Do you remember eating these?
….or, maybe you still eat them? 😉
I used to eat Hot Pockets a lot (pre-vegetarian), especially during my college years. Never once did I look at the nutritional facts or the ingredients list, and quite frankly, I did not care to. Let’s just say…it’s not pretty! A couple of weeks ago I read a post on Kristin’s blog where she made buffalo chicken egg rolls. As I read further and further into the post, an idea to make homemade pizza pockets began to take shape in my mind. These pizza pockets would be vegetarian, of course, and would resemble their pizza Hot Pockets cousin. However, there would be a major difference: they would contain healthy, all-natural ingredients and I would know every single item that was going into them. Two thumbs up! 🙂
Homemade Pizza Pockets
Serves: 4 (2 pizza pockets each)
Ingredients
EVOO cooking spray
water (for cooking the onions and peppers)
1 clove of garlic, minced
1/2 yellow onion, diced
1/2 green bell pepper, diced
1/4 cup of sliced black olives
3/4 cup of sliced mushrooms, chopped
~ 2 cups of fresh spinach, chopped
3/4 cup of pizza sauce
1/2 tsp of pizza seasoning
8 egg roll wrappers
1/2 of a 7 oz package of shredded part-skim Italian or pizza cheese
Directions
1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with foil and spray with EVOO cooking spray.
2. Line a medium pan with a thin layer of water and heat it over medium-high heat until very hot. Add in garlic, onions, and green peppers and cook for approximately 5-7 minutes, or until they begin to get soft.
3. In a large bowl, combine onions, peppers, olives, mushrooms, spinach, pizza sauce, and pizza seasoning. Stir until well-combined.
4. Lay an egg roll wrapper out onto a flat surface. Brush the edges with water. Scoop about 1/4 cup to 1/2 cup of the pizza mixture onto the egg roll wrapper. Top with a sprinkle of cheese. It should look similar to this:
5. Fold up one corner of the wrapper, followed by each side of the wrapper, and then the final corner of the wrapper. Click on the link above to Kristin’s blog to see step-by-step pictures of this process.
6. Place the wrapped pizza pockets onto the sprayed, foil-lined baking sheet. Bake for 10 minutes, flip, spray with EVOO cooking spray, and bake for an additional 10 minutes.
The result….
So, my pizza pockets did not turn out exactly as planned. Some of the sauce broke through the wrappers, and for some reason only one side of each pizza pocket got extra crispy while the other side was just slightly crispy. They might not have been very pretty, but how did they taste?
These were GOOD! The filling was delicious and the side of the pizza pockets that got crispy was delicious! Had both sides gotten extra crispy in the oven, I definitely would have given this meal a 10/10. But for now, until I am able to figure out how to make them crispier (any suggestions?) and how to get all of the sauce to stay in the wrappers (maybe I used too much filling?), they will have to live with a 9/10 rating.
I served my homemade pizza pockets with a tasty side of green beans.
Suggestions for future batches of these pizza pockets: 1) Do not fill the wrappers too full as I think this caused them to lose some of the sauce; 2) Do not spray too heavily with EVOO cooking spray; and 3) Bake for a slightly longer time period on each side to make them crispier. Now it’s your turn. Experiment with your favorite Hot Pocket ingredients (pizza or not) and enjoy a healthier version of an old favorite.
