Joybee, What's for Dinner? : Crispy Pizza Sticks

Crispy cheesy bread sticks with garlic and salami dipped in marinara sauce. A great finger food for gameday or a snack any day.

Crispy Pizza Sticks: Crispy cheesy bread sticks with garlic and salami dipped in marinara sauce. A great finger food for gameday or a party.

I came up with this recipe on the fly when I was home alone so it only makes one serving...maybe two if you aren't too hungry. I had one pizza dough leftover from making Spinach Artichoke Pizzas (I'll post about it soon) and wanted an easy, crunchy snack. Have I mentioned that crunchy/crispy is my favorite (food) texture? Does anyone else have a favorite texture or am I just weird like that? Anyway, I made these pizza sticks crunchy by baking the crust twice.

Do you have a favorite food texture? Mine's crunchy [Tweet this]

I prefer to bake most things in my toaster oven and love that it's big enough to fit a frozen pizza. When you bake frozen pizzas it always says to bake it directly on the rack for a crispier crust. You can't bake dough directly on the rack though so I spread the dough on a baking sheet and baked it until it was light golden brown and sturdy enough to re-bake (with toppings) directly on the rack. This worked great for a crispy crunchy pizza snack. And if you don't care if the crust is crispy just bake it all only once in the pan.

Crispy Pizza Sticks are perfect #snack for the #toasteroven [Tweet this]

Crispy Pizza Sticks

Cook time: 20 minutes
Servings: 1-2 (use more dough and a bigger pan to serve more people)

Ingredients:

200g pizza dough, at room temperature (store-bought or your favorite recipe)
Butter
Garlic powder
Mozzarella
Salami (optional)
Easy Marinara Sauce

Spread pizza dough into an 8-inch pizza pan (I used an 8x8 inch square baking sheet which is close enough). The dough should be about 1/4 inch thin.

Bake the dough (I used my toaster oven) at 450 for about 10-15 minutes until golden brown. If you have a pizza stone you can skip these first two steps, proceed with the rest of the instructions, and bake the pizza directly on the stone...or if you don't care if the crust is crispy, just skip this first bake, top the dough as below, and bake in the pan.

Allow the baked dough (crust) to cool slightly and remove from pan (you can even do this ahead of time and freeze the pizza crust for later use--just thaw before continuing).

Spread the crust all over with butter, sprinkle on garlic powder (garlic butter made with roasted garlic would be even better if you have it), and as much cheese as you like. Then top with salami.

Place the crust back in the oven, directly on the rack, and bake at 450F for about 10 minutes more or until cheese is melted and browned around the edges.

Remove from oven, let cool slightly and cut into sticks.

Serve Pizza Sticks with Easy Marinara Sauce for dipping.

Enjoy.