Bagels

These bagels stay fresh longer, thanks to insights I gleaned from Stella Parks’s bagel recipe on Serious Eats. She was inspired by a Japanese roux called yudane, which precooks a small amount of the flour before making the dough. This step helps the dough retain moisture so the bagels don’t go stale as easily. However, her recipe uses a lot of salt: about 350 milligrams per bagel. Because of the long fermentation, most of the salt can be cut without sacrificing flavor—there’s only 27 milligrams per bagel without any toppings, so you don’t have to worry about spreading on some Cream Cheese. Toppings such as sesame seeds, poppy seeds, and shichimi togarashi are low in sodium, or try the Za’atar.