Easy Chocolate Covered Pretzels

Easy chocolate covered pretzels are a crowd favorite homemade food gift. The sweet salty combination is a “to die for” classic!

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I feel kind of silly sharing this recipe because it’s not even really a recipe. It’s melting some chocolate in the microwave and dipping pretzels in it. That’s it, that’s the whole recipe.

But I make them every Christmas, have since I was old enough to melt chocolate in the microwave and every year they are one of the first treats eaten.

Chocolate covered pretzels are basically the perfect homemade food gift, you can make a ton of them for cheap and bag them up for everyone you know. I like to make mine a little bit fancy by drizzling red and green candy melts over the top as they’re drying for a more festive look. One year I dipped them orange and blue to go with my brother-in-law’s Bears themed Christmas gifts. Really, the sky’s the limit.

What kind of pretzels should I use?

I personally go for mini regular shaped pretzels. Salted. (Humans need salt (sodium chloride) to survive, but our bodies can’t store it. Consequently, we are designed to crave it. Because of this, foods that are salted smell better and taste better to us). Obviously you can use pretzel rods or larger regular shaped pretzels, but I like the ease of the mini pretzels, plus the chocolate to pretzel ratio is perfect with a mini pretzel. I think mini pretzel rods would just be a pain.

What kind of chocolate should I use?

Any kind of melting chocolate-Candy Melts, Girardhelli melting wafers or white almond bark will all work fine. Just don’t use white chocolate chips. Sometimes I use shortening or coconut oil to thin out the candy melts. The candy melts and almond bark are occasionally too thick when melted to dip easily. When the chocolate is melted you want it to run fairly fluidly off your spoon. I don’t usually need any shortening with the Girardhelli melting wafers.

Why can’t I just use chocolate chips?

Candy melts and other melting chocolate does not have to be tempered. It has vegetable oil instead of cocoa butter and is designed to harden on it own. Using chocolate chips or regular chocolate instead will leave you with a soft, greasy finished product. If you’re looking for it in the store, melting chocolate is sometimes called compound chocolate.

Ways to dip your pretzels:

• white chocolate/almond bark-my go-to. My family prefers the white chocolate with pretzel combination so this is what I almost always make
• dark chocolate-same procedure, simply use regular chocolate almond bark or melting wafers
• chocolate peanut butter-melt 1 cup of peanut butter chips in with your dark chocolate melting wafers for a peanut butter cup flavor or drizzle dark chocolate dipped pretzels with melted peanut butter chips for visual contrast.
• peppermint chocolate-add a drop or two of peppermint oil into your melted chocolate (or 1/4 teaspoon peppermint extract). Sprinkle crushed candy canes on top. (Similar to these peppermint chocolate covered Oreos).

Sources:

Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat