How to make Sourdough Discard Bagels – Ready in One Day!

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You can enjoy these Sourdough Discard Bagels the same day you started making them. Yes, you read that right! A sourdough recipe that takes only one day? Shut the front door!

Why you Need to Make these Sourdough Discard Bagels

Easy Sourdough Discard Recipe: It’s a sourdough discard recipe that is easy to execute. One bowl, no kneading, all you need to do is mix, and rest. The faffiest part is the boiling, but even this is not super hard to do.

Same Day Recipe: If you need bread, and you need it NOW, but you don’t want the lifeless store-bought stuff, these Sourdough Discard Bagels are your solution! They can be ready to bake in as little as 4 hours, so if you mix the dough at 7am, they can be ready for the eating by lunch!

Versatile Bread: This recipe makes delicious, chewy bagels that can have so many different toppings (see next section). You can have them for breakfast, lunch or dinner.

A Simple Sourdough Discard Recipe: When you need to use up sourdough discard, but you don’t have any ingredients for cake, cookies or pancakes, these Bagels are your best friend. With minimal ingredients, these bagels make a meal when you were just about give up hope and order takeaways.

Uses a lot of sourdough starter: This recipe uses 150g of discard, which is more than an average loaf of sourdough bread! So there is no need to throw any of that discard away when your starter needs a giant feeding.

Bagel Serving Suggestions

Make the dough in the morning, go to work while it is bulk fermenting, then when you get home you can boil and bake. Boom!

• Tuna, mayo and lettuce – salty, creamy and crunchy, these toppings make a refreshing bagel lunch combo.
• Cream cheese and salmon – The classic bagel combination, suitable for breakfast, lunch AND dinner in my humble opinion!
• Avocado and bacon – salty and creamy, this is a marriage made in heaven, especially when atop a chewy, glossy bagel!
• Shredded chicken and mayo – tender chicken folded through luscious mayonnaise is a dainty treat on top of these bagels.
• Scrambled, poached or fried eggs – a delicious breakfast option, bagels love being loaded with eggs, any style!
• Toasted, with ham and cheese – Yes, you can toast a bagel! It gets so crunchy and delicious, especially when sandwiched with gooey cheese and ham.

What Ingredients will you need for Sourdough Discard Bagels?

• Sourdough starter, fed or unfed – this is a sourdough discard recipe, but you can use active starter if you have an overflow! It makes no difference.
• Warm water – you don’t want the water to be too hot, otherwise the live cultures in the sourdough discard will be killed.
• Honey – This is optional. I have forgotten it a couple of times, to no detriment to the baked bagel. Feel free to leave it out if you are scrambling and have none on hand.
• Oil – a bit of fat lubricates the dough, makes it easier to handle and have a lovely texture.
• Salt – Bagels NEED salt. There’s nothing worse than having chewy, bland bread.
• Flour – Use bread flour for this recipe, as the higher protein content is needed.

Suggested timeline for Sourdough Discard Bagels

This recipe for Sourdough Discard Bagels is heaven-sent, because you can be eating your bagels the same day you make them (if you start the dough early enough)!

Make the Dough in the morning or the night before.

Start early in the morning and mix the starter, water, honey, oil and salt till it looks like a unified liquid.  Add the flour.  You will need to use your hands to knead this mixture together to form a dough.

Alternatively, make the dough just before you go to bed. The dough will be ready to boil and bake in the morning, for breakfast if you have the energy!

‘No knead’ to Stretch and fold

There is absolutely no need to stretch and fold this bagel dough, but if you’ve the time and inclination, the bagels will be even nicer.

To stretch and fold, leave to rest for 30 minutes. Stretch and fold the dough. Repeat 3 more times at 30 minute intervals. That is 4x total stretch and folds over the course of 2 hours. So if you made the dough at 7, then the first stretch and fold will be at 7.30, and the last one will be at 9.

Stretching and folding simply encourages gluten development, but this bagel doesn’t need it as traditional sourdough bread does. It has a lower hydration, and greater flour content, meaning a greater gluten percentage.

Bulk Ferment

Once you have done the last stretch and fold, you will leave the dough to rest in a warm place for 4-8 hours. This should take you to 3pm-5pm.

Shape and rest

Divide the dough into 8 large or 12 medium sections.

Roll the bagels into balls, and poke a whole in the middle of it.  Make a generous-sized hole, as this will close as the bagels rest.

Rest until the bagels have doubled in size (about 1 hour). This will be around 4pm-6pm.

Boil

Bring a medium sized pot to the boil.  You will need to start this when the dough still has about 20 minutes of rest time left.

Dissolve about a tablespoon of honey or sugar in the boiling water. The honey in the water is not necessary, but it does give a light sweetness to the bagels. But, even with no honey in the water, these bagels get that characteristic sheen when baked.

Two by two, boil the bagels for 30 seconds on each side.  Ladle them onto a tea-towel covered wire rack to drain.

Bake

You should be ready to bake at about 4.30pm-6.30pm. Preheat the oven to 225 degrees Celsius. Line a baking tray with baking paper.  Arrange the bagels.

Bake for 15 minutes.

Started at breakfast, ready to eat by dinnertime! How wonderful is that, for a Sourdough recipe?! Enjoy your bagels, fresh from the oven…and try not to eat them all at once!