These homemade pepperoni pizza pockets are a great make-ahead meal or snack. Serve them with a side of marinara sauce for dipping!
For these pizza pockets, pie crust is layered with pizza toppings and baked to golden brown perfection for a dinner or lunch option that’s WAY better than frozen pizza!
I have spent the last few weeks trying to come up with a Halloween recipe to share with all of you. I wanted to create an easy yet festive dinner idea that’s simple to prepare before a night of trick-or-treating. I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not, but a lot of Halloween dinner ideas are meant to be scary and/or gory…and in the process they become pretty unappetizing. I decided to keep it light hearted with these pepperoni pizza pockets. You can cut them into pumpkin shapes for Halloween or make them year round in a circle or rectangle shape.
Cute right?! And what kid doesn’t love pepperoni pizza? This recipe starts with pie crust – I cheated and used a pre-packaged version, but feel free to make it yourself if you prefer. I rolled the crust thin and the girls helped me cut out the shapes. You can really do any shape you like, but clearly pumpkins are king this time of the year.
How do you make pizza pockets?
The pizza pockets are layered with mozzarella and pepperoni and then finished off with a second piece of pie crust. At this point, you can put the pizza pockets on a sheet pan in the fridge and keep them there for up to 8 hours until you’re ready to bake them. Who wouldn’t want this hot and cheesy goodness as a pre trick-or-treating meal?
Serving the pizza pockets with a side of marinara sauce is an absolute must. My kids thought it was so much fun to dip away.
This is the perfect way to get your kids involved in the kitchen – my girls helped me with almost every step in the process and their eyes were as big as saucers when they saw the final product. Whether it’s for a Halloween dinner, an after school snack or a meal any other time of the year, these pepperoni pizza pockets are sure to be a hit!
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More pizza recipes
Pepperoni Pizza Pockets Video
Pepperoni Pizza Pockets
Ingredients
- 1 9-inch pie crust homemade or store bought
- 1 1/4 cups of shredded mozzarella cheese
- 1 cup pepperoni slices I prefer turkey pepperoni
- 1 cup marinara sauce
- 1 egg
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
- Place the pie crust on a lightly floured surface. Roll the crust out into a 12 inch circle. Use a 4 inch cookie cutter to cut out 6 of your desired shapes. Transfer the shapes to a sheet pan lined with a silicon baking mat or parchment paper.
- Sprinkle the cheese evenly over the 6 crust shapes. Top with slices of pepperoni to cover, leaving a small border around the edges.
- Beat the egg in a small bowl. Brush the egg along the border of the dough.
- Gather the dough scraps and re-roll the dough to a similar thickness. Cut out 6 more of your shapes. Lay the shapes on top of the pepperoni layer. Use a fork to crimp the edges shut.
- For a standard pizza pocket, use a paring knife to cut a few lines in the top. For a jack-o-lantern, use a paring knife to carefully cut out eyes and a mouth.
- Brush the tops of the pizza pockets with the egg wash. The pockets can be baked immediately or covered loosely with plastic wrap and stored in the fridge.
- Bake the pizza pockets for 15-20 minutes until golden brown. Serve immediately with marinara sauce for dipping.
These are simple to make and taste great (though they are a bit dry, even with the added marinara to dip them in and don’t yield well to more cheese).
I would recommend re-rolling the individual shapes of dough for the top to make the spread more as it is hard to get the same 6-inch size over the ingredients. After that, then, crimo them with the fork and use the blunt end of the fork to gently open the dough and move it around to the design you want. The dough is going to get slightly stretched being pulled off the counter and fitted to the pizza, and the design you made is likely to be ruined.
After that is when I used the egg wash. I also sprinkled the cheese with Italian seasoning and garlic powder before adding diced black olives and, then, the pepperoni, and sprinkled more Italian seasoning on the top dough before baking.
This is a super cute idea! I would have done this with my kids if they were younger. They are much older now and don’t want to help in the kitchen. That said I will still make these.. ha they may be older but they still love the fun stuff! Thank you!
PS.. what pie crust do you use if you buy it from the store. Aldi’s is too sweet. Would Pillsbury work??
Hi! Do you think you could prep this a few hours before baking? For example, assemble the pizza pockets and then stick them in the fridge until we’re ready to bake and then stick it in the oven?
Yes that’s fine!
So tasty and fun! We really enjoyed these! I did the pumpkin faces
The kids and husband just love these! I need to double the recipe as they disappear so fast!