I made these tonight for the first time ever and they were a HIT! Everyone liked them. They do take some time to make, but if that means that no one was fussing at the table, then it was worth every second.
Ingredients:
1 T. olive oil
1/2 lb. Italian sausage
1/3 c. yellow onion, chopped
1 oz. fresh spinach
4 oz. cream cheese, room temperature
1/3 c. grated Parmesan, plus 1/4 c.
13.5 oz. refrigerated pizza dough, or make your own
Flour (for rolling out pizza dough)
1 egg, beaten
1 1/2 c. marinara, for dipping
Parchment paper
Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Heat olive oil in a skillet and add chopped onions. Cook for a few minutes and add Italian sausage. Cook for about five minutes or until sausage is throughly cooked and then add spinach. Cook until wilted.
Take pan off heat to cool for about ten minutes.
Add cream cheese and 1/3 c. parmesan. Stir to combine and set aside.
Roll out pizza dough on a lightly floured surface to a thin 20 by 12-inch rectangle. Cut the rectangle into four equal-sized rectangles.
Spoon the topping into each rectangle. (Make sure to not put the topping in the middle of the rectangle, but put the topping on one side since you are going to be folding it over.)
Fold the dough over the topping. Use a fork to seal and crimp the edges.
Carefully place the pizza pockets on parchment paper-lined baking sheet.
With a pastry brush, brush egg wash on the top of each pizza pocket.
Sprinkle with remaining parmesan cheese.
Bake for 15-17 minutes.
While those are cooking, warm up your marinara sauce for dipping.
Did I do anything differently? The original recipe did not call for onions which I added and it did call for arugula which I left out and added fresh spinach instead. I don’t do arugula.
What did the family think? Everyone loved it and ate it and our oldest thought it was genius that I put cream cheese in it. (That boys LOVES cream cheese. )
Important note: You really need to use parchment paper. I didn’t have any so I just used aluminum foil and the pizza pockets stuck to it in a very big way.