The answer should be YES. I felt for years that pizza rolls were just one of those things that could only be purchased in the freezer section, compliments of food scientists and packaging specialists. But no! You can make your own, and I daresay they are even better than their freezer-burned counterparts. For one thing, you can know exactly what’s inside and make that choice yourself.

For this, my first foray into homemade pizza roll-dom, I stuck with the basics: pepperoni, zesty red pizza sauce, and the three cheeses I put on all my pizzas all the time always: mozzarella, parmesan, and asiago.

I like my pepperoni in little chunks for pizza rolls. Instead of buying your pepperoni sliced, you can ask your local deli for a few inches of the pepperoni “stick” (I asked for four inches, which turned out to be six ounces). I also know that Boar’s Head makes a stick that would work equally well. Or, if you don’t want to fuss with it, cutting up sliced pepperoni will also suffice.

Since there’s no cooking involved until you fry these suckers up, the only well time commitment is the making of the rolls. Pizza rolls are basically wontons or ravioli, pick your filling-filled-pasta name of choice. You can make these any shape you want, but I wanted a nice round little pouch of pizza. Don’t be scared of folding your own, it’s easy!

First, add 2-3 teaspoons of filling to the center of the wrapper. Don’t worry about being too precise, you’ll know pretty quickly if you’ve put too much in. Then, after running a wet finger along all four edges of the wrapper, begin folding it like a little letter.

Look how pretty! Now repeat a gazillion times (okay, 50 times).

Once the rolls are made, it’s time to fry. You don’t need a deep fryer for this, just a candy/deep fry thermometer and a medium sauce pan. For most everything that you want to fry at home, this is all you’ll need. Since these rolls are so small, a couple of inches of oil in the bottom of the pan is all you’ll need.

Working a few at a time, you’ll fry all of your pizza rolls in no time.

I took a bite of one after I let it cool for a bit, thinking there was no way it could be as good as the ones the food scientists make and package and sell from the freezer: I was dead wrong. They are pizza rolls exactly as I dream they should be. And next time, I may expand beyond pepperoni! For as many toppings as pizza can have, rolls can have just as many fillings.

Happy pizza rolls to you!

Pepperoni Pizza Rolls

Makes about 50 rolls

6 oz pepperoni (from a whole stick, chopped into small cubes)
4 oz mozzarella cheese, grated (about 1 cup)
1 oz parmesan cheese, grated (about 1/3 cup)
1 oz asiago cheese, grated (about 1/3 cup)
1 c pizza sauce
50 wonton wrappers (one package)
2-3 c vegetable oil

Once pepperoni has been chopped and cheese has been grated, combine them in a medium bowl along with the pizza sauce and mix well. Working one wrapper at a time, place 2-3 teaspoons of the mixture in the center of a wonton wrapper. Dip your finger in water and run it along all four edges of the wrapper. Fold the two side corners over the mixture the press one over the other. Then, fold the bottom corner up over the mixture, then roll the whole wrapper so that it presses onto the top corner. If any gaps remain, press them closed. Set aside and repeat until all filling is used, making sure to exclude as much liquid as possible to prevent the wraps from getting soggy.

In a medium sauce pan, add enough oil to fill the pan about two inches deep. Place a candy/deep fryer thermometer over the edge and heat on high until the oil is about 375°F. Working in small batches, add rolls to the oil and fry until golden brown in color. Remove with a slotted spoon to a plate lined with paper towels. Continue with all rolls.

Allow to sit for a few minutes before serving to avoid squirting yourself in the face with boiling hot pizza sauce. Be amazed at how quickly these will disappear.

After a lengthy winter (for usually balmy Durham), the recent arrival of warm weather has caused a SURGE of greens in my garden. I was a bit over-zealous in March when I planted spring crops (er twelve Romaine plants and six spinach), and now, I can frequently be seen toting bags of freshly-picked lettuce to work and bequeathing it to friends willing to eat a lot of salad. Combined with the arrival of everything fresh at the farmers market, I have to exercise a lot of control to make sure I’m using up these greens before they go to waste. I tire of salads quickly, so I thought I’d try a different take.

In a move that surprised me, the staunch supporter of cheese pizza with as few toppings as possible, this flatbread pizza has almost nothing on it except vegetables. I coupled a large wad of my most recent harvest of spinach leaves with some young onions and green garlic, two ingredients I rarely work with but was curious to explore.

And because I couldn’t quite bring myself to omit cheese entirely, just a bit of asiago, which is ever the friend of garlic-y, onion-y things.

Though the toppings were mostly unfamiliar to me, the process for transforming them into  a meal is much the same as most pizzas and flatbreads I make. Rolled out dough, something saucy (olive oil in this case), and some really satisfying sprinkling of ingredients to form a mosaic of color and texture. Truly, I love the look of a raw pizza.

