Easy Pizza Muffins

For all of you pizza lovers out there, these easy pizza muffins are the perfect party appetizer or to eat as a fun dinner or snack. With just 4 ingredients you can make these pizza bites in just 30 minutes. This quick snack is sure to be a hit with everyone.

You might also like these keto pizza cheese waffles.

I don’t know if it’s just my family or if everyone is like this, but mine loves pizza. My son especially loves a good pepperoni pizza. So when I had to take an appetizer to a Super Bowl party I made this simple but delicious pizza muffins recipe. Everyone loved them and I loved that they were so easy to make. They have that classic pizza flavor rolled up in a mini muffin and they taste like a mini deep dish pizza.

You only need 4 ingredients and about 30 minutes to make these pizza bites. I bought everything at Aldi so it’s inexpensive too. I filled mine with pepperoni so they tasted like mini pepperoni rolls, another thing my son loves. However you can also fill them with other of your favorite pizza toppings. It’s just a fun and easy dish to try.

Recipe ingredients I used and substitutions.

I just used 4 simple ingredients to make these savory muffins which were store bought pizza dough, marinara sauce, pepperoni and mozzarella cheese. I also used olive oil to grease the muffin tins.

Pizza Dough
I have made these with homemade dough, crescent rolls and store bought pizza dough. They all work fine but I liked the results of using store bought dough that I bought at Aldi. The crescent rolls were easy to use too but they had a slightly different flavor. They were still great so use that if you want instead. You really can’t miss.

Note if you want to make your own dough or make a gluten free version with gluten free flours I think it would work but I have not tried.

Marinara Sauce
I love Rao’s marinara sauce. You can use your favorite pizza sauce or pasta sauce but this happens to be mine. You don’t use too much so it probably doesn’t make much of a difference so use whatever you have on hand. I would not use just plain tomato sauce though.

Pepperoni
I bought everything for these savory muffins at Aldi so I always have there thin sliced pepperoni which is pretty small in slice. I ended up chopping it up so it really doesn’t matter whether you use large or even thick sliced. And if you don’t like pepperoni you can eliminate it. Or try your favorite pizza toppings.

Mozzarella Cheese
This is a must and I wouldn’t use another type of shredded cheese. Provolone cheese would be delicious but it easier to make this dish with shredded cheese and provolone usually comes in slices.

However you can also add a bit of grated parmesan cheese for a bit more flavor if you want. Sometimes I do that as well but it’s not necessary.

Other Fixings
While I wanted these to be a bit like pepperoni rolls you can try other fixings that you would put on your pizza. Try adding some cooked sausage, bacon crumbles, finely diced onion, bell peppers, black olives or mushrooms. Whatever you want to try just make sure it is chopped up into small pieces because these are mini muffins and you don’t want a big chunk of topping come out on the first bite.

You can also try different spices like Italian seasoning or hot pepper flakes in the center. Or even add a sprinkle of garlic powder over top like you would garlic bread. I didn’t feel they need it as the marinara sauce has plenty of Italian seasoning of rme and I wanted to keep it as simple as possible.

How to make these easy mini pizza muffins.

Step 1: Preheat oven to 400°F. Take some olive oil and brush it in each of the muffin cups or wells of a mini muffin pan. This recipe tends to stick to the pan so try to make sure they are well greased.

You can also coat the tin with cooking spray but sometimes it’s not enough to keep them from sticking.

Step 2: On a lightly floured surface, cut 1 pound of pizza dough into 2 pieces. Take one piece and roll out into a thin rectangle. The thinner the better. Mine was about ½ inch thick. Below you can see what mine looked like.

Step 3: Spread out the marinara sauce evenly over the dough. Then add 1 ½ cup of the shredded mozzarella cheese and top with chopped pepperoni. As mentioned above you can use other toppings if you want.

Since I made two rolls, I used about 4 tablespoons pizza sauce on each roll. However you can use additional pizza sauce if you want. Just don’t use too much or it will get messy.

Step 4: Now you want to roll this into a long log like shape starting with the long size. Carefully roll into a coil like that shown below. From there you are going to cut them into uniform slices.

This step is a little messy but just roll it up carefully, tucking in the center ingredients as you go.

A ½ pound of dough made roughly 16 mini pizza muffins for me. I just cut the roll in half, then cut each of the parts in half again until I had 16 pieces roughly 1 inch thick.

Step 5: Sprinkle the remaining mozzarella cheese on top of each muffin. Place in the preheated oven on the center rack and bake for 12-15 minutes until all the cheese is golden brown on top and the centers are cooked through. Baking time may vary.

I love that the additional cheese on the top melts and get crispy around the bottom of the pepperoni pizza cups.

Step 6: Take out of the oven and let cool before serving. You can add a sprinkling of parsley on top if you want a little color contrast if taking to a party but it’s not necessary. Store leftovers in an airtight container. You can reheat them in the microwave or air fryer.

If you want you can serve these as is or add a little bowl of marinara sauce for people to dip in. It doesn’t need it at all but some might like it.

Please scroll down to view the printable recipe card.

These mini pepperoni bites might also be nice to put in your kid’s lunch boxes. They are easy to eat and they can be eaten at room temperature. They would also be a good after school snack.

More easy party appetizers to try.

My family often has get togethers so I have a bunch of easy appetizer recipes that you can make and take to a party. Here are some of my favorite recipes.

• buffalo chicken cheeseball covered in bacon or buffalo chicken stuffed mushrooms,
• veggie stuffed mushrooms,or sausage and cheese stuffed mushrooms.
• cottage cheese ranch veggie dip or smoked salmon cream cheese spread
• prosciutto and cheese flatbread or mushroom flatbread
• air fried gnocchi or air fried tortellini
• fig and cheese crostini or crab salad wonton cups

Well I don’t know about you but these easy and savory pizza muffins are going to be one of my go to appetizers, especially when we go to football parties. This is also a quick and easy recipe I can make for my son when he comes home from college. I hope you like it as much as we did. Enjoy!