Made from 6 ingredient homemade pizza dough, these easy cheesy breadsticks are a totally irresistible side dish or snack. Brush the dough with a little butter, garlic, herb seasoning, then top with lots of mozzarella cheese. Less than 15 minutes bake time.
To say these homemade breadsticks are delicious is a gigantic understatement, especially when dipped in your favorite marinara or pizza sauce. These cheesy breadsticks are covered with butter, garlic & herbs, and mozzarella cheese. Bake until golden and you have a side that majorly competes with the main dish.
Does any other food even exist when you have cheese + garlic + bread? (Homemade cheese bread, homemade garlic bread, and asiago-crusted skillet bread agree—no other food matters.)
Cheesy Breadsticks Dough
You can make these breadsticks with 1 pound of store-bought or homemade pizza dough. My homemade pizza dough yields about 2 lbs of dough, which is enough for 2 pizzas or 1 pizza (BBQ chicken pizza, anyone?) and 1 batch of cheesy breadsticks. If you only need 1 batch of breadsticks, freeze the other half of dough for another time. You will want to make these cheesy breadsticks again. (You can also make stromboli with the other half of dough.)
And if you enjoy baking with whole wheat flour, you could absolutely prepare these cheesy breadsticks with whole wheat pizza dough instead. That recipe also yields about 2 lbs of dough. Even though store-bought dough is super convenient, I urge you to try homemade pizza dough sometime. The dough requires 6 basic ingredients and about 60-90 minutes to rise.
Most of the “work” is hands-off and the flavor is *outstanding.*
Let’s Make Homemade Cheesy Breadsticks
Once you have your pizza dough ready, here’s what comes next:
- Shape: Shape the dough into a rectangle. The dough wants to be round, so do your best to shape into a rectangle that’s around 9×13 inches. Doesn’t need to be perfect. Cheesy breadsticks taste awesome no matter what shape!
- Top: Top the dough with melted butter, garlic, and Italian seasoning blend. Dried basil or your favorite herb works too. Sprinkle with a generous amount of cheese. I love mozzarella cheese, but you can use your favorite.
- Bake: Bake the breadsticks at a very high temperature so the cheese melts and the edges crisp up. These breadsticks bake in less than 15 minutes!
Flavor Tip: Sprinkle cornmeal on the lined baking sheet. Cornmeal adds a lovely crisp.
Quick Video Tutorial
These cheesy breadsticks are easier than you expect and the best addition to pizza night. And if you make and freeze a few batches of homemade pizza dough ahead of time, you can have this cheesy side dish/snack at your disposal ALL THE TIME.
Wait, is that a good or bad thing?!?
PS: If you need an awesome homemade pizza sauce recipe, I’ve made and love this one. These are also great for a sauce dipper with my slow cooker turkey meatballs.
So You Like Bread & Cheese?
Join the club. Here are even more recipes:
- Ham & Cheese Pockets
- Cheese Bread
- Rosemary Garlic Pull Apart Bread
- Soft Pretzel Bites with Spicy Nacho Cheese Sauce
- Homemade Pizza Rolls and Pizza Pull-Apart Rolls
- Jalapeño Cheddar No-Knead Bread
- Homemade Stromboli
Need to skip the cheese? Try these homemade breadsticks instead.
Print
Cheesy Breadsticks Made from Pizza Dough
- Prep Time: 2 hours, 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 15 minutes
- Total Time: 2 hours, 30 minutes
- Yield: 16 small breadsticks
- Category: Appetizer
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
Made from 6 ingredient homemade pizza dough, these easy cheesy breadsticks are a completely irresistible side dish or snack. You can freeze half of the dough for another night. Only 15 minute bake time!
Ingredients
- 1 lb store-bought or homemade pizza dough*
- 2 Tablespoons (28g) unsalted butter, melted
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder or 2 minced garlic cloves
- 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning blend or dried basil
- 1 and 3/4 cups shredded mozzarella cheese*
- optional: sprinkle of cornmeal for dusting the pan
- optional: marinara or pizza sauce for dipping
Instructions
- Prepare pizza dough through step 4. Punch the risen dough down to release the air bubbles. Divide in half. (Make a pizza with the other half or freeze half of the dough for another time. See dough recipe for freezing instructions.)
- Preheat oven to 425°F (218°C).
- On a lightly floured work surface or on a piece of parchment paper or a silicone baking mat sprinkled with cornmeal (I skipped the optional cornmeal in the video above), roll the dough out into a 9×13-inch rectangle. The dough will want to be round, so do your best to shape it into a thin rectangle around this size—it doesn’t have to be perfect.
- Combine the butter, garlic, and Italian seasoning together in a small bowl. Brush over shaped dough. Cover evenly with shredded cheese.
