A couple of weeks ago, I was at the climbing gym listening to a food podcast and I learned so many interesting things about pizza rolls that I started to crave them intensely and had to make a recipe for them. I wanted simple ingredients, including real mozzarella cheese, a tangy and herb-y tomato sauce, and high quality pepperoni. For the dough, I went with half organic yecora rojo whole grain flour and half organic bread flour (expect similar results if you use all organic yecora rojo high extraction flour). For comparison here is the ingredient list of storebought pizza rolls:
I made a single batch (22 rolls) with instant yeast, and a double batch with sourdough and have included the recipes for both below. These pizza rolls are baked rather than deep fried, and the dough is more like an actual pizza crust than an egg roll wrapper, but they’re decadently delicious nonetheless.
Here’s some of the pizza roll history I learned from The Sporkful podcast and Wikipedia. Pizza rolls entered the American processed food scene in the late 1960s. They were produced by a food entreprenuer, Jeno Paulucci, who originally made his name in canned and frozen Chinese-American foods. In the 1960s, he decided to explore more filling ideas for the egg roll wrappers, and one employee, Beatrice Ojakangas, came up with 50 different fillings, among which was a pizza filling. In 1968, pizza rolls were launched and became quite popular. In 1985 Paulucci sold the Jeno’s Pizza Rolls brand to Pillsbury, and in 1993 they were rebranded as Totino’s, the name they’re still sold under today. For this and many other achievements, Ojakangas has been referred to as the Scandanavian Julia Child and her book “The Great Scandanavian Baking Book” is in the James Beard Foundation’s Cookbook Hall of Fame.
Photo Gallery of Homemade Pizza Rolls
Something as delicious as pizza rolls aka mini calzones doesn’t have to be an ultra processed food. Here’s a recipe for homemade pizza rolls that is absolutely decadent via simple ingredients and freshness. The dough is half wheat flour with yeast or sourdough options, and you pick the cheese, herb-filled sauce, and pepperoni you prefer. Double the recipe and freeze half of what you bake for convenient snacks in the future.
Total Time
1 hour, 14 minutes
Ingredients
Yeast Dough
- 130 grams yecora rojo whole grain flour (1 cup)
- 130 grams bread flour (1 cup)
- 180 grams water (3/4 cup)
- 14 grams olive oil (1 Tbsp)
- 5 grams salt (1 tsp)
- 1/2 tsp granulated garlic (2 grams) or 1/4 tsp garlic powder (0.75 gram)
- 3 grams instant yeast (1 tsp)
Sourdough Dough
- 130 grams yecora rojo whole grain flour (1 cup)
- 100 grams bread flour (heaping 3/4 cup)
- 150 grams water (scant 2/3 cup)
- 14 grams olive oil (1 Tbsp)
- 5 grams salt (1 tsp)
- 1/2 tsp granulated garlic (2 grams) or 1/4 tsp garlic powder (0.75 gram)
- 60 grams sourdough starter (~ 1/4 cup
Filling
- 240 grams marinara sauce, homemade or storebought (~ 1 cup) *see Notes
- 140 grams shredded mozzarella (1 1/4 cups)
- 50 grams pepperoni, chopped (about 8 slices of 3″ diameter pepperoni)
Topping
- 1-2 Tbsp oil, butter or beaten egg to brush on the rolls before baking
- 1 tsp dried oregano
- 1-2 Tbsp grated parmesan or pecorino romano
Instructions
- With 1 tsp instant yeast and temps in the mid 70s, this recipe took about 5 hours from mixing to cooling rack. Doubling the yeast to 2 tsp and/or increasing the temp would reduce this time to about 3 hours. For the sourdough version, the recipe takes about 9 hours from mixing to cooling rack. More starter or warmer temps would make the sourdough process faster. The dough can also be refrigerated close to the end of the first rise and assembled the next day. Assembly of a single batch takes about 30 minutes.
Dough
- Mix the dough ingredients together in a bowl until fully combined. Transfer to a clean, lightly floured work surface and knead for about one minute or until the dough is smooth. If the dough is too wet to knead by hand, add flour one tablespoon at a time.
- Place the dough back in the bowl or in a straight-walled container, cover and let it rise until it has expanded by about 75% (doubling is 100%).
- While the dough is rising, prep the filling as well as 1-2 baking sheets lined with parchment paper.
Roll Assembly (see the Photo Gallery) and Baking
- Preheat the oven to 425°F.
- Transfer the fermented dough to a lightly floured work space. With a rolling pin, roll the dough out to about 1/8-inch thickness. Try to not use excess flour as it will make the dough harder to seal after you fold it over the filling.
- Trim the edges of the dough until you have defined rectangle. With the trimmed scraps, form a small dough ball. Cover it or place it in a sealed container so it doesn’t dry out. Ideally the gluten will have relaxed by the time you’re ready to roll it out and assemble the last few pizza rolls. You can also make this dough into a full size calzone or other shapes.
- Cut the rolled-out rectangle of dough into long strips approx 4-inches wide. You can use a bench knife, pizza cutter, or knife.
- Place spoonfuls of the filling (about 1 Tbsp amount) along the length of each dough strip, not the in the center, rather on one side because you will fold the other side over the filling. Leave about an inch space between each pile of filling.
- If the dough is dry, brush a little water along the dough perimeter and between the filling piles. Otherwise proceed with folding the dough in half over the filling. Using your fingertips, press the perimeter of the dough to join the edges. Try to really merge the two layers of dough so they are sealed together.
- With the length of a finger, press the dough together between each pile of filling. If the dough balloons outward, poke it with a toothpick or the tip of a probe thermometer so it doesn’t thin out.
- Cut dough to separate the rolls and press the new edges together with your fingertips. Use a bench knife to transfer each roll to the baking sheet.
- If you have a baking sheet that is bigger than a half sheet, you may be able to fit all of the pizza rolls on it for one round of baking, so repeat the assembling process now with your ball of dough scraps. Otherwise, follow the rest of the instructions now and then assemble the scrap-dough pizza rolls while the first sheet is baking.
- Brush the assembled rolls with either oil, melted butter, or beaten egg, and sprinkle with oregano and grated parmesan or pecorino romano cheese.
- Using your toothpick or probe thermometer, poke several holes in the top of each roll so steam can escape as they cook.
- Bake for 13-15 minutes or until the tops are lightly browned. If you refrigerated the dough when making the sourdough version, the pizza rolls may not brown as much due to the acidity of the dough.
- Let the pizza rolls cool on a rack for about 10 minutes before serving as the inside is molten hot.
- Store any uneaten rolls in a closed container in the refrigerator. The rolls can also be frozen and reheated in the oven at 425°F for 7-8 minutes.
Notes
Sauce: For my first batch of pizza rolls, I used a tasty storebought sauce with added tomato paste to thicken it (220 grams sauce + 20 grams tomato paste). For my second batch of pizza rolls (sourdough and double batch), I made the NYTCooking recipe for “Classic Marinara” with modifications (more herbs, two crushed hot peppers, less salt, less olive oil) and I let it simmer until about 850 grams liquid had reduced to 485 grams.
