The Best Pepperoni Pizza Loaf Recipe

Pizza Loaf

If I had to pick one meal to eat before I die, it would hands down be pizza loaf with striped delight for dessert. This is my all-time favorite meal and not just because it’s nostalgic for me, because it’s delicious. It’s like pizza and like a calzone but better. And the best part of it is that you can customize it to your favorite toppings. Just make a couple of different loaves from one batch of dough and keep everyone happy! Or if you’re a superwoman like my mom, you can make 15 different pizza loaves. That’s what we did last weekend – played this Super Bowl Squares game, enjoyed some buffalo chicken dip roll ups, and ate pizza loaf. So much fun.

Pizza Loaf Ingredients

The main ingredients you’ll need totally depends on you. What are your favorite pizza toppings? I bet they taste even better inside of a pizza loaf than on top of a pizza. Here’s what to buy if you want to make pizza loaf!

Pizza dough – homemade or store bought (like actual pizza dough, not a pre-made crust) works. This is the homemade pizza dough recipe my mom uses and it’s AMAZINGPizza toppings – whatever you want will likely work inside of pizza loaf. Pepperoni, olives, sausage, bacon, veggies, ham and pineapple, really whatever. Mozzarella cheese – lots and lots of cheese! Pizza sauce – again you can use homemade or store-bought. Pizza sauce is for dipping the pizza loaf in, not adding into the pizza loaf (that’ll make it soggy). Butter – This isn’t a requirement but swiping it across the top after the pizza loaf comes out of the oven does make it taste better

Pizza Loaf Alternatives

Want to make pizza loaf but with something other than traditional pizza toppings? Here are some of our favorite ways to make it with other ingredients.

Breakfast Loaf – scrambled eggs, bacon, and cheese Sandwich Loaf – your preferred lunch meat and sliced cheese Buffalo chicken – buffalo chicken with mozzarella cheese and dipped in ranch dressing

How to Make Pizza Loaf

Making pizza loaf is so easy, especially if you just buy store-bought dough. Homemade is better but store-bought definitely makes it faster. Here’s all you do to make it!

1 – Roll out the pizza dough.

Roll it out into a long oval shape. Don’t do a square or circle – it has to be an oval/rectangle so you can braid properly. Kind of like I did for these pepperoni rolls.

2 – Top the pizza dough.

This part is important. Line your toppings up down the middle of the pizza dough leaving a few inches of dough all the way around so you can pull the braid over. If you top the entire pizza dough, you won’t be able to braid it and that’s a no-go. One other note – make sure to put the cheese on the top, not the bottom. You can do both if you want (not necessary) but if you put the cheese on the bottom and not the top, the toppings just don’t stay together as well. It’s weird but true.

Step 3 – Cut the dough.

Using kitchen scissors, cut one-inch cuts along both sides of the dough, leaving the ends uncut.

Step 4 – Braid the dough.

Starting on one end, pull the one-inch cuts of dough across the toppings, alternating sides. I highly recommend watching the video in this post to see this part because it’s easy but sounds confusing when you just read it.

Step 5 – Bake the pizza.

Bake the pizza in the oven at 425 degrees for 15-20 minutes or until the dough is fully cooked and lightly browned. Remove from the oven and butter the top before serving hot. You don’t necessarily have to butter the top but it definitely helps.

Step 6 – Slice the loaf.

While still hot, slice with a pizza cutter into slices about 2 inches thick and serve hot with your favorite pizza sauce for dipping. Or serve it at room temperature. It’ll still be delicious, promise.