The String Cheese Hack Perfect For Making Bite-Sized Pizza Rolls
String cheese is the snack of childhood school days, and many people find themselves craving this squeaky plastic-wrapped delicious cheese well into adulthood. Despite having grown up with it, most people don't know there are plenty of good uses for string cheese besides just eating it plain. In fact, string cheese melts perfectly in the oven without pooling while still being able to retain its stretchy texture. This makes string cheese a great addition to pizza, kebab skewers, mozzarella sticks, and our topic today –- homemade pizza rolls.
Homemade pizza rolls are a great bite-sized fun snack for the kids or even work well as party appetizers and Sunday football treats. They also can be more versatile and have fewer ingredients than their store-bought counterparts. Using string cheese chunks in your mini pizza rolls is the perfect way to ensure consistent size and to get that stringy, gooey bite of cheese everyone loves.
Choose your cheese and dough
Making string cheese pizza rolls is quite easy. First, choose which type of string cheese you'd like to use. While mozzarella string cheese may be the most classic flavor, Monterey Jack, provolone, or any other cheese you prefer can work. To prepare the cheese, cut each stick into thirds or fourths, depending on how large you want your pizza rolls to be. String cheese gets its texture from the low moisture content, which also makes it more difficult to melt. Therefore, cutting it into smaller chunks will help it melt more evenly and achieve the correct consistency.
Once your cheese is ready, choose any extra toppings you'd like to add — such as pepperoni, sausage, or tomato sauce — and place those along with your cheese pieces on top of the dough. Then, wrap the pizza rolls up and cook them in the oven at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for 12 minutes. For dough, you can use crescent rolls that come as puff pastry triangles. This will make pizza rolls that are thicker and puffier than the store-bought version but just as delicious.
Achieving that crispy exterior
The biggest problem faced when making homemade pizza rolls is how to get that crisp outer shell. Using puff pastry tastes great but won't make the traditional rectangle-shaped crispy pizza pockets that we are used to. One way to go about it is by making pizza roll crust from scratch using a sourdough starter. However, if you don't have too much time to spare, it may be easier to choose a premade dough.
For that perfect crisp, an excellent alternative is using egg roll wrappers. If you go this route, it's recommended to fry your egg roll pizza rolls in 375-degree-Fahrenheit oil for about two minutes on each side. Of course, you can opt to roll your pizza rolls up like egg rolls with rounded edges, but you can also fold them into rectangles for the more classic and traditional appearance.