Pepperoni Pizza Pumpkins are quick and easy pizza bites loaded with marinara sauce, mozzarella cheese, and pepperoni. These homemade pizza bites are great for your lunch box, dinner or snacks. And, if you make them in cute pumpkin shapes, they will be the perfect party food or appetizers for Halloween and Thanksgiving.
Fall Pepperoni Pizza Pumpkin Recipe
Mini pumpkin pizzas are so delicious, but also look so cute. They are perfect for parties, and simply irresistible!
Pepperoni pizza bites are so easy to make using just 4 simple ingredients: refrigerated pizza crust, marinara sauce, sliced pepperoni, and mini mozzarella balls. However, if you want to dress them up for Halloween party or Thanksgiving dinner you’ll have to put in a little more effort. To transform these mini pizza bites in festive food you’ll have to wrap the twine around the dough ball to create a pumpkin shape.
Halloween-Themed Party Appetizer
Pepperoni Pizza Pumpkins are great snack to share at a Halloween party. If you serve these cute pumpkin-shaped pumpkin pizzas at your Thanksgiving celebration you will impress all your guests for sure.
Although these Pepperoni Pizza Pumpkins are technically an appetizer that’s great for parties and holiday events, they are great dinner for busy weeknights when you have absolutely no time for anything complicated.
Easy Pizza Bites Recipe
For simple and easy weeknight dinner, you don’t have to wrap the twine around the pizza balls to create the pumpkin shape. Just bake them like simple mini pepperoni pizza balls. That way soft, warm mini pizzas stuffed with pepperoni and oodles of cheese are ready in 15 minutes.
Pepperoni Pizza Pumpkins are perfect for Pizza Friday, after-school snacks, or absolutely no reason at all Kids will love them. Pizza of any kind is always a winner, and these are so irresistible.
[pinterest-image message=”Pepperoni Pizza Pumpkins are great appetizer or snack to share at a Halloween party. If you serve these cute pumpkin-shaped pumpkin pizzas at your Thanksgiving celebration you will impress all your guests for sure. #pepperonipizza #pumpkin #appetizers #halloweenappetizers #thanksgivingrecipes” image=”https://omgchocolatedesserts.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Pepperoni-Pizza-Pumpkins-Pin2.jpg”]
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Pepperoni Pizza Pumpkins
Prep Time: 15 minutes- Cook Time: 20 minutes
- Total Time: 35 minutes
Yield: 8 pumpkins 1x
Category: Appetizer
Method: Oven
Cuisine: American
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Pin RecipeDescription
Pepperoni Pizza Pumpkins are quick and easy pizza bites loaded with marinara sauce, mozzarella cheese, and pepperoni. These homemade pizza bites are great for your lunch box, dinner or snacks. And, if you make them in cute pumpkin shapes, they will be the perfect party food or appetizers for Halloween and Thanksgiving.
Ingredients
- 1 can refrigerated pizza pie crust.
- 2 tablespoons marinara sauce + more for serving
- 16 slices of pepperoni
- 8 mini mozzarella balls (or 8 cubes of mozzarella)
- 1 egg -slightly beaten with 2 teaspoon water
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400°F, line a baking sheet with parchment paper, and set aside.
- Roll out pizza dough and using a 3 ½ or 4-inch cutter cut out 8 circles of dough.
- Place a small dollop of marinara sauce in the center of each circle, and add 2 pepperoni slices and a cube or a ball of mozzarella.
- Bring the edges up and over, pressing them together and being sure to leave no gaps for the filling to leak out. Lay the pizza bombs on the prepared baking sheet.
- Wrap each dough ball in a long piece of kitchen twine, around the ball to divide it into eight sections. The rolls are baked with the string attached and the dough rises around the string forming little pumpkin shapes.
- Brush each ball with egg wash and bake for 15-20 minutes, or until it rises and gets a nice golden- brown color.
- Allow rolls to cool for a few minutes, then remove the twine. Serve warm with marinara sauce alongside.
