Happy Friday aka Happy Pre-Weekend! I feel like I’ve been waiting all week for this day to come around. Let’s reminisce about some food I made last weekend. Specifically breakfast food. Pizza breakfast food. Mini pizza breakfast food. On pretzel rolls. Yesssss.
Originally I was going to do these on English muffins but Jake and I had bought 4 soft pretzel sticks at Trader Joe’s and they were begging to be used. I had to indulge them.
I really like the mini pretzel rolls because the inside is nice and soft and the outside has a really nice crust. It’s big enough for just one person but not too large to make you feel like a piggie. Oink, oink.
Speaking of oinks… we also grabbed a package of the bacon ends and pieces. It’s applewood smoked bacon and it comes in this smooshed looking tiny package. It’s only $2.99 at Trader Joe’s (I swear they don’t sponsor me) and this is what it mostly looks like. Lots of partial strips and a few other pieces (the photo above is about half the package). The bacon is thick, meaty, and has a nice smoky flavor. Good deal if you don’t care what your bacon looks like. I didn’t since it was getting torn up anyway.
I hallowed out a little bit of the bread so a little extra marinara sauce could go down. I was too lazy to make my own that day so I used a jarred sauce. I also cooked up two hash brown patties (you know, those long rectangle ones like they sell at McDonald’s) for the little pizzas.
These are topped with marinara sauce, those little fresh mozzarella balls sliced in half, pieces of hash brown, pieces of bacon, ricotta cheese and a little dash of Italian seasonings.
The mini breakfast pizzas are cooked in an oven set to 375 for about 15 minutes, or until the cheese is melted and bubbly.
I could have even cooked this a little longer, but I was hungry already!
You could change up the mini breakfast pizzas easily by adding scrambled eggs, veggies, breakfast sausage, country gravy…. so many possibilities for breakfast! The pretzel rolls make these like mini breakfast french bread pizzas, even. But that name seemed way too long.
- 8 slices of thick cut bacon
- 2 hash brown patties
- 4 pretzel sticks, cut in half
- 1 jar marinara sauce
- 16 mini mozzarella balls, sliced in half
- ricotta cheese
- Italian seasoning
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
- Cook bacon and then dice into medium sized pieces.
- Drain pan of bacon and reserve a tiny bit to cook the two hash brown patties in. Season with salt and pepper and then chop into bite sized pieces.
- Hollow out a little bit of the bread from the pretzel rolls.
- Top pretzel rolls with marinara sauce. Then top with four halves of mozzarella cheese. Add bacon and hash brown pieces. Top with a few dollops of ricotta cheese and a sprinkle of Italian seasonings.
- Bake for 15 minutes. Optional: use broiler to make the cheese extra brown and bubbly.
- Serve immediately and try not to burn the roof of your mouth with hot cheese!
I didn’t know about the pretzel bread or the bacon ends at Trader Joe’s! You might have changed my life a little bit. Also just discovered French bread pizzas a couple weeks ago when someone was making one for lunch in the toaster oven at work. What a neat idea. Go America 😉
The pretzel bread (they call them pretzel sticks, I don’t know why, I think of sticks as thinner) is really good. The bacon ends is also life changing. It’s the same as the more expensive bacon… but you know… pieces! Sometimes there are fattier pieces but that doesn’t bother me.
Oh man you just discovered French bread pizza! Homemade is obviously 1000 times better, but yeah… go ‘Murca!
Very cool breakfast idea! It’s nice to switch it up from time to time. I will need to track down those pretzel rolls, yum!
Hi Lauren! Thank you! They’re easy to put together and are pretty tasty. The pretzel rolls are cheap, too – like $1.29 each or something. If they don’t have them out, usually we’ll ask someone and they’ll grab some from the back for us (so nice). Happy breakfasting!