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

There's no shortage of good food in New Orleans, Louisiana. From classic jambalaya to muffuletta, the entire city is a walkable feast. This is especially true during Mardi Gras, a holiday that brings the entire city into a wild and raucous celebration. Traditionally, king cake is served around the world as a part of the celebration, as well as other iconic New Orleans treats. Perhaps the most iconic is the beignet, a humble yet delicious fried doughnut that features a hefty heaping of powdered sugar, often served with a hot cup of chicory coffee.

Although most of us won't be able to make it to the Big Easy for Mardi Gras, that doesn't mean that you can't bring some of the celebrations home with you by making some classic New Orleans desserts. And perhaps the best dish to start with is the simple and delicious beignet. Don't worry, making beignets at home won't require hours of prep work or messing with a fickle packet of baking yeast. Instead, all you'll need to make your Crescent City dreams come true is a bag of frozen dinner rolls, some powdered sugar, and some oil for frying.

This shortcut can save you time, as well as baking trial-and-error, and it could even produce some beignets that hold their own against the iconic treats from Café Du Monde. It might just bring you a little bit closer to a true New Orleans Mardi Gras experience (plastic beads not included).

Café Du Monde's recipe for the best beignets in New Orleans is kept as a heavily guarded secret. So, replicating the dish exactly is tricky, to say the least. Although Café Du Monde does sell a boxed beignet mix, there is an easier way to try this dessert at home for yourself.

Yeast-based dough is the key to a beignet's light texture and signature taste, which is precisely why using frozen dinner rolls as a swap for beignet dough works so well. Most dinner rolls are yeast-based, which will give them a fluffy texture upon baking. And this fluffy texture translates well to homemade beignets when they are fried. Many recipes for quick beignets feature this hack, and many home chefs recommend Rhodes frozen dinner rolls in particular. However, you can use any frozen rolls, as long as they are yeast-based and do not come pre-baked. That will ensure that your beignets come out perfectly fluffy, with that signature taste that New Orleans natives and visitors have come to love.

But how, exactly, do you turn a dinner roll into a doughnut? Well, it's really quite simple. You start as you normally would, by thawing the dinner rolls and allowing them to reach room temperature. Once this is achieved, you can plop your rolls into either a Dutch oven or a fryer filled with an oil of your choice, and then fry until golden and delicious. Vegetable oil works well here, however, Café Du Monde uses cottonseed oil (which might be more difficult to find).

If you want your beignets to have that signature square shape, you can combine your dinner rolls beforehand. Flattening your dough will help your beignets cook more evenly, and the square shape makes them look like they're straight from New Orleans. Once the rolls are thawed, just flatten them out, cut them into rectangular pieces with a pizza cutter, and fry. 

To give your beignets an even more authentic appeal, you'll want to pull out a paper bag for serving. Pastry makers in New Orleans bag their beignets shortly after removing them from the fryer, and then they add powdered sugar to the bag. Putting your hot beignets in a paper bag traps the heat and helps the powdered sugar adhere to the doughnut's surface, creating a perfectly powdered beignet. While a homemade beignet may not perfectly replicate those from Café Du Monde, it will be a surefire hit at any Mardi Gras celebration.