Quick and Delicious Pepperoni Pizza Bagels

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Cooking With Anadi

12K subscribers · tomato sauce, melted cheese and pepperoni on a toasted bagel

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Why Make This Pepperoni Pizza Bagel Recipe?

Pizzas definitely bring me lots of joy, that’s why I love my Saturday pizza nights. But on days when I am craving a delicious pie before the weekend, I quickly prepare this treat. And it is surprisingly light and like pizza, there are uncountable variations to make each bagel your own.

I was in a phase where I was loving bagels and one fine afternoon, I decided to fulfill my pizza craving by adding a quick, “raw” tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese and some pepperoni on an everything bagel. Bagels enjoyed like this… all I can say is mama mia!

Pepperoni Pizza Bagel Recipe

I enjoy these pepperoni bagels when they are warm enough to become soft and fluffy, while still being lightly toasted. The best way I can enjoy my pizza bagels this would be, with a molten bubbly cheese is under the oven broiler.

You can use any one of your favorite bagels, except the sweet variety. That probably won't pair well with pepperoni. I enjoy either cheese or everything bagels for this recipe.

1. For the sauce, simply add passata (strained tomatoes) to a small bowl, sprinkle with salt, oregano, drizzle of olive oil and chili flakes if desired. Mix well and spread on the bagel.

2. Add some shredded mozzarella, one slice of provolone cheese, and three pepperonis on each side of the bagel. Then, place the bagels on a baking sheet lined with a wire rack.

3. Place oven rack at second highest position in oven, turn on the broiler

4. Cook until desired doneness, I like my cheese molten with some brown spots.

5. Serve hot and enjoy! Sprinkle on an extra dash of chili flakes if desired!

Frequently Asked Questions

The Quick Pizza Sauce, and What Each Tsp Is Doing

The pizza sauce on these bagels is not cooked, it is stirred, and that is the whole trick. Half a cup of passata goes into a bowl with 2 tsp of olive oil, 1/2 tsp of dried oregano and salt to taste, plus two minced garlic cloves and a pinch of crushed chili flakes if you want them. There is no simmering step because the sauce finishes under the broiler while the cheese melts, which is also why a raw passata works here when it would taste thin on a full pizza.

The measurements are small deliberately. Two tsp of olive oil is enough to round off the sharpness of raw strained tomatoes without leaving the bagel greasy, and half a tsp of oregano reads as pizza rather than as a spice rack. If you would rather not mince garlic for two bagels, a pinch of garlic powder stirred straight into the passata does the same job; it is not what the recipe lists, but it is the swap worth knowing on a weeknight. Make the sauce first, before anything goes near the oven, because once the broiler is on you have about five minutes of attention to spare and none of it should go on stirring tomatoes.

Portion Size, and Pizza Bagels as Open-Faced Sandwiches

Two bagels give you four portions, because a pizza bagel is a bagel halved. Each half takes a spread of sauce, a share of the cup of shredded mozzarella and three slices of pepperoni, which is where the twelve slices in the ingredient list go. One half each is a snack; two halves each turns this into lunch for two. Scaling is as easy as buying more bagels, since nothing in the sauce needs to be measured precisely once you have made it a couple of times.

It helps to think of these as open-faced sandwiches rather than as small pizzas, because that is what decides which bagel to buy. Plain, sesame, onion and everything bagels all work the way any savory bread works under cheese. Sweet varieties do not, for the same reason you would not build a sandwich on a cinnamon raisin bagel and then add pepperoni to it. A wire rack over the baking sheet keeps the bottom from going soft, the oven rack goes to the second highest position, and 5 to 8 minutes under the broiler gets the cheese to light golden brown. Watch it the whole time; a broiler goes from pale to burnt in under a minute.

Tools Needed

• Mixing bowl
• Baking sheet
• Wire rack