These homemade Pizza Pockets are so easy and fun to make and eat! The whole family can get involved stuffing their pocket with their favorite pizza ingredients too.
Did anyone grow up eating pizza pops or pizza pockets? They were a fun treat and something we used to keep on hand in the freezer just in case we felt like snack. The melty cheese and sauce that would ooze out of those pockets was my absolute favorite part!
It’s no surprising that I had to find a way to make them myself.
We love pizza around here! A quick browse of this site and you can see all the fun ways we enjoy it including Breakfast Pizza. I mean, who doesn’t love the sound of pizza for breakfast?
These homemade Pizza Pockets are wonderfully cheesy and saucy. They evoke all the memories of the treats I use to enjoy as a kid but are made with healthy, wholesome ingredients I already have on hand. No preservatives or questionable ingredients, just delicious pizza flavor in a handheld pocket.
These easy pizza pockets are the perfect meal or snack. Easy to whip up for dinner but also great for meal prep. I highly recommend having a freezer stash ready to go! I use homemade dough that has no yeast and so it comes together quickly and easily in a stand mixer.
These Pizza Pockets are also easily customizable so everyone in the family can make their own variation if they like. It’s so fun gathering the kids in the kitchen to make their own pocket. Getting them involved in making the dinner also makes it far more likely that they will actually eat it too!
Ingredients in Homemade Pizza Pockets
- Flour: all purpose flour.
- Seasoning: Salt, onion powder.
- Baking powder
- Parmesan cheese
- Butter
- Eggs & Milk: Used to enrich the dough.
- Pizza sauce (or pasta sauce)
- Cheese: freshly shredded. Using fresh mozzarella will yield that melty cheese filling we love to see in a pizza pocket. The next best thing is to freshly grate a block of mozzarella cheese or a similar melty cheese like marble, provolone, or Gouda. While the pre-shredded store-bought cheese is an easy swap, that cheese tends to be covered in a starch which prevents it from clumping together and this makes it less ooey gooey than shredding it yourself.
- Toppings: You can easily customize these with your favorite toppings (or fillings, in the case of these pockets). Some typical toppings we include in ours include:
- pepperoni (cut into smaller pieces)
- bacon
- veggies (spinach, mushrooms, peppers, red onion, black olives or whatever you like)
**Note: Ingredient quantities and full instructions are in the recipe card at the end of this post.**
How to make Homemade Pizza Pockets
- Make the dough. In the bowl of a food processor, add the flour, Parmesan cheese, salt, onion powder, and baking powder. Pulse a few times to combine. Add the butter and pulse until the mixture resembles a coarse meal. Add the eggs and milk and pulse until it forms together as a ball. Transfer onto a floured surface and knead by hand until it comes together into a smooth dough.
- Divide the dough into individual portions. Using a floured rolling pin, roll the dough out into a large rectangle of the desired thickness. Use a bowl to cut out circles of the desired size. I use a soup bowl to make larger pockets the size of a store-bought pizza pop but you can make smaller ones too. Collect the scraps and re-roll to make another pocket if there is enough. For less uniform but easier to make pockets: instead of rolling out the dough in a rectangle, simply divide it into 8 equal portions. Form each portion into a ball and then roll it out with a rolling pin to form a circle.
- Add the pizza toppings. Place a tablespoon of sauce on half of each circle being careful not to go right up to the edge. Add a tablespoon of cheese and any desired toppings to each half.
- Form the half-moon pockets and seal them. Fold the half of the circle with no toppings over the half the has the toppings and press down with your fingers to seal. Use the tines of a fork to seal them if you like or pinch and fold the dough to seal it. Sealing with a fork will seal it better though and may prevent them from bursting open like my do but I don’t mind.
- Bake. Brush with olive oil or melted butter and bake in the oven at 400F for 15-18 minutes or until golden brown.
Storing leftovers and reheating
Once cooled completely, the pizza pockets can be placed in an airtight container and stored in the fridge for a couple days. To reheat them, place them back on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and heat them in the oven at 350F until heated through.
For longer storage, I recommend freezing them.
Freezing Pizza Pockets
These pockets can be frozen easily. Simply bake them and let them cool. Then transfer them to a freezer safe container or freezer safe ziploc bag and freeze. They can be stored in the freezer for a few months.
When you are ready to enjoy one, place it in the oven on a parchment lined baking sheet at 350F until it is warmed through.
I hope you enjoy these homemade pizza pockets as much as we do! Let me know your favorite toppings to use in these handheld pizza pockets in the comments below.
-Cathy
Looking for more pizza flavored recipes? Be sure to check out these recipes:
Pita Pizzas (another great pizza meal that is ready in minutes!)
Pizza-Stuffed Pretzel Bites
Low Carb Pizza Stuffed Zucchini Boats
Zucchini Pizza Bites
Pizza Stuffed Mini Peppers
You may also like these other stuffed pocket meal ideas:
Jamaican Beef Patties
Beef Empanadas
Pizza Pockets
Ingredients
For the Dough
- 3 cups all purpose flour
- 2 tablespoons Parmesan cheese
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
- 1/2 cup butter cold, cubed
- 2 large eggs
- 3/4 cup + 2 tablespoons milk
Filling
- 1 cup pizza sauce
- 1 cup mozzarella shredded (or another melty cheese like marble, provolone, or Gouda)
- 1/2 cup pepperoni slices chopped into smaller pieces (optional)
- veggies of choice (optional)
- 2 teaspoons olive oil or melted butter
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400F and line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.
- In the bowl of a food processor, add the flour, Parmesan cheese, salt, onion powder, and baking powder. Pulse a few times to combine. Add the butter and pulse until the mixture resembles a coarse meal.
- Add the eggs and milk and pulse until it forms together as a ball. Transfer onto a floured surface and knead by hand until it comes together into a smooth dough.
- Using a floured rolling pin, roll the dough out into a large rectangle of the desired thickness. Use a bowl to cut out circles of the desired size. I use a soup bowl to make larger pockets the size of a store-bought pizza pop but you can make smaller ones too. Collect the scraps and re-roll to make another pocket if there is enough. For less uniform but easier to make pockets: instead of rolling out the dough in a rectangle, simply divide it into 8 equal portions. Form each portion into a ball and then roll it out with a rolling pin to form a circle.
- Place a tablespoon of sauce on half of each circle being careful not to go right up to the edge. Add a tablespoon of cheese and any desired toppings to each half.
- Fold the half of the circle with no toppings over the half the has the toppings and press down with your fingers to seal. Use the tines of a fork to seal them if you like or pinch and fold the dough to seal it. Sealing with a fork will seal it better though and may prevent them from bursting open like mine do but I don't mind.
- Brush with olive oil or melted butter and bake in the oven for 15-18 minutes or until golden brown.
Note: Metric ingredient measurements are provided as a courtesy using a third-party calculator and are rounded to the nearest unit. The recipes provided on this site have not been tested with metric measurements and their accuracy cannot be verified.
Nutrition
The nutritional information provided is based on third-party calculations and is an estimate only. Accurate nutritional facts will vary based on the particular brands used, portion sizes, measurement accuracy and more.
need to try these,think grandkids will like. They look good.
Thank you! You really can’t go wrong with pizza, in my opinion!!