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Pepperoni Rolls

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Guest post by Brigette Shevy

My family can’t get enough of these soft 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. 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; for quick on-the-go meals, we love them just the way they are!

I stick these frozen in my husband’s lunch box, and they are completely thawed and ready to eat by lunch time — which means they are 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 kinds/combinations of cheese, or add some extra filling ingredients. Hopefully your family will enjoy this recipe as much as mine does!

Pepperoni Rolls

makes 12 rolls

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 scant Tablespoon instant active yeast

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

Topping:

  • 1 tablespoon melted butter
  • 2-3 Tablespoons shredded Parmesan cheese

Directions:

Combine all 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. In the center of each piece of dough, put pepperoni slices and two chunks of cheese.

Bring up the sides of the dough around the filling and pinch ends together. Roll each into a ball, making sure dough is evenly distributed around the filling with no “thin” spots. Place on greased cookie sheets (place any visible seams down). Let rise for 15-20 minutes in a warm place. Bake 350 degrees for 12-15 minutes.

Brush with melted butter and sprinkle with parmesan cheese.

Brigette is a full-time wife and mother who is blessed with three amazing bundles of energy (ages 5, 3 and 1). She enjoys music, experimenting in the kitchen, homeschooling her children, finding great deals, long-distance running, and anything chocolate.


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  4. 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. 🙂

    • 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. 🙂

  6. 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. 🙂

  7. 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.

  8. 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.

    • 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.

  10. 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.

  11. 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

    • 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.

  12. Charity says

    This is going on my list of meals to prepare for the freezer before our baby is born. Thanks Brigette! 🙂

  13. 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!

  14. 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!