Holiday Pretzel Bites With Cranberry and Brie

Holiday appetizers don’t get more festive than this! With that perfectly brown crust and gooey center, these holiday pretzel bites with cranberry and Brie make one irresistible party snack. For an extra special touch, serve these stuffed pretzel bites with an orange honey-mustard sauce — everyone is sure to love this seasonal appetizer.

Why You Need to Make This Recipe

I entertain a lot, and the appetizer that consistently flies off the platter is a stuffed pretzel bite, especially when warm right out of the oven. In fact, someone (cough, cough, Matt the husband) requests stuffed pretzel bites at just about every gathering, so these little snacks make frequent appearances at our get-togethers. Despite showing up on the menu often, everyone still devours these pretzels instantly.

I especially love how this particular combination brings together casual comfort food with a touch of elegance, which is the perfect vibe for the holidays. The Brie and cranberry add a gourmet flair, but we’re still talking pretzels here. They’re perfectly homey and cozy.

Plus, this is the perfect way to use leftover cranberry sauce. Make a platter of these holiday pretzel bites for Rivalry Weekend right after Thanksgiving or after Christmas time when the bowl games start, and you have yourself the perfect football snack with a festive twist.

Ingredients

Ready to make this stuffed pretzel bite recipe? Let’s gather our ingredients.

• Pretzel dough: I recommend using my soft beer pretzel dough, which includes flour, amber ale, water, active dry yeast, salt, sugar and butter.We also need baking soda and and egg yolk to prepare the dough for baking.
• Cranberry sauce: Any kind will work, but I highly recommend my spiced-brandied cranberry sauce. I just love its perfect balance of sweet and tart with spice notes.
• Brie: We leave on the rind and cut it into squares.
• Melted butter: This gives our pretzel bites the perfect finishing touch when they come out of the oven. Please don’t skip this step. The butter makes these next-level delicious.
• Coarse salt: Because we’re talking pretzels here.
• Orange-Dijon sauce: This is a simple mixture of fresh orange zest, honey and mustard. For the mustard, both whole grain and Dijon work well.

Step-by-Step Instructions

If this is your first time making pretzel dough, don’t worry. This process is surprisingly simple. Let’s walking through it.

We begin by heating together some beer and water until the mixture hits about 110 degrees. Once it comes to temperature, we pour it into a mixing bowl with sugar and salt, sprinkle the dry active yeast on top and allow the mixture sit until it foams.

Now we add our flour along with melted butter to the mixing bowl and knead until the dough turns smooth and elastic. At this point, we cover the bowl tightly with plastic and let it double in size for about an hour. Our dough is now ready to form into delicious little bites.

And now for the super fun part — stuffing our holiday pretzel bites! We first divide our pretzel dough into 20 small balls. I like taking care of this step first to ensure we have the right amount of dough balls.

Using the palm of our hand, we gently flatten each dough ball into a disk and top with a dollop of cranberry sauce and square of Brie. To ensure nothing leaks, we fold the dough like a present, pinch the seems and then roll in the palms of our hands to tightly seal.

With our pretzel bites formed, we’re almost ready to bake, but we first need to boil them in a baking soda bath. This step gives our pretzels that classic brown crust. Otherwise, we’re just getting stuffed bread rolls. While tasty, that’s not what we want here.

After a quick boil, we brush our pretzel with an egg yolk mixture for even better browning, sprinkle with salt and then bake. Once the pretzels bake, we brush them again but this time with melted butter for a luxurious touch. Now we dunk our little holiday pretzel bites into our orange honey-mustard sauce and enjoy every festive bite.

Make-Ahead Directions

Need to make these pretzel bites ahead of time? We have a couple options.

One way is to make the pretzel dough and wrap tightly in plastic wrap after rising. The dough will keep in the refrigerator for three days. We can also freeze it for three months. Before shaping, we just want to make sure we bring the dough down to room temperature in its wrapping before shaping. To thaw, I like to let the dough sit in the refrigerator overnight.

Another option is to form the pretzels into balls, tightly cover with plastic wrap and store in the refrigerator for several hours. Because of the cranberry sauce, I recommend storing seam-side up, and then check to see if you need to reseal any seams before placing the pretzel balls in the boiling water. Sometimes as the balls sit, the seal slightly opens.

Expert Tips and FAQs

• If you don’t want to use beer in the pretzel dough, water works just fine.
• Make sure you check the expiration date on your yeast. Expired yeast is no good. Also, the temperature of the beer mixture listed is a guideline. Check your yeast package to see if it specifies a temperature and follow that.
• Dry active yeast and instant yeast work differently, so make sure you use the right type.
• Dough needs a warm place to rise, and sometimes ambient room temperature won’t cut it. If you need a warm place, turn the oven to 200 degrees as you prepare the dough ingredients. Before kneading, turn off the oven with the door closed. The covered bowl then goes into the oven with the door cracked for rising.
• Need a Brie substitution? Havarti or fontina make delicious options.
• I always have trouble finding pretzel salt at the store. You can pick some up on Amazon or substitute coarse kosher salt.

Perfect Pairing

I love a Belgian quad with these Christmas pretzel bites. Belgian quads show off hints of toffee and caramel, which are delicious with orange commonly found in cranberry sauce, and the spicy yeast character adds some warmth to the tart fruit. For an extra festive touch, St. Bernardus Christmas Ale is a fun option.

Looking for a wine pairing? Try a pinot noir. With its fruit-forward profile, a pinot noir matches our jammy cranberry, and its earthy tones are nice against the spice. Plus, it’s a classic favorite with Brie.

Of course, with this festive spin on pretzel bites, we can’t go wrong with some holiday cocktails, and I have quite the selection. Try my sparkling cranberry-ginger margarita, Sugar Plum Fairy Martini, cranberry-apple cider holiday sangria, chai-cranberry bourbon smash or Winter Wonderland Margarita.

For your next celebration, I hope you try these holiday pretzel bites with cranberry and Brie. Please let me know how you enjoyed this recipe in the comment section and don’t forget to sign up for my newsletter. You can also catch me on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter.

Cheers!

Looking for More Holiday Appetizers?

• Best bourbon bacon jam
• Herbed smoked trout spread
• Baked Brie with fig and Kahlua sauce
• Bourbon bacon jam cheese ball
• Crab cake sliders
• Gouda and chorizo pretzel bombs

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