Pull-Apart Pepperoni Pizza Muffins Recipe

Even the delightfully alliterative name lets you know that pull-apart pepperoni pizza muffins are going to be a lot of fun: Fun to say, fun to eat, and even fun to make since they're so easy to throw together. Essentially what you've got here is a kind of savory monkey bread, only instead of packing the biscuits, cheese, and pepperoni into a bundt pan, you'll be dividing the ingredients to make a dozen monkey muffins.

Recipe developer Deniz Vergara likes to serve these pepperoni pizza pull-aparts with a side salad to make a complete meal. She also suggests that you can form them into even smaller versions to use as appetizers, assuring us they're "always a crowd-pleaser." Although the muffins can be eaten on their own, she suggests dipping them into marinara sauce or pesto. For more accompaniments to the pizza-inspired flavors of these muffins, fans of Papa John's garlic sauce should check out our copycat recipe.

This recipe starts with a tube of refrigerated biscuits. The ones you want will come eight to a package and may be labeled "Jumbo." You will also need mozzarella, parmesan, and pepperoni to supply the pizza-like flavor, while olive oil cooking spray, butter, olive oil, garlic powder, Italian seasoning, and salt round out the list of ingredients.

Preheat the oven to 425 F.

Spray a 12-cup muffin tin with olive oil cooking spray and set aside.

Remove biscuits from the tube and cut each into 6 pieces.

In a large bowl, mix together the melted butter, olive oil, garlic powder, Italian seasoning, and salt.

Gently toss the biscuits in the mixture.

Add the mozzarella, pepperoni, and one tablespoon of the Parmesan. Mix to combine.

Use a 1/3 cup measuring cup to scoop the mixture evenly into the prepared muffin tin.

Bake on the center rack in the oven until lightly golden, about 10 to 14 minutes.

Cool the muffins in the tin on a wire rack for 3 minutes.

Run a spatula around the edge of the muffins and pop them out.

Sprinkle with the remaining 1 tablespoon of Parmesan cheese and serve. Add a side of warm marinara sauce, if using, for dipping.

If all 12 pizza muffins aren't eaten while they're still hot, you will need to heat them back up again because they are much tastier warm than cold. Vergara advises that you reheat the muffins in either an air fryer or a toaster oven for efficiency's sake. You can use your oven as well if you are warming up a large batch. Whichever appliance you choose, give the muffins about 6 to 8 minutes of cooking time at 350 F.

One tip Vergara has to share for reheating breads and biscuits is to mist them with a light coating of water. The water, she tells us, adds some necessary moisture that ensures that the bread doesn't dry out and become too hard or dense to enjoy. With just a little spritz, the moistened muffins will reheat so that they taste like you baked them fresh.

Oh, refrigerated biscuit dough, what a boon you are to humankind! Okay, perhaps that's a bit hyperbolic, but we're big fans of the stuff since there are so many great recipes that start by whacking that biscuit tube on the counter. (Which is in itself pretty fun to do.) Vergara says that she likes to use canned biscuits to make sausage and egg breakfast muffins, which could be done by swapping out the pepperoni in this recipe for the former and either replacing or supplementing the cheeses with a scrambled egg or two. She also likes to make apple cinnamon muffins. Just replace the meat, cheese, and savory seasonings with sauteed apples and a cinnamon sugar mixture.

You can also turn your canned biscuits into an easy no-knead monkey bread, or add berries and whipped cream to make shortcake. On the savory side of the spectrum, canned biscuits can also be twisted into pretzels or tied into garlic knots.