Pizza Rolls

Here is a novel idea for fun food to be eaten on the patio with one hand (no eating implements required) while holding an adult beverage in the other hand. They are that good. Do tell, you ask? They are homemade pizza rolls. Stay tuned to learn about a simple, easy, fun food to be enjoyed outdoors:

• In summer with a margarita before you grill those ribs, burgers, chicken, or steaks.
• In the winter around the warmth of your outdoor fire pit accompanied by a hot toddy.
• Or any other season where you might enjoy relaxing on your patio with a snack and a Cosmopolitan cocktail — solo, with a friend, or while entertaining your family or friends.

Now, if you’ve ever taken an advanced class at an educational institution, you’ll remember that there was usually an earlier class that was required — a prerequisite — to lay the foundation for the new knowledge you were to gain in the advanced class. Yup, there is a prerequisite required here for making homemade pizza rolls because they are very similar to making homemade egg rolls. There’s no point in me repeating much of the instructions from the egg roll post, so you should check out that recipe before proceeding here. And by the way, this is a cheap attempt by me to get you to peruse other recipes for fun patio food on this website. Trust me, cooking these recipes will give you great enjoyment when going outside to eat, and drink, and relax.

Pizza Rolls

Basically, what you’d put on your pizza is what you’ll put in your pizza rolls — within reason. You want the ingredients to be soft and gooey like a pizza without hard items such as bell peppers or black olives. If you add onions, sauté them to make them soft and pliable. And keep the number of your ingredients reasonable remembering that you’ll be scooping what you mix up and putting it into an egg roll wrapper, then rolling it up. Omitting bulky ingredients will make your pizza rolls easier to roll and fry.

Here are the ingredients we use in our pizza rolls, although feel free to use your favorites or mix it up every time you make homemade pizza rolls:

• Egg roll wrappers
• Ground sausage – 1 pound
  Fennel seed – 1 tablespoon, crushed
  Sage – 1 tsp, Ground
  Salt – 1/2 tsp, coarse
  Pepper – 1/2 tsp, coarse
  Aleppo pepper – 1 tsp
  Cayenne pepper – 1/8 tsp
• Pepperoni – 3 to 5 oz or to taste, chopped
• Mozzarella cheese – 5 to 8 oz or to taste, grated
• Red pizza sauce – 1 cup to start. Use jarred sauce or make your own:
  Tomato paste – one 6 oz can
  Olive oil – 1 tsp, extra virgin garlic infused if available
  Oregano – 1 tsp, dried
  Basil – 1 tsp, dried 
  Salt – 1 tsp, coarse
  Pepper – 1 tsp, coarse
  Aleppo pepper – 1 tsp
  Smoked paprika – 1 tsp
  Sugar – 1 tsp, granulated or Monk Fruit Sugar (optional)
  Water – 6 oz
  Vegetable Bouillon – 1 tsp, Better Than Bouillon brand in a jar
  Red wine vinegar – 1 tsp
  Worcestershire sauce – 1 tsp
• Canola oil – 1 1/2 to 2 inches of oil into a deep pot like a cast iron dutch oven

Click on each LINK below to get these featured pizza roll items from Amazon:

Colavita Garlic Olive Oil • Spicy World Aleppo Pepper • Oil Sprayer for Cooking

Just a side note here: Julie requires a low FODMAP diet to prevent digestive issues. That’s why I make our own tomato sauce without garlic and onions. I cannot find a commercially produced tomato or pizza sauce that doesn’t have garlic or onions or even without garlic or onion powder in the ingredients. For Julie, the flavor is OK but not the item itself in any way, shape, or form.

Do this:

Start with the red sauce. The easy way is to use a commercial sauce from the grocery store. The tasty way is to make the sauce yourself. It earns you bragging rights when you serve homemade pizza rolls to your guests.

1. Make the red sauce:
   Mix dry spices in a small bowl. Add oil to medium sized sauce pan. Heat until shimmering over medium heat. Add spices to oil and whisk until fragrant — 1 to 2 minutes. DO NOT let the spices burn. Add tomato paste and water to spices in sauce pan and whisk until mixed well and smooth. Add red wine vinegar and Worcestershire sauce and stir to mix. Simmer gently for about 10 minutes over low heat. Beware of bubbling and spatters. Taste and adjust flavors as desired. If sauce is too thick add water in small amounts until desired consistency is achieved.
2. Season the ground sausage:
   In a medium sized bowl, place ground sausage and spices. Mix with hands until spices are evenly distributed throughout the meat.
3. Sauté the sausage in a skillet, breaking up the meat into small pieces as it cooks in the pan. As I’ve mentioned before, I only cook in cast iron pans and I recommend a cast iron skillet here, but it’s not absolutely necessary if you don’t have one. When cooked, drain any fat and place the sausage in the mixing bowl.
4. Chop the pepperoni into smaller pieces. Add it to the sausage in the mixing bowl.
5. Add the cheese and red pizza sauce to the mixing bowl.
6. Stir the ingredients to throughly mix — use your hands if necessary.
7. Now, do two things: First, look at your mixture to see if all of the ingredients are evenly proportioned and evenly mixed. If one or more is lacking, add more of whichever ingredient(s) and re-mix. Then, taste the mixture. Does it taste like a pizza or is one or more flavors lacking? If any flavors are lacking, add more of what’s missing to the get the taste you want and then re-mix.
8. Finally, jump to the Homemade Egg Roll post for instructions on how to fill and roll the wrapper, and fry them nice and crispy. The photos below are a “teaser”.
9. Once fried (it goes fast — keep an eye on your pizza rolls in the hot oil so they don’t burn), line a tall stainless steel bowl with paper towel and when the pizza rolls are out of the oil stand them on their end in the bowl so any extra oil runs out preventing the roll from getting oil soaked and soggy. Keep them warm in the oven briefly until you and/or your guests DEVOUR them. Yum!
   

That’s it! It’s not rocket science. They don’t take hours to make, require a culinary degree from a cooking school, or need obscure or expensive ingredients. This is a fun recipe that will WOW your family and friends. And it is the perfect patio food to enjoy in a comfy patio chair with a scrumptious patio cocktail . . . on your patio. Just remember one important fact: every day is Friday on the patio!

Please Leave a Comment

Was this information helpful? Leave a comment below and tell us if this information was of value to you or tell us what we missed and can add to this post. Did you make or modify the recipe? How so? Did you cook them on the patio or, at least, serve them on the patio? Add a picture so we can see your yummy pizza rolls! And tell us your locale. We’re in Roanoke, Virginia, USA. Where are you?

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