The perfect appetizer for the big game-day party (or any party!) is one that's delicious and ideally can be prepped well ahead of time. My dear friends, these pizza muffins are exactly what you've been looking for.
They're outrageously delicious, sure to be a real crowd-pleaser, and you can prep them and freeze them several weeks ahead of time, and just pop them in the oven a few minutes before it's time to serve them to your guests.
Recipe for Pizza Muffins/ Pizza Rolls:
- One batch of pizza dough
- approximately two cups of mozzarella cheese
- approximately one cup of sliced pepperoni, diced
- 1/2 cup of crushed tomatoes (more for dipping as well)
- 4 Tablespoons butter, melted
- Parmesan cheese for sprinkling on top of the rolls
Melt the butter, and use a pastry brush to coat the cavities of a muffin tin with the butter. You could use olive oil,or some other oil, of course, but butter just tastes great.
Divide the pizza dough in half (if you used my recipe). If you bought a ball of pizza dough from the store, you're just kind of going to have to figure it out as you go along.
Roll or stretch out the dough into a rough rectangle, twice as wide as it is tall (mine was about 18" wide and 9" tall). Spread lightly with the crushed tomato sauce (don't worry sauce fans, we'll have more for dipping later; this is just to help the other stuff stick). Sprinkle the dough with cheese (I love Trader Joe's Quatro Formaggio blend) and pepperoni bits.
Roll up the pizza dough, just like you would when making a cinnamon roll. Cut the rolled up dough into disks about 1" wide.
This is why I cut the pepperoni into small bits--so it wouldn't interfere with slicing up the rolled dough. You could use any kind of pizza toppings you like best, of course, but whatever you use, just be sure you chop them up into tiny pieces.
Set each disk of pizza dough in a buttered muffin tin cavity. Brush tops with more butter and sprinkle Parmesan cheese on top.
Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes.
Pop those pizza muffins out of the cupcake tin, and serve warm or at room temperature. Use some of the extra crushed tomato sauce for dipping these pinwheels of cheesy pizza goodness in.
The texture is absolutely amazing. Between the butter and the cheese that leaks out the bottom, you end up with this amazing, golden, crispy-chewy browned crust. It's magical, I tell you.
You can also make these ahead of time, by making the dough and forming the pizza swirls, and freezing them before baking. I like to freeze them on a parchment-lined cookie sheet, and when they're completely frozen, transfer them to a freezer bag. Bake directly from the freezer, at 400 degrees, but for a few minutes longer than the unfrozen rolls, about 20 minutes.
Want a one page, printable version of this recipe? Here you go: Printable Pizza Muffins/Rolls Appetizer Recipe
And for your pinning pleasure: