Pepperoni Pizza Muffins #MuffinMonday

Just like a slice of pizza but in muffin form, these pepperoni pizza muffins are great for breakfast, brunch, lunch or snacking. 

Growing up, we didn’t have the ready option of take-out or pizza delivery or at least if we did, my mom didn’t take advantage of such a thing. If we wanted pizza, it meant going to a pizza parlor or baking it at home. 

Mom would use the Chef Boyardee pizza kit which included everything you needed, even a can of grated cheese to make a big rectangular pizza. Good memories, good times. 

Nowadays, whenever we make our fancy sourdough crust pizza at home, I think about how much I enjoyed that box kit pizza – special treat! - and how far we’ve come with options online and in the neighborhood to buy pizza. Despite those, homemade pizza is still the best! 

If you don’t have time for yeast dough though, these pepperoni pizza muffins will fill in beautifully.

Pepperoni Pizza Muffins

If you can’t find the julienne-cut sun-dried tomatoes, substitute the whole ones and slice them up! I found mine in the back of the pantry where they’d been languishing for a while. They darkened but still tasted good, so waste not want not but next time, once opened, I think I’ll pop them in the freezer to keep the color looking bright. 

Ingredients

1/2 oz or 14g sun-dried tomatoes, julienne cut

1 1/2 cups or 190g flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt

1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper

1/2 teaspoon Italian seasonings

3/4 cup or 180ml milk

1/4 cup or 60ml canola oil

1 egg

2/3 cup or 156ml pizza sauce, divide into 2, half for muffin batter and balance for topping

3 1/2 oz or 100g mozzarella, plus extra for topping, if desired

1 3/4 oz or 50g pepperoni, plus extra for topping, if desired

Method

Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C and generously grease your muffin tin or use paper liners.

Pour hot water over the sun-dried tomatoes to rehydrate them. Leave for 10 minutes, then drain well.

 

Cut your pepperoni into pieces and grate your cheese.  

In a large bowl, mix together your flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, crushed red pepper and dried oregano.

Add the cut pepperoni to the flour mixture and use your hands to toss and coat so you can separate the pieces of pepperoni. 

Do the same with the grated cheese and then the drained sun-dried tomatoes. 

In a separate bowl, whisk the egg, milk, and oil together.

Add your wet ingredients to your dry and mix just until it is just combined.

Gently fold in half of the pizza sauce. 

Spoon the batter into your prepared muffin tin.

Divide the remaining pizza sauce between the muffin cups.  

Top with one pepperoni each, then some cheese and a pinch of Italian seasonings. 

Bake in your preheated oven for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

 

Allow the muffins to cool for a few minutes then remove from the muffin pan and cool on a rack. 

Enjoy!

It’s the last Monday of the month so that means it’s time for my Muffin Monday friends to share muffin recipes! Check out the links below.

• Chocolate Zucchini Muffins from Jolene's Recipe Journal
• Gingered Lemon Poppyseed Muffins from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Mango Muffins from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Passion Fruit Poppy Seed Muffins from A Messy Kitchen
• Pepperoni Pizza Muffins from Food Lust People Love
• Sourdough Mango Pineapple Muffins from Zesty South Indian Kitchen

#MuffinMonday is a group of muffin loving bakers who get together once a month to bake muffins. You can see all of our lovely muffins by following our Pinterest board. Updated links for all of our past events and more information about Muffin Monday can be found on our home page. 

Pin these Pepperoni Pizza Muffins!

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Bacon Cheddar Spinach Waffles

These bacon cheddar spinach waffles are the perfect savory breakfast or dinner, plain, buttered, with syrup or even topped with a sunny-side up egg. 

Despite the savory nature of these waffles, we very much enjoyed them with Pearl Milling (formerly Aunt Jemima) butter lite pancake syrup, which our family prefers to real maple syrup. I know, I know, it’s sacrilege to those from maple producing areas, but the taste buds can’t be convinced otherwise. We ate these waffles as breakfast for dinner one evening and the sweet syrup with the savory waffles was perfection.

Then, the very next morning, I popped a couple of the leftover waffles in the toaster and fried a sunny-side up egg to top them with, along with a couple of pats of butter. The runny yolk ran into the buttered waffle holes in a glorious way! Another fabulous meal. Highly recommend, 10/10.  Grilled tomatoes optional but they did go nicely.

Bacon Cheddar Spinach Waffles

My frozen spinach is whole leaf so I chop it into smaller bits once thawed. If your frozen spinach is already chopped, you can skip that step. Do not skip the step of pressing out excess liquid once it’s thawed. No cheddar? Substitute your favorite semi-hard cheese. In my Belgian waffle maker, this batter makes 11 square waffles.  

Ingredients

3 1/2 oz or 100g frozen spinach, measured frozen, then thawed

1 3/4 cups or 220g flour

1 tablespoon sugar

1 teaspoon double-acting baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda or bicarbonate of soda

1⁄2 teaspoon salt

a few generous grinds of black pepper

3 1/2 oz or 100g mature (sharp) cheddar

3 1/2 oz or 100g real bacon crumbles

2 cups or 480ml buttermilk

1/3 cup or 80ml canola or other light oil, plus extra for greasing the waffle maker

2 eggs

Method

Squeeze any excess liquid out of your thawed spinach then chop it with a sharp knife. 

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients.

Grate your cheddar and add it along with the bacon crumbles to the dry mixture. Toss to coat.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, oil and eggs. Add in the chopped spinach and stir well to combine.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and fold until well combined. 

Preheat your waffle maker as per manufacturer’s instructions.

Using a pastry brush, grease your hot waffle maker with some canola or other light oil.

 

Pour batter into the center of the lower half of the waffle maker, being careful to leave room for when the batter spreads out as you lower the lid and also for when the waffle starts to rise when baking.

Close the lid and watch for the signal that your waffle is cooking. On my waffle maker, the light is red while it heats up. It goes green when it is ready for batter, red when it is cooking and then green again when the waffle is ready.  

I leave the waffles in just a little bit longer after the light turns green the second time so the waffles are nice and crispy.  But if you like them less crunchy, by all means take them out earlier.

Put the waffles single file on a pan in a warm oven to keep warm if you aren’t serving them to hungry hordes as soon as they are ready. 

Repeat the process until all the batter has become waffles. 

Serve them plain, buttered, with syrup or topped with an egg. Refrigerate any leftover waffles and rewarm them in your toaster or oven to serve. 

Enjoy! 

It’s Sunday FunDay and we are celebrating National Waffle Day which happens to be today! If you have a waffle maker, I suggest you do the same. Check out all of the links below.

• Apple Cinnamon Waffles from Mayuri's Jikoni
• Bacon Cheddar Spinach Waffles from Food Lust People Love
• Gingerbread Waffles from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Gluten Free Waffles with Poached Pears in Balsamic Reduction from Sid's Sea Palm Cooking
• Keto Spiced Omelette Waffles from Sneha's Recipe 
• Oatmeal Waffles from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Protein Waffles from Our Good Life
• Waffle Cupcakes from Amy's Cooking Adventures

 

We are a group of food bloggers who believe that Sunday should be a family fun day, so every Sunday we share recipes that will help you to enjoy your day. If you're a blogger interested in joining us, just visit our Facebook group and request to join.

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Family Favorite Tuna Salad

Hard-boiled egg yolks mashed into the mayo/mustard mixture mimics the flavor of homemade mayonnaise in this delicious family favorite tuna salad with a hint of onion.

In my family, tuna salad and chicken salad are both made with hard-boiled eggs. That’s just the way we’ve always made them and I didn’t realize that not everybody did until I was fully grown up because in the south, we all add eggs.

The first time it was brought to my attention was when I made tuna party sandwiches to share at a non-profit board meeting of the American Association of Malaysia, scheduled for lunchtime. All the board members brought finger foods so we filled our plates and the meeting was called to order. 

All of a sudden, the president of the board exclaimed, “Who put tuna in their egg salad?” “On the contrary,” I responded, “I put eggs in my tuna salad! You don’t?” She declared that from then on she certainly would, and after a good laugh and a discussion about who did and didn't put eggs and where in the States we were from, we all got back to business.

Not a very scientific poll but it seemed that those from the southern United States always add eggs. Those from the north or midwest mostly don't. Please leave me a comment yay or nay on eggs in tuna salad and where you are from. I'm just curious.

Family Favorite Tuna Salad

I grate my onion so that there aren’t little crunchy bits in my tuna salad, which I abhor. Grating the onion also creates some onion juice, giving the salad a nice onion flavor throughout. If you don’t mind little crunchy bits, feel free to mince the onion instead and, bonus, you won’t have to share your tuna salad with me.  

Ingredients

4 eggs, hard-boiled, cooled and peeled

1/2 cup or 115g mayonnaise

1 tablespoon yellow mustard

1/4 small onion

2 cans (5 oz or 142g) tuna chunks in brine or spring water

1/4-1/2 teaspoon cayenne, depending on your spice level

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1/4 teaspoon (or to taste) fine sea salt

Method

Cut the egg whites around the circumference of the yolks. Remove the yolks and put them in a small mixing bowl. Set aside the whites.

Mash the egg yolks with a fork, adding in a few spoons of the mayonnaise.

Once the yolks are relatively smooth, add in the rest of the mayonnaise and mustard. Mix until completely homogeneous. 

Grate the onion, making sure that you catch any juice which should also go into the mixture. You can do this on a saucer with a regular grater or directly into the mayo bowl with a microplane. 

Add the black pepper, cayenne and salt and stir.

Using a sharp knife, cut the egg whites into irregular pieces, adding them to the bowl. Stir well. 

Open your cans of tuna and use the lids to drain the water, squeezing a little. You don’t want the tuna too wet or the tuna salad will be runny. 

Add the tuna to the mayo bowl. 

Stir gently to mix it in. It’s nice to still have some small chunks of tuna so try not to mash it too much. 

Taste the tuna salad. Add a little more salt and pepper, if desired. 

This tuna salad is perfect as a sandwich filling but it can also be served with crackers or used to fill a ripe tomato or an avocado half. 

Enjoy! 

It’s Sunday FunDay and today we are sharing sandwich recipes to celebrate National Sandwich Month. Many thanks to our host, Camilla of Culinary Cam. Check out the links below.

• Caramel Pulled Pork Banh Mi Sandwiches by Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Chicken Caesar Wraps by Amy's Cooking Adventures
• Family Favorite Tuna Salad by Food Lust People Love
• Grilled Cheese Extra Ordinary by Sid's Sea Palm Cooking
• Hung Curd Veggie Sandwich by Sneha's Recipe
• Pie Iron Philly Cheesesteak Sandwiches by Day in the Life on the Farm
• Sunflower Pesto Turkey Sandwich by Our Good Life

 

We are a group of food bloggers who believe that Sunday should be a family fun day, so every Sunday we share recipes that will help you to enjoy your day. If you're a blogger interested in joining us, just visit our Facebook group and request to join.

Pin our Family Favorite Tuna Salad!

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