The writer wanted to make a festive, but still easy, holiday snack you could take to any party, so she came up with these Christmas tree spinach dip breadsticks.
Ingredients:
- 12 oz (340 g) frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
- 6 oz (170 g) cream cheese, softened
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- ½ tsp salt
- ½ tsp onion powder
- ¼ tsp pepper
- ¼ tsp chili powder
- 1 tsp Italian seasoning
- ½ cup cheddar or mozzarella cheese
- 1 (11 oz /311 g) tube refrigerated thin crust pizza crust
- 2 tbsp. butter
- ½ tsp. each garlic salt & Italian seasoning
Instructions:
- Preheat oven to 400°F/204°C.
- In a bowl, beat together the spinach and cream cheese.
- Add garlic, salt, onion powder, pepper, chili powder, Italian seasoning and beat to combine.
- Add parmesan cheese and ½ cup cheddar cheese and beat to combine.
- Unroll the pizza crust on a piece of parchment paper. I used the “thin” style pizza crust. Using a pizza slicer, cut the crust in a triangle.
- This gives you one large triangle and two smaller ones. Transfer the smaller triangles to the second piece of parchment paper, placing the long side edges together, to make another large triangle. The dough will stretch out a little as you move it around – no biggie, just gently tug it into the shape you want, pressing the two halves together in the middle. This will be the base of the breadsticks. I also gave the base a short little trunk.
- Spread the spinach dip over the base.
- Sprinkle on the remaining cheese, and then top with the first triangle of dough. You’ll likely have to tug at the dough a little bit to make sure it completely covers the base triangle.
- Using a pizza cutter, cut slices from the middle to each edge about every inch down the triangle as shown below. Don’t slice all the way across; leave about an inch down the middle of the tree intact.
- Grab each “slice” and twist it to form a tree shape, as shown below. For the top slice that’s very short, you’ll just give it a half twist; as you go further down the tree and hit longer slices you’ll give them two or three full twists.
- Bake for about 22 minutes until the bottom is completely cooked through. The top is going to get nice and browned, but make sure to check that the bottom is cooked through. If you are cooking on a heavy cookie sheet, like I did, you may want to cook this on the lower rack in your oven.
- Once out of the oven you can brush the breadsticks with melted butter, garlic salt, and seasonings.
- Then serve it up while it’s still warm. Everyone can tear off a breadstick or two to enjoy.
TIP:
- Use fresh pizza dough and roll out until thin. The rectangle is about 12″ x 9″ (30cm x 23cm).
- Replace the pizza dough with phyllo dough or puff pastry.
- Replace spinach with ham or dried beef.
- A combination of artichoke and spinach.
- Add chopped pimentos for a touch of red.
- Mini pepperonis, sauce, shredded mozzarella cheese and sprinkle a bit of garlic and oregano.
- Replace the spinach with broccoli/mushrooms.
- Nutella and almond filling works great too!
Recipe & photos: https:// www .itsalwaysautumn. com/christmas-tree-spinach-dip-breadsticks.html