While I was a bit nervous to try it at first, I was pleasantly surprised. The onion and garlic give this pizza a wonderful bite, and it’s a great way to use up bounties of spring spinach. And though it’s really more like a flatbread than a pizza in my mind (the internet seems very confused on the definition) due to the small amount of cheese, I wouldn’t even increase it.

Which may be the first time I’ve ever said this pizza has just enough cheese.

First time for everything, right?

Spring Greens Flatbread Pizza

makes one 12-14″ flatbread

one batch pizza dough
1 T + 2 T olive oil
2 c fresh spinach leaves, roughly chopped and lightly packed
2 spring onions, whites and greens
2 stalks green garlic
2/3 c grated asiago cheese
1/2 tsp freshly-ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 425°F. Prepare pizza dough as instructed. While dough raises after mixing, trim the stems off of the spinach leaves and chop roughly. Thinly chop the whites of the onions. Chop the onion greens until you have about 1/2 cup. Thinly chop the whites of the green garlic and chop a bit more to form small pieces.

Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a frying pan. Add the spinach and whites of the onions to the pan and toss for about three minutes until spinach is lightly wilted. Remove the pan from the heat and set aside.

Roll out dough on a floured surface and transfer to a cutting board sprinkled with corn meal. Spread remaining 2 tablespoons of olive oil over the surface of the dough. Top with spinach & onion mixture, green garlic, grated asiago, and onion greens. Sprinkle black pepper over the entire flatbread.

Bake flatbread on a pizza stone (or fake it!) for 10-12 minutes until edges have browned. Slice and serve immediately.

Brad and I sometimes grapple a bit when it comes to ordering pizza. Brad likes lots of toppings: meats, mushrooms, onions, veggies, goat cheese, herbs… and I actually like those, too. But if I ever have a choice, if I’m ever ordering pizza just for me, I get cheese. Beautiful, glorious, unadulterated cheese pizza.

But the shocking truth is that until last week, I’ve never made a cheese pizza at home. I know. I know. I can’t explain myself. I’ve been making pizza regularly now for a couple of years, but I’ve always dressed it up. It was high time I build my own perfect cheese pizza from scratch.

This pizza started with my go-to pizza crust recipe. I have another crust that I really love, but I only make it when I have excess whey from a batch of homemade mozzarella. This recipe, on the other hand, is super-easy to whip up when you need dinner in less than an hour. It’s a no-fuss crust that requires little resting time and rolls out easily.

And on this soft spread of dough Cheeeeeeese!

Mozzarella, parmesan, and asiago form the trifecta of awesome atop this particular pizza. Mozzarella is the classic pizza topper, but I love the punchy, sharp flavor provided by the two harder aged cheeses.

I also used a batch of the pizza sauce I canned last summer. I don’t exactly know what possessed me to can this sauce in half-pint sizes, but it was BRILLIANT. One jar gave me just the right amount for this little pizza of mine.

The result was a cheese pizza worth making all the time.

Can you add any manner of toppings to this Of course you can. But if cheese pizza is your favorite too, stand up against the toppings! Defend the cheese! And then eat as much as you want of it, because this is YOUR pizza.

Three Cheese Pizza

Makes one 12-inch thin-crust pizza

1 1/2 c all-purpose flour
1/2 T instant dry yeast
1 T sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 c warm water

3/4 c pizza sauce (your favorite!)
2 c grated mozzarella cheese
2/3 c grated asiago cheese
2/3 c grated parmesan cheese
1 tsp freshly ground black pepper

If you’re using a pizza stone, place it on a center rack in a cold oven. Preheat oven to 450°F. Sift together flour, yeast, sugar, and salt into a large bowl. Add water and mix with a fork until a dough is formed. You may have to abandon the fork and switch to using your hands before a dough is fully formed. Dough should be slightly sticky. Knead lightly on a floured surface for about five minutes. Form dough into a ball and cover with a damp cloth while you prepare the rest of your pizza ingredients.

Grate all cheeses and grind black pepper. Once the dough has rested for a few minutes, roll it out on a floured surface until it is about 1/4″ thick. Sprinkle a cutting board with corn meal and transfer the crust to the board. Spread pizza sauce evenly across the surface of the dough, leaving about 1/2″ of space around the edges. Sprinkle the three cheeses evenly over the pizza: first the mozzarella, then the asiago, then the parmesan. Finally, sprinkle the pepper over the pizza.

Slide the oven rack with the pizza stone out of the oven, and gently transfer the pizza to the stone before sliding the rack back inside. Bake for 12-15 minutes until the edges of the crust are browning and the cheese is bubbly and starting to brown. Carefully remove the pizza stone from the oven and slide the pizza onto a cutting board. Slice into pieces and serve hot.

