Garlic Butter Pizza Dough Rolls

One of the best reasons to go to certain Italian restaurants, is to enjoy the delicious pizza dough rolls that they serve before your meal. Pizza Nova and Nucci's are two restaurants in North County San Diego (Carlsbad and Solana Beach) where you can enjoy them. I always thought about buying the Trader Joe's pizza dough and making my own pizza dough rolls, and finally got around to it one Sunday night. We were having a dinner of leftover whole wheat penne pasta with Bolognese sauce. I decided to try the pizza dough rolls to serve with the leftovers. Winner! Ron loved the rolls, as did I. Here is the recipe I used.

Garlic Butter Pizza Dough Rolls

Ready to use pizza dough from Trader Joe's or any other ready to use pizza dough

Minced garlic (about 4 cloves) or already minced garlic from a jar (that's what I used)

olive oil

Melted butter

Chopped parsley

Salt

Thaw pizza dough. I used the whole wheat dough, but most people will probably prefer to use the pizza dough made with white flour. Cut the dough into 12 pieces, and roll into balls. Take a muffin tin, spray with release spray, and set a ball in each space. Place a small amount of garlic on top of ball, and press into the dough. You can also open up the dough a bit and put some minced garlic inside, cover with dough and press some more minced garlic on top, then use pastry brush to paint olive oil on top of dough. Cook rolls for approximately 17 minutes in 425 degree oven, or until golden brown. They should puff up like muffins. Remove from pan, and dip tops of each roll in melted butter, then sprinkle on parsley if desired, and a little bit of coarsely ground salt. That's it! I did not add the parsley, as Ron doesn't like parsley, but I think it adds nice color to the rolls. Photo is from shutterbean.com website

My goal was to eat just one roll, but I failed. I had to have a second. They are really good, and so simple. If you keep a package of the frozen dough in the freezer, you can enjoy them anytime, without a special trip to the grocery store. Enjoy.