It doesn’t get much better than delicious homemade bread dough stuffed with savory pepperoni and gooey cheese! These pepperoni rolls are perfect for everything from an after school snack to a quick evening meal.
Guest post by Brigette Shevy:
My family can’t get enough of these Homemade Pepperoni Rolls
I love that they can be made up ahead of time and frozen (by the way, this recipe easily doubles) – making them so easy to include in a sack lunch.
I stick these frozen in my husband’s lunch box, and they are completely thawed and ready to eat by lunchtime — which means they are the perfect solution for when I forget to pack his lunch… not that I’ve ever done that, of course!
If you’re feeling creative, you can always experiment with different combinations of cheese, or add some extra filling ingredients.
I hope your family will enjoy this recipe as much as mine does!
Pizza Rolls Pepperoni Ingredients
For the Dough:
- 1 cup warm milk
- 3 T. butter, melted
- 1 egg
- 2 T. sugar
- ¾ teaspoon salt
- 3 ¼ cups flour (I use 2 cups all-purpose and 1 ¼ cups white whole wheat)
- 1 T. instant active yeast
For the Filling:
- 4-5 oz. sliced pepperoni (this amount is flexible, based on your family’s preferences)
- 8 oz. block of mozzarella cheese, cut into 24 squares approximately the same size
For the Topping:
- 1 T. melted butter
- 2-3 T. shredded Parmesan cheese
How to Make the Best Pepperoni Rolls Recipe
1. Combine all dough ingredients in your bread machine in the order listed, or in the order recommended by your particular brand of bread machine.
2. Run the short dough cycle.
3. Divide dough into 12 pieces.
4. Flatten each into a circle about 4-5” in diameter.
5. Put several pepperoni slices and 2 chunks of cheese in the center of each dough piece.
6. Bring up the sides of the dough around the filling and pinch the ends together.
7. Roll each into a ball, making sure the dough is evenly distributed around the filling with no “thin” spots.
8. Preheat oven to 350º.
9. Place dough balls on greased cookie sheets (place any visible seams down) and let rise for 15-20 minutes in a warm place while the oven preheats.
10. Bake in preheated oven for 12-15 minutes.
How to serve Easy Pepperoni Rolls
They are great fresh from the oven, at room temperature, and yep, even cold. 🙂
If I’m serving these for dinner, I’ll often include marinara sauce on the side. Dipping sauce is definitely not necessary though — for quick on-the-go meals, we love them just the way they are!
Pizza Rolls Pepperoni Storage
If you have any leftovers, let them cool and then refrigerate in a food storage container for up to a week.
You can also freeze them if you want to store them longer.
Best Pepperoni Rolls Recipe Variations
One of my favorite things about this recipe is that it’s SO easy to mix up based on what you have in the house, what ingredients are on sale, or what your family prefers.
Here are some ideas:
- Ham and Swiss (perfect for after Christmas or Easter)
- Turkey and Cheddar (great for after Thanksgiving)
- Leftover breakfast sausage and mozzarella — with or without pizza sauce
- A mixture of meats (bacon crumbles, salami, pepperoni, sausage, with cheese and sauce (you might want to chop all the meat up together so it fits inside the rolls.
- Just mozzarella cheese — sort of like a cheesy breadstick, and perfect for pickier eaters!
- Marshmallows! If you want a sweet version, put a marshmallow inside and then coat the outside with melted butter and cinnamon sugar.
Use your imagination and try whatever sounds good to you — it will likely taste great too!
Pizza Rolls (Pepperoni)
Ingredients
For the Dough
- 1 cup warm milk
- 3 tbsp butter melted
- 1 egg
- 2 tbsp sugar
- ¾ tsp salt
- 3¼ cup flour all purpose or white whole wheat
- 1 tbsp instant active yeast
For the Filling:
- 5 ounces pepperoni
- 8 ounces mozzarella cheese cut into 24 equal squares
For the Topping:
- 1 tbsp butter melted
- 3 tbsp parmesan cheese
Instructions
- Combine all dough ingredients in your bread machine in the order listed, or in the order recommended by your particular brand of bread machine.
- Run the short dough cycle.
- Divide dough into 12 pieces.
- Flatten each into a circle about 4-5” in diameter.
- Put several pepperoni slices and 2 chunks of cheese in the center of each dough piece.
- Bring up the sides of the dough around the filling and pinch the ends together.
- Roll each into a ball, making sure the dough is evenly distributed around the filling with no “thin” spots.
- Preheat oven to 350º.
- Place dough balls on greased cookie sheets (place any visible seams down) and let rise for 15-20 minutes in a warm place while the oven preheats.
- Bake in preheated oven for 12-15 minutes.
Notes
Nutrition
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Brigette is a full-time wife and mother who is blessed with three amazing bundles of energy. She enjoys music, experimenting in the kitchen, homeschooling her children, finding great deals, long-distance running, and anything chocolate.
Reader Interactions
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Naomi A Jones says
My dough ended up insanely wet and sticky. Had to double the flour. Is this normal?
Crystal Paine says
Hmm… that is strange. I’m not sure what to say! I’m glad that doubling the flour worked!
Naomi A Jones says
Finally just realized what I did!! I put two cups of milk instead of one. Oh boy! Maybe I should have had a snack before I made these. 😂 But they turned out beautifully and the kids asked that I make them again tomorrow.
Crystal Paine says
Oh! I was wondering if maybe there was too much liquid or something!
Karin says
This recipe was awesome!! New family favorite. Thank you so much!
Brigette says
So glad you liked it! Thanks for the feedback. 🙂
Emma K says
These sound delicious. Going on my menu for this week. Thanks!