I can’t really express in words how much I love pizza. The enormous quantities of free pizza I ate at college events (and, let’s be honest, continue to eat at college events) has never quelled my craving for crispy pizza crust topped with any manner of sauces, cheeses, meats, pineapple, spinach… gaaaah. I really love pizza.

And I really love that I can make it at home. No, I don’t have a 900°F pizza oven. And yes, I do have a pizza stone. But! I didn’t until only a couple years ago, and though I really love my pizza stone, I’m here to tell you that you can cook beautiful, crispy-bottomed, bubbly-topped pizza at home TONIGHT with no pizza stone.

Here’s how:

1. Take two large cookie sheets and nest them together. Place them on a center rack of a cold oven upside-down. Heat the oven to 475°F. Preheating the pans in this way will allow the pizza to cook from the ambient heat in the oven but will allow the crust to become crispy from contact with the hot pan, similar to using a pizza stone.

2. Prepare your pizza dough (I have a wonderfully easy recipe here). While it rises, cut a sheet of parchment paper the size of the cookie sheet and place it on a cutting board. Sprinkle with corn meal.

3. Roll out the pizza dough on a floured surface and transfer it to the cornmeal-sprinkled parchment paper.

4. Add toppings to your pizza as desired. Leave about half an inch of space around the edges of the crust.

5. Open the oven and slide the rack with the trays out slightly. Gently slide the parchment and pizza off of the cutting board onto the cookie sheet bottom. Don’t worry, you can bake parchment paper!

6. Bake the pizza for 10-15 minutes until the edges of the crust are browning and the cheese is bubbling and developing golden-brown spots. Remove the pizza from the oven and carefully slide the pizza onto a cutting board. Slice into pieces and eat!

See that That is a crisp, beautiful pizza crust. The pre-heated cookie sheets help to form this crispy treat, while the ambient heat in the oven cooks the rest of the pizza.

Now if you have the space, I do recommend buying a pizza stone. I really love mine, and it’s great to make a round pizza every once in a while. There are a whole bunch of other tips to help you work with a pizza stone, but that will make for another How To’sday!

In the meantime, even without the stone, you can still make a dang good homemade pizza.

What are your favorite pizza toppings Do you have a favorite pizza crust recipe?

I try to post recipes on this site that are seasonally appropriate for my locale. There are a few oddballs, but for the most part, strawberry dishes hit in the spring, tomatoes are featured in the summer, and pumpkin treats fill the fall.

You might be wondering, then, why I’m giving you this pizza that (at least to me) screams “Summer!!” as we leave the last vestiges of autumn behind and move full-steam into the winter holiday season.

In truth, I feel a bit seasonally confused. I spent the last week in Florida with my family visiting magical places, seeing magical sights, and enjoying 70-degree weather surrounded by palm trees while Christmas carols blared from speakers across the parks.

So in celebration of this confusion, I give you this! Barbecue, Bacon, and Toasted Corn Flatbread Pizza. It’s a shout out to the last summer produce, the last summer cookout, that many of us celebrated months ago. I used the tail end of the summer’s corn to make this pizza, but you can also easily use a can of corn that has been drained.

Also, this pizza crust is my go-to recipe for quick, easy pizza crust. My favorite crust is still this one, using from the whey leftover from making fresh mozzarella, but I frankly can’t make my own cheese every time I want a pizza crust. This crust is quick to make, doesn’t require much time to raise, and tastes fantastic. I use it primarily to fashion thin crust pizza, but you could also roll it thicker to produce a thicker crust.

I love using barbecue sauce as a base for pizza. The smokiness of the sauce pairs wonderfully with the bacon, and the onions and corn provide a delightful crunch in every bite. I also abandon traditional mozzarella for this pizza and use a bright orange cheddar. This is not a super-cheesy pizza, mind you. A little bit goes a long way here.

If you can’t make a trip to balmy, beautiful Disney World to trick yourself into a summery mood, give this pizza a shot. It’s warm, smoky, and it’s a great way to feel the warmth of summer in the cold winter months that stretch ahead.

Barbecue, Bacon, and Toasted Corn Flatbread Pizza

Makes two 10-inch flatbreads or one 14-inch thick-crust pizza

2 1/2 c all-purpose flour
1 T instant dry yeast
2 T sugar
1 tsp salt
1 c warm water

2/3 c barbecue sauce
8 oz bacon, chopped into 1/2″ pieces
1 1/2 c red onion, sliced into rings, quartered, and separated
2 ears fresh corn or 1 can corn, drained
1 1/2 c cheddar cheese

If you’re using a pizza stone, place it on a center rack in a cold oven. Preheat oven to 425°F. Sift together flour, yeast, sugar, and salt into a large bowl. Add water and mix with a fork until a dough is formed. You may have to abandon the fork and switch to using your hands before a dough is fully formed. Dough should be slightly sticky. Knead lightly on a floured surface for about five minutes. Form dough into a ball and cover with a damp cloth while you prepare the rest of your pizza ingredients.

