As you know, my favorite part about any holiday (after the meaningful stuff like family and togetherness, etc.) is the food. Actually, my favorite part of any given day just might be the food, but hey, to each her own. Years ago I decided I needed a festive, but still easy, holiday snack you could take to any party, so I came up with these Christmas Tree Spinach Dip Breadsticks, and thousands of you have made them since!
These yummy stuffed breadsticks start with a refrigerated pizza crust, the kind that comes in a tube, so they’re easy to make and take just over half an hour start to finish. You layer an easy homemade spinach dip in between two layers of pizza crust, then cut and twist to create a tree shape. The finished result is an impressive holiday appetizer that looks much harder to make than it actually is – that also tastes amazing!
I’ve been experimenting with a lot of quick doughs lately — where you can make the dough and eat within an hour — whether it be for bread sticks or pizza. After much trial and error (including a lot of dough that never even made its way into the oven)
INGREDIENTS
- 12 oz Frozen chopped spinach thawed and squeezed dry
- 6 oz cream cheese softened
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
- 1/4 teaspoon chili powder
- 1/4 teaspoon pepper
- 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
- 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
- 1 cup grated cheddar OR mozzarella cheese separated
- 1 tube refrigerated thin crust pizza crust
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 1/2 teaspoon Italian seasoning
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
INSTRUCTIONS
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
In a bowl, beat together the spinach and cream cheese.
Add garlic, salt, onion powder, chili powder, pepper, and Italian seasoning and beat to combine.
Add parmesan cheese and half of the cheddar or mozzarella cheese and beat to combine. (The other half of the cheddar or mozzarella cheese will be sprinkled over the filling when you shape the Christmas tree.)
To make the Christmas tree shape, unroll the pizza crust onto a sheet of parchment paper. Use a pizza cutter to cut it as shown into one larger tree shaped triangle and two smaller triangles. Move the smaller triangles to a second sheet of parchment paper with their straight edges touching to create a second triangle of dough that is the same shape as the first.
Refrigerated pizza dough unrolled on parchment paper with triangle marked on it
Spread the spinach dip across the second triangle you made and sprinkle it with the rest of the cheese. Flip the first triangle over on top so you have layers of pizza dough with spinach dip sandwiched between them.
Now you’ll make cuts, leaving about an inch in the center intact. Cut from near the center out to the side on both the left and right every inch or so to create slices.
Spinach dip in between two triangle of pizza dough, with slices cut horizontally from near the center to left and right sides
Grab each “slice” and twist it upwards. At the top where they are short you’ll only twist halfway around. At the bottom where they are longer you can do two or three full twists.
Slices on the breadstick triangle are twisted
Bake for about 22 minutes until quite golden brown on top and cooked through on the bottom.
Melt butter and stir in garlic salt and seasoning, then brush over breadsticks, and serve warm.