31 comments
Love it! Such a cute idea 🙂 Halloween is always a busy day here so quick and simple is the key at our house. Will have to try these this year, I can make them pretty quickly!
Yum. I can’t wait to eat these. I just hope they look as delicious as yours.
Just beat it with a fork.
I love it
I followed your instructions exactly, but my sauce and cheese oozed out of the majority of them.
Hahahaha!
Right? 🙂 @ Mr XX
How do I reheat them? Making them for my class
Can frozen bread dough rolls be used for this??
I’m sure you could but you would have to let them rise before baking. I always prefer frozen bread dough over a can of pizza dough. However, the can is much quicker.
What did you use for the stem?
Bamboo flower knot picks/skewers
It looks like the bamboo cocktail type toothpicks with the little loops on the top, They are decorative toothpicks and I’ve seen them at King Soopers, on Amazon or in party stores.
These look cute and delicious but can someone tell me what was used as the pumpkin handles because that isn’t the twine…
Bamboo flower knot picks/skewers
These are so cute! Will thi work with homemade pizza dough? I’ve been looking for more things to do with my sourdough starter, and pizza dough is on my try list. ?
Have you had any luck with assembling these ahead of time and freezing them?
This is what I want to know too but I see there was never a reply 😭
Was a fail for me. If you get any sauce near edges it will not pinch closed. The baking twine was difficult to remove and they pulled apart. The size was too small. I tried larger than recommended and easier but you would do better with frozen Pizza dough balls that have been thawed. I get mine by the case at Sams club. Grandkids got bored with tedious parts like twine.
They did taste good though!
I mixed in garlic butter with the egg wash and it turned out amazing!
????
Would I be able to make these a day ahead of time for my grandkids and just not bake them and then take them over ready to go so they can put them in the oven and bake themOff the next day? Thank you so much!
LOL! Beaten…
Great idea! We attempted to make these with a few tweaks: added a touch of salt/garlic mixture to the inside between the cheese & pepperoni, add garlic/salt/Italian seasoning to the egg wash, sprinkle the top with grated parmesan cheese, but most importantly, did not bake with sauce inside (real pepperoni rolls do not have sauce inside, but instead served with marinara as a dip on the side).
While they tasted delicious, when removing the twine after baking, it puled apart the crust. Any recommendations as to how to remove the twine without loosing the outer layer of crust??
These were a giant failure for me. The size was too small. They all leaked out, despite being completely pinched shut. And then the twine wouldn’t come off correctly. I was so disappointed and flustered, trying to order pizza at the last minute for the party we were supposed to bring these too. ? I cook a lot and can’t remember the last time a recipe failed so badly. ??
You could use a stem cut from a celery stalk and it would be edible..
DO NOT MAKE THESE! RECIPE DOESN’T WORK!!! What a waste of ingredients. I made these exactly according to the instructions, and by 20 minutes, every pumpkin’s insides leaked out all over the baking sheet. They also were nowhere near done cooking. They’ve been in the oven for almost 40 minutes at this point and I’ve taken them out twice to cut one open and check if the dough is cooked yet, and it isn’t. So I’m still waiting for the dough to be fully cooked through. I’m so mad because I bought ingredients special for this recipe and my toddler was really excited to try them.
I’ve read some comments about having problems with the twine sticking to the dough after baking and I belive soaking the twine in some olive oil or even a garlic butter mixture would prevent the twine from sticking. I’m going to make this for Thanksgiving so I’ll try it and comment with the results!
I do a lot of cooking & baking, no luck with these absolute disaster
Olá, substituí o recheio por presunto e queijo picados com um pouquinho de molho e parmesão para não ficar tão seco. Quanto ao barbante, não aperte para que possa sair mais fácil.
Gostei muito da receita. Obrigada!
Rosana Brasília/Brasil
Mine weren’t as perfect but they were massive hit and they did look like little pumpkins.