Cottage Cheese Bagels

We’ve done just about everything with cottage cheese and we’re adding to that everything today! What are we adding? Some homemade and simple 2 ingredient high protein Cottage Cheese Bagels. This quick recipe can be made with protein or without right in your air fryer or oven in 15 minutes or less.

Start this one with a small mixing bowl. It should be big enough to comfortably mix inside or knead your ingredients together with your hands (obviously!).

Into that bowl, add 1/2 cup of cottage cheese and 1/2 cup of a self rising flour. Use a fork to mix everything together while pressing down to “break” your cottage cheese up. You can choose to use your hands to knead your “dough” once it’s slightly mixed up.

This is optional but for a little more protein in these cottage cheese bagels, you can reduce your flour to 6 tablespoons or 45 grams and add in 1/2 scoop of an unflavored protein powder.

You can also choose to blend or process your cottage cheese prior to adding it in if you don’t like the texture of it.

Cottage Cheese Bagels

These amounts will make 2 bagels and it’s seriously all you need to give you something that’s pretty macro friendly! If you want a big cottage cheese bagel you can use the whole recipe. If you want more, easily scale the recipe by doubling or tripling it.

When you’re done mixing, your dough should be shapeable without being too sticky. If it’s not, add in more flour. If it’s falling apart (crumbling), add in more cottage cheese. Start small!

The type of cottage cheese you use here is completely up to you. I used fat free today but reduced or full fat work great too. The most important step is making sure your dough feels right which we talk about above.

Homemade Self Rising Flour

Don’t have access to self rising flour? You can make your own with 3 simple ingredients you might already have:

• 2 Cups (240g) All Purpose Flour
• 3 Teaspoons (12g) Baking Powder
• 1/2 Teaspoon (3g) Salt

Now do your best to roll out half of your dough into a what should look like a rope. Loop that rope into a bagel and press your ends together. Repeat as needed until you have all of your cottage cheese bagels ready to go.

Before the air fryer or oven, it’s time to choose a topping! To get your topping to stay you’ll need to either spray your bagels with some cooking spray or brush them with a beaten egg.

From here you can use everything bagel seasoning (almost always my choice), sesame seeds, a garlic blend, whatever you like. Let me know your choices below so I have something new to try in the future!

Bagel Seasoning Ideas

• Everything
• Sesame or poppy seeds
• Seasoning blends
• Dried minced onion or garlic
• Grated cheeses
• Cinnamon sugar

Air Fryer or Oven

If you’re using the air fryer to make these, coat your air fryer and put your bagels into it. Put them in on 320F/160C for around 12-15 minutes or until your cottage cheese bagels turn a nice golden brown color.

Pro tip? Let them cool before cutting them!

If you’re using the oven to make these, line a baking sheet with parchment paper and place your bagels onto it. Put them into the oven on 375F/190C for around 20-25 minutes.

If you don’t add protein powder in but want them higher protein, you can use a high protein cream cheese or make your own with regular cream cheese and unflavored protein powder to get them more macro balanced.

You’ll want to keep these in the fridge where they should last around 3-4 days or freeze them sliced for up to 3 months. You can toast them after the fridge or freezer to get them back to your ideal crispiness.

Ready for your next cottage cheese recipe? How about a High Protein Pasta Sauce!?