Mardi Gras Beignets Are Even Better With A Store-Bought Shortcut

Bringing a New Orleans tradition home

Café Du Monde's recipe for the finest beignets in New Orleans is a closely guarded secret, making it quite challenging to replicate the dish precisely. While they do offer a boxed beignet mix, there's a simpler way to enjoy this delightful dessert at home.

The secret to a beignet's airy texture and distinctive flavor lies in its yeast-based dough. This is why substituting frozen dinner rolls for traditional beignet dough works so effectively. Most dinner rolls are made with yeast, resulting in a light and fluffy texture when baked. This fluffiness translates beautifully to homemade beignets when fried. Many quick beignet recipes utilize this clever trick, and numerous home cooks particularly recommend Rhodes frozen dinner rolls. However, any yeast-based frozen rolls that are not pre-baked will work just as well, ensuring your beignets turn out perfectly fluffy and deliver that iconic taste cherished by both locals and visitors in New Orleans.

Making your beignets

So, how do you transform a dinner roll into a doughnut? It’s actually quite straightforward. Begin by thawing the dinner rolls and letting them come to room temperature. Once they’re ready, you can drop the rolls into a Dutch oven or fryer filled with your preferred oil, frying them until they turn golden and delicious. While vegetable oil is a good option, Café Du Monde uses cottonseed oil, which may be harder to find.

If you want your beignets to have that classic square shape, consider combining the dinner rolls beforehand. Flattening the dough ensures even cooking, and the square shape gives them an authentic New Orleans look. After thawing the rolls, simply flatten them, cut them into rectangular pieces with a pizza cutter, and fry.

To enhance the authenticity of your beignets, serve them in a paper bag. Pastry chefs in New Orleans typically bag their beignets right after frying and then sprinkle powdered sugar inside the bag. This method traps the heat and helps the powdered sugar stick to the surface of the doughnut, resulting in a perfectly dusted beignet. While your homemade version may not exactly match those from Café Du Monde, it will definitely be a hit at any Mardi Gras celebration.