Grate cheese, chop onions, and cut the corn kernels from the cob. Set aside. Cook your chopped bacon until fat has rendered, then set it aside on a plate lined with paper towels to absorb excess grease, leaving about one tablespoon of grease in the pan. Return pan to the heat and add corn kernels. Cook for 3-5 minutes, stirring frequently, until torn is lightly toasted. Remove from pan and set aside.

Cut dough in half and, working with one half at a time, roll the dough out on a floured surface until dough is about 1/4″ thick. Each half of the dough should yield a rectangular flatbread about 12″x8″. Sprinkle corn meal on a cutting board without any grooves and gently lay the flatbread on the board. Spread half of the barbecue sauce onto the crust, leaving an edge of about 1/2″ all the way around. Sprinkle on half of the bacon, onion, corn, and cheddar.

Open the oven and pull out the rack with the pizza stone. Carefully slide the pizza from the cutting board to the stone using a flat spatula. Bake for 10-15 minutes until cheese is melted and crust is browned around the edges. While first pizza is baking, roll out the remaining dough for the second pizza and repeat the topping process.

Remove pizza to a cutting board and slice into 8-10 pieces, depending on your preference. Bake the second pizza for 10-15 minutes.

I frequently lament that I need another freezer. We have your standard apartment fridge-and-freezer combo, but our freezer is, shall I say, stuffed. Filled to the brim. There are many reasons for this. I have given up on buying chicken breast and now buy the whole dang bird, break it down, and separate the parts into meal-size portions. I capture strawberries at their peak ripeness, freeze them on cookie sheets, then bag them up to use in winter months when the only berries to be found are the imposters at the grocery store. Insanely, I recently made enough soup to open a deli and froze most of it because really, who wants soup in 95° weather?

Oh, and last summer, after foolishly planting seven basil plants that plotted to take over the world, it was all I could do to keep up with it by tossing it in the food processor with some nuts, garlic, parmesan, and a glug or two of olive oil before freezing it in my ice cube trays to make an army of pesto cubes. (Finding actual ice in our freezer is, coincidentally, impossible. Icy beverage lovers, beware.)

And then there are the pizza doughs. I made about twenty of them in the afterglow of my homemade mozzarella cheese experiment this spring with the leftover whey, and may have over-estimated the value of their convenience in relation to my precious freezer real estate.

Fortunately, this freezer angst, this lack of ice, this precarious stacking of freezer containers and strategic tucking-in of drumsticks, the inevitable shaking of the head I’ll get from Brad when he gets back from his summer: it all pays off in a burst of kitchen goodness. And ladies and gentlemen, that is certainly what we have here.

This is basically a cheese pizza with pesto instead of pizza sauce, asiago & parmesan instead of mozzarella. Except this pizza is rolled up into a loaf to create a pretty little pinwheel!

You can also add more pizza part if you want. I dunno, mushrooms Pepperoni Really tiny pieces of chicken But don’t feel too compelled to jazz it up: it’s really tasty on its own.

This bread, happily, doesn’t take much longer to cook than a regular pizza. After about 20 minutes in the oven, the outer crust was a nice, crisp golden-brown, ready for a quick brush of butter and a sprinkle of garlic and black pepper. But still, what if it wasn’t done inside Would it be a big gooey mess?

Nope. It was not. Crisp on the outside, the loaf sliced reveal fragrant swirls of pesto nestled between soft layers of crust. The bread is really tasty on its own, but it’s a miracle dipped in a little bit of red pasta sauce.

Maybe my freezer will empty out sooner than I thought.

Pesto Pinwheel Pizza Bread

1/2 recipe pizza dough, or your favorite recipe for a 12″ pizza
1/2 c pesto
1/2 c parmesan cheese, grated
1/2 c asiago cheese, grated
1 T butter, melted
garlic powder
black pepper
red pasta sauce for serving

Preheat oven to 450 °F. Flip over a cookie sheet and place a piece of parchment paper on the bottom surface. Sprinkle lightly with cornmeal.

On a floured surface, roll out dough until it is about 1/4″ thick. Spread pesto evenly over the surface, leaving 1/2″ space at the edges of the dough. Sprinkle cheeses over the pesto. Starting on one of the long edges of your dough, gently roll the dough up into a pinwheel. Tuck the edges in at the ends of the loaf when you are done, and carefully transfer the loaf to the upside-down cookie sheet with the seam of the bread facing down. Bake for 20-22 minutes or until top of dough is golden brown.

Remove from oven and brush the crust with melted butter. Sprinkle lightly with garlic powder and black pepper to taste and allow to cool for ten minutes.

Slice and serve warm with red pasta sauce for dipping.