- Bake for 12-15 minutes or until the edges are golden brown. If desired, turn the oven to broil for the last minute to really brown the top.
- Slice into breadsticks and serve plain or with marinara sauce. Cover leftover breadsticks tightly and store in the refrigerator for up to 1 week. Reheat as you prefer. Baked breadsticks can be frozen up to 3 months.
Notes
- Make Ahead Instructions: If using my homemade pizza crust, you can make it ahead of time and freeze it. After the pizza dough rises and you punch it down, lightly coat all sides of the dough ball(s) with nonstick spray or olive oil. Place the dough ball(s) into individual zipped-top bag(s) and seal tightly, squeezing out all the air. Freeze for up to 3 months. To thaw, place the frozen pizza dough in the refrigerator for about 8 hours or overnight. When ready to make pizza, remove the dough from the refrigerator and allow to rest for 30 minutes on the counter before using.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): Rolling Pin | Baking Sheet | Silicone Baking Mat or Parchment Paper | Pastry Brush | Pizza Cutter
- Pizza Dough: You can make these breadsticks with 1 pound of store-bought or homemade pizza dough. My homemade pizza dough yields about 2 lbs of dough, which is enough for 2 pizzas, 2 batches of breadsticks, or 1 pizza and 1 batch of breadsticks. Toppings listed are enough for 1 batch of breadsticks. If you only need 1 batch of breadsticks, freeze the other half of dough for another time. All freezing and thawing instructions are in my pizza dough recipe.
- Cheese: Any shredded cheese you love works. Mozzarella is fantastic with the butter, garlic, and herb topping.
- Reference my Baking with Yeast Guide for answers to common yeast FAQs.
Reader Comments and Reviews
This is by far and away the best cheesy bread recipe I have tried!! Forget you, Little Caesars, we’re making these from now on
not enough height to be a breadstick, it was more like just a cheese pizza. I even made my rectangle smaller than indicated. It was okay just not what I wanted to make.
Just finished making and testing this recipe. My husband and I really enjoyed it. Second half in the freezer for next time. The pizza dough is just how I like it soft in the centre with a little bit of chew on the crust. Thank you Sally. I always check your recipes first when choosing something to bake . You haven’t let me down yet.
This was so good. So cheesy my goodness
can you use fresh mozeralla
Hi Hadley! We do find shredded works best here, but a fresh mozzarella should work as well.
I used 00 flour for the pizza dough for this recipe. Turned out perfect.
Made your pizza dough recipe & followed your link to breadsticks – this is the half that wasn’t used for the pizza. Topped with a combo of half shredded mozzarella & half shredded parmesan ’cause the pizza required most of the mozzarella. Baked these on the top rack of my oven while heating up my pizza stone – yes, that was 50 degrees hotter the recipe & on a convection bake cycle as well – but it turned out fine – baked perfectly in 10 minutes under a watchful eye. These are very good breadsticks – the dough is easy to make – I’ll be doing these again.
We loved this recipe despite my many many pizza dough recipes from cookbooks. Thanks Sally for ALL your recipes and your site. I’m sure it’s tons of work…but I have not had a single one of yours yet that my family didn’t love! Thanks again!
Thank you so much for making and trusting our recipes, Dawn!
Wow! I found your website a few months ago. I’ve made many recipes which were all good but this one takes the cake! I used your pizza dough to make the cheese sticks. The dough was soft and perfect for the tasty cheese sticks. My kids thought I had bought cheese sticks some where and brought them home, lol. Thanks for all the great recipes!
I have made to recipe of the pizza dough and love it. I only make one pizza at a time so I have frozen the other half a couple of times. I decided to use both doughs I had frozen to make the breadsticks. One dough worked great, but the other dough when baked didn’t puff up like the other one. The dough that didn’t was 2 months old. Would that be the reason? I let it thaw overnight and rest 30 minutes before rolling out. It still felt cold when rolling out, should I have let it rest longer?
Hi Marsha, We are go glad you enjoy this recipe! The dough should be ok to freeze for 3 months, so it sounds like it was simply too cold. It’s possible that your refrigerator is colder or even the air in your kitchen is cooler. If you try it again, try letting it sit out longer before baking.
Made the crust for your Stromboli recipe. Amazing! Delicious! EASY! Why have I been so terrified to make dough from scratch? Thanks a million- really! I can’t wait to make the crust again for the homemade cheese bread! Thanks for the videos too! I felt confident after watching them.
We’re thrilled to hear that you’re enjoying our recipes, Sue!
These were great!!! thank you so much for the recipe. the dough was delicious, crisp on the outside and soft inside!
