Want a delicious snack with all of the flavors of pizza? This Pesto Pizza Pull Apart Bread is just the thing. Balls of pizza dough are seasoned with mozzarella and pesto, stacked together, baked, and served with marinara sauce for dipping. This recipe uses the concept behind monkey bread but instead of making a sticky sweet breakfast bread, I made a savory snack with pizza ingredients. Charles loved it so much that he kept sneaking back to the kitchen for more.
This is a simple recipe that is made using store-bought pizza dough, pesto, and marinara sauce and some fresh mozzarella and Parmesan. Most of the preparation time involves assembling, a process so simple that anyone can do it. This is the type of recipe that kids (or culinarily challenged husbands) can help with.
The pizza dough gets cut into small squares about the size of your palm, and then rolled up into a ball with a piece of mozzarella inside. Then the balls of dough get rolled in pesto and placed in a bundt pan or angel food cake pan. Repeat using up 2 or 3 rolls of pizza dough.
I recommend using Pillsbury dough that comes rolled up in a cardboard container. It is already rolled out and ready to be cut into pieces, it saves the step of rollout out the dough, which can be challenging since pizza dough is so stretchy!
The pizza dough expands a bit as it bakes. I used two rolls of pizza crust, but you could definitely fit 3 rolls of crust into one pan. Some of the mozzarella will melt out of the balls of dough, getting toasted as it comes into contact with the pan. This is the best part in my opinion, I have a thing for crispy crunchy cheese.
This would be a fun and easy appetizer to serve at a party. It serves a crowd, and everyone loves pizza, so they are bound to like this pizza-inspired Pesto Pizza Pull Apart Bread.
Ingredients
- 2 or 3 rolls of Pillsbury Pizza Crust regular, not the thin crust
- 1 large ball of Fresh Mozzarella
- about 1 cup of Pesto I love Bertolli brand
- 2 tablespoons Parmesan Cheese
- 1 cup of Marinara Sauce
Instructions
- Heat your oven to 350 degrees. Locate a bundt pan or angel food cake pan.
- Cut the mozzarella into small 1 inch pieces.
- Slice the pizza crust into square pieces about 2 inches in size. Kitchen shears are the perfect tool for this task if you have them.
- Place a piece of mozzarella in the middle of the square of dough, fold the dough over the mozzarella, and roll it into a ball.
- Roll the ball of dough in the pesto, and place it in the bundt pan.
- Repeat using up all of the dough. Sprinkle the top with the Parmesan.
- Bake for 20-25 minutes. Serve with warm marinara sauce.
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