the honey in the bath gives real shine on its own.
Bake 20 to 25 minutes, rotating once, until deep golden. They are done at 195 to 205°F internal. Cool completely before slicing, because the crumb is still setting as it comes down in temperature.

Notes

Blend the cottage cheese completely

Any curd that survives the blender turns into a wet spot in the finished crumb. Take it further than you think you need to. Good Culture and Nancy's both work beautifully here, and whole milk or low fat are equally good since the protein per gram is nearly identical.

Trust a stiff dough

The calculated hydration reads much higher than this dough will feel in your hands, because the water in cottage cheese is bound up in its solids and releases slowly. Stiff but smooth is exactly right, and a dough that handles like an ordinary bagel dough is usually too wet.

Every brand of dairy is different

Thickness and water content vary enough between brands that the water is written as a small range rather than a fixed number. Add it slowly and only if you truly need it.

Adjusting the bagel size

This dough totals about 1073g, with roughly 11g of protein per 100g, so you can size the bagels up or down as long as you know the protein number moves with them. Ten mini bagels at about 100g each land around 11g of protein apiece. Nine bagels at about 120g each land around 13g. Eight bagels at about 140g each land around 15g. Six to seven bagels at about 160g each land around 17.5g. The recipe as written makes six bagels at about 178g each for about 19.5g of protein. Five jumbo bagels at about 200g each land around 22g. Divide the total dough evenly by however many pieces you want rather than aiming for an exact weight, since equal pieces bake more evenly than a mixed batch. Boil and bake times hold steady within about 20g of the 178g default, but mini bagels need a shorter boil and a shorter bake, and jumbo bagels need longer in the oven to cook all the way through.

Greek yogurt variation

Swap the cottage cheese and the blending milk together for 300g nonfat Greek yogurt, about 1¼ cups, warmed about 30 seconds. Yogurt does not need blending, so the milk comes out entirely. Bring the salt up to 12g and expect to need a little more water at the mixer, up to about 15g, added slowly. If you want a backup on your leavening, whisk 3g baking powder in with the flour. The protein lands right around 18 grams per bagel and the crumb comes out a touch softer and finer.

Overnight option

Shape the bagels through the hole stretching step, cover well, and refrigerate overnight. In the morning let them come to room temperature about 1 hour, then boil and bake as written.

Storing and freezing

Best the day they are baked. Store at room temperature in a sealed bag up to 2 days, and skip the fridge, which stales bread faster than the counter. To freeze, slice them first so you can toast straight from frozen, and they keep well up to 3 months.