Beignets

Recipe Ingredients

You only need a few simple ingredients to pull off these quick, café-style beignets.

Pillsbury™ Classic Crust Pizza Crust: The ultimate shortcut dough, giving you soft, fluffy texture without proofing or kneading. It holds its shape well and bakes up similar to the texture of a raised donut.

Vegetable Oil: You can use any oil you have on hand with a high smoke point, like canola oil. Refined avocado oil would also work but may be expensive. We wouldn’t recommend using olive oil for this recipe because of its lower smoke point.

Powdered Sugar: A dusting of this sugar gives the perfect sweet finish and is a must for authentic beignet flavor! If you want to coat your cooked beignets with even more powdered sugar, you could put about a cup of the sugar in a small paper bag, add a few pieces of warm cooked dough at a time, fold the bag shut, and shake to coat.

How to Make Beignets

With just a few easy steps, you’ll have warm beignets ready to enjoy. Here’s a quick overview. Look for the full recipe instructions below!

1. Heat the Oil

On the stovetop in a deep fryer or heavy pot, warm the oil to 350°F. Hot oil ensures light, crisp beignets. Make sure your pot has tall sides for safety so the oil doesn’t splash out.

2. Prep the Dough

Roll the pizza crust into a ball, flatten into a rectangle, and cut into even squares for uniform frying.

3. Fry Until Golden

Use tongs to carefully submerge each piece halfway and hold in the oil for a second. This allows the dough to puff up and float—otherwise, it might drop to the bottom and stick to the pot. Cook a few at a time, turning once, until each beignet is deep golden brown on both sides. Heads up, once you get a few cooking in the oil, you may need to increase the heat a little, as the cool dough brings down the temperature of the oil. If the temp gets too low, the beignets will soak up too much oil and be too greasy.

4. Drain, Dust, and Devour

Remove the beignets to paper towels to soak up any extra oil, then dust generously with powdered sugar while still warm. Enjoy!

How to Store (and Reheat) Beignets

These pastries are best enjoyed the same day, but you can revive them in a warm oven for a few minutes to bring back that fresh-from-the-fryer magic.

Room Temperature Storage

Store in an airtight container on the counter for up to 3 days.

Refrigerator Storage

Store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days.

Freezer Storage

We don’t recommend storing leftover beignets in the freezer, because the texture and powdered-sugar dusting won’t be as good after thawing.

Reheating

Reheat in a 325°F oven for 2 to 3 minutes or in the microwave on High in 20-second increments until warm.