Susan says
I was also going to say that these are a great lunchbox entre, and they’re good at room temperature. I usually add pizza sauce on the inside so a separate dipping sauce isn’t needed, but otherwise its easy to pack a small container of marinara for lunch.
Brigette says
I’ve also made them with sauce on the inside and we like them that way too. I’ve found it’s a little trickier to get the sauce to STAY on the inside during assembly/baking, and my kids also make a bigger mess when eating them! 🙂 But good stuff either way. 🙂
Nikki says
How do these freeze / thaw?
Brigette says
They freeze great! You can wrap them individually and then put them in a gallon size ziploc bag, if you only plan on thawing one or two at a time. They don’t need to be wrapped individually if you plan on thawing the whole bag at once. They thaw at room temp very quickly (1-2 hours?), or you can thaw/heat them in a minute using the microwave, or warm them up in the oven.
Tracy says
Hi Brigette,
Do you bake them first, then freeze them? Or freeze them before baking? I just got a bread machine this week and can’t wait to make them! 🙂
Brigette says
I bake them first, and then freeze them. It might work the other way around too, but I can’t say for sure since I’ve never done it. Yay for a new bread machine! I LOVE the dough cycle on mine. 🙂
Susan says
We make something similar too, only we cal them pizza snowballs. They are good. I use Rhodes frozen roll dough, but no reason not to make your own dough. I should do that.
We use anything that you’d think of as a pizza topping … pepperoni, sausage, cheeses, etc.
I was able to get lots of free pepperoni last winter when my local Kroger affiliate had them on a bogo sale, and there were tearpad bogo coupons on a tearpad right there on the shelf! I did not clear shelves or swipe the whole tearpad! But I bought a few bags every time I was in the store. I kept thinking eventually the sale price and tearpads would disappear, but they were available for a long time. One of my favorite coupon scores ever! I still have at least a dozen bags of pepperoni in the freezer. 🙂
Brigette says
O wow! Free pepperoni sounds amazing. 🙂
Margaux says
Yay for my favorite WV treat! I was missing home and made some for tailgating this weekend. My family (aside from the tiny ones) like pepperjack cheese in ours. The little guys get sharp cheddar.
Lisa says
I am new to using my bread machine. Recipe says run on short dough cycle, my machine does not have a cycle with that exact name. My machine has the following cycles, Basic, French, Whole Wheat, Quick, Sweet, Super rapid rise(both 1 and 2 LBS), dough, Jam, Cake, Sandwich and Bake. From what I understand the Dough cycle is the only one that doesn’t bake it. But this cycle is pretty long because it rises it also. Will this work? Thank you so much for your time. Happy Baking
Brigette says
The dough cycle will work. Many machines have 2 different dough cycles – a longer one and a shorter one (on my machine, the shorter one has a single rise time, the longer cycle has a double rise). If yours doesn’t have 2 options, then it will work fine running the regular dough cycle.
Michele says
I don’t have a bread machine…can I use the same dough recipe and make it by hand??
Brigette says
Yes! The amount of flour would be a little flexible, but other than that, it would all be the same. Knead by hand until the dough is smooth (5 min. or so) and let rise for 45-60 min. Then follow the recipe starting with dividing dough into 12 pieces.
Michele says
Yay! Can’t wait 🙂 Although 12 pizza rolls won’t last long in this house 😉
Brigette says
It doubles well. 🙂
Lauren says
These are a WV specialty! I had never heard of them until I went to WVU.
We prefer the giant deli pepperoni and they are even better with butter/herb/parmesan spread on top before baking.
SKE says
Do you have a version of this recipe for those of us who don’t have bread machines and make our bread the old fashioned way? (And by old fashioned, I mean kneading it in the Kitchen Aid mixer, LOL.)
Brigette says
I don’t have a kitchen aid mixer, so I’m not really knowledgeable as far as that goes… I have made this same dough recipe by hand before (see my comment in post below), so I’m sure it WOULD work using your mixer.
Amy K says
Hi SKE,
My dough is currently rising. Here’s what I did…sans bread maker. (I made 4x the recipe.)
1. Warmed milk and butter in a saucepan to 105-115.
2. Put the yeast in my mixer bowl.
3. Added milk and butter to yeast. Mixed slightly with dough hook.
4. Added the rest of the ingredients except the flour. Mixed slightly.
5. Put in most of the flour. Turn mixer on 2. Then add enough flour to keep the dough from sticking to the sides of the mixer.
6. Mix on 2 for about 5 minutes.
Grease a bowl and put your dough in the bowl. Turn the dough so the greased side is up.
Cover and let rise for probably about an hour.
Then follow the rest of the instructions.
Hope that helps!
Amy
Brigette says
Thanks for taking the time to write out these instructions, Amy!
Cynthia says
You can use almost any regular homemade recipe. I use wheat bread dough a lot. You can even use frozen bread dough when you’re in a time crunch.
Charity says
This is going on my list of meals to prepare for the freezer before our baby is born. Thanks Brigette! 🙂
Brigette says
You are welcome – and congratulations! 🙂
Deb says
We make these all the time, but I always just use my normal homemade pizza crust, and roll them up like crescent rolls. I always only have shredded mozzarella, so I always put some of that on the top. We serve them with marinara sauce. Costco has been out of pepperoni for a few months and we are about to run out and they are soooo much cheaper, hoping they get it back in soon!
Lauralli says
This is what we had for supper last night! Well, sort of. I just take the dough and roll it out as for cinnamon rolls. Then I lay the pepperoni (I use the turkey pepperoni) out on the dough and sprinkle with shredded mozzarella cheese. Roll up and slice just like cinnamon rolls. Bake at 375 until cheese is bubbly and a little brown. They refrigerate and freeze well too!
And, if you don’t make your own dough, you can always use frozen bread dough from the grocery store. Thawed, of course!