Hello Sally,
What can I substitute for the melted butter. Would you believe that I don’t like butter, hahaha!!!!
Hi Katherine, Olive oil would work!
I absolutely love this recipe! It is so easy to make the pizza dough (I’m never buying store bought again). I make these cheesy breadsticks at least once a week at the request of my kiddos.
Made these today, used half the dough for these and the other half for your homemade stromboli. My husband and daughter both loved these! So easy and so good! What a good simple recipe to whip up for any occasion! Thanks for another great recipe Sally!
Wow! We started making your pizza dough this spring while hunkered down and I decided to try this tonight. Big hit! The pizza isn’t even out of the oven yet and these are almost gone! Will definitely make these again, and again, and again……
Hi Sally! You know what, I’ve been doing the homemade hawaiian pizza countless times and my family loves it! Then I chanced upon this recipe and may I ask if I can just do this without the cheese? Just as garlic breadsticks? Also, do you have a recipe of the marinara sauce of this?
Hi Denise- yes, you can make these breadsticks without cheese. There’s a link to the marinara sauce recipe we use in the post- you’ll find it right below the video tutorial. For another garlic bread recipe option, your family might enjoy our garlic knots! Thrilled the Hawaiian pizza is a favorite!
The recipe is very easy to follow and it turned out amazing!
Delicious.
O-M-Geez! These are so good and just the right texture—crisp on the outside and chewy on the inside. Now if I could just get my pizza crust to turn out like this.
I decided to try this recipe out the other night for dinner. I was a little hesitant because I haven’t had good luck with making my own pizza dough. I told my husband that I was making cheesy bread sticks and he walked up behind me when I pulled them out of the oven and exclaimed “They actually LOOK like cheesy breadsticks”! He loves getting breadsticks from pizza places and he was beyond thrilled. Thank you for another yummy recipe!
I just made these and used the other half for pizza! The recipes you have for the dough, pizza, and breadsticks are better than anyplace you can order them! My husband asks for the pizza all the time! You really should open up a bakery! It would be so amazing! Congratulations on your second pregnancy! Thank you for all the work you do to bring us such delicious things! Also, I have ms and if I can make your recipes anyone can!
I’ve made this twice in two weeks: once for pizza, and again for breadsticks. I’m a really bad cook, but these recipes were easy and really delicious. Thanks for teaching me to not fear bread…cheers!
My husband and i have made these just about every weekend love them better then domino’s. My husband own a domino’s he loves them thanks.
I’m planning on making these for a get together with friends this Saturday, and will be doing a full batch (so I’m estimating around 32 bread sticks?). I was wondering whether I could switch up the flavors a little? I’m thinking half with mozzarella and all that, and then for the other half I would like to do a barbecue one. I was thinking using barbecue sauce in place of the tomato sauce, and then maybe top it with same ham/bacon. What do you think, Sally? Would that work out OK? Thanks in advance! 🙂
That sounds delicious, Erin! It will definitely work with different toppings like BBQ sauce and ham/bacon. Sounds so good!
So good! These did not last long!
Made these for Super Bowl Sunday and it was my first time making dough from scratch. This recipe was incredibly easy to follow and the breadsticks were out of this world!
I made these on Sunday for the Super Bowl, they are delicious. The dough is is light and airy and easy to make. Thank you for this terrific recipe. They are absolutely as easy to make as you said.
I live in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada and THESE are called garlic fingers! You can only find them on menus on the East Coast, and we serve them with this sauce called donair sauce, which is essentially sweetened condensed milk, vinegar and garlic powder. Favourite. Food. Ever.
That sounds delicious!!!
I’m from Nova Scotia as well! How does this recipe compare to garlic fingers back home?
It’s kind of funny that cheesy breadsticks are the perfect side dish to pizza – a cheesy bread product! But they totally are! These look so yummy!
WHAT? You can freeze pizza dough? I love everything about this recipe, but that is most exciting. Do you let it rise and then freeze? How do you freeze dough with yeast? Please let me know & thank you for your wonderful work!
Yes! It’s really easy. After the pizza dough rises and you punch it down, lightly coat all sides of the dough ball(s) with nonstick spray or olive oil. Place the dough ball(s) into individual zipped-top bag(s) and seal tightly, squeezing out all the air. Freeze for up to 3 months. To thaw, place the frozen pizza dough in the refrigerator for about 8 hours or overnight. When ready to make pizza, remove the dough from the refrigerator and allow to rest for 30 minutes on the counter before using. 🙂
Why punch down the dough? Crunchy/chewy pockets – thats the best part of pizza dough.
Can you let the dough rise for longer than 90 minutes? Trying to make the dough a few hours ahead of cooking.