Crescent Pepperoni Roll-ups

I pinned a recipe on pinterest a few months back and thought I would try them out last night.  It was quick, easy, and even kid friendly. It was the Crescent Pepperoni Roll ups and they turned out to be a big hit with my crowd.

All you need is:  
a tube of crescent dough 
four slices of string cheese (cut in half) 
your favorite pepperoni
some pizza or spaghetti sauce for dipping.  

I got this idea from Steph over at the Plain Chicken blog.  I was rather concerned the string cheese might not melt in the short amount of cooking time, so I took the advice from one of the commenters and instead of using cold cheese right from the fridge, I popped the string cheese in the microwave for 10 seconds at a time until the cheese was warm and soft to the touch BEFORE I placed it in the crescents.

Warm to the touch but still holding their shape.. just barely

Then I just placed the pepperoni slices (about 4-5) down first, added the cheese and rolled them up.

One package of 8 crescent rolls makes 8 pepperoni roll ups.  I made sure to pinch and seal off the ends a little bit, so the cheese wouldn't just melt out the sides of the roll ups.

There were options in the original recipe to add seasonings or garlic powder, I just made these plain.

After that bake at 375º for 13 minutes (or package directions).  I knew with the silpat mat they probably wouldn't burn on the bottom and I wanted to make sure that cheese had time to melt, so I made sure they were extra golden brown and cooked them an extra 2-3 minutes over the package directions.

golden brown and ooey gooey

They actually smelled pretty great and the cheese did indeed melt!

Crescent close up cam

After that I heated up some spaghetti sauce/pizza sauce to use for a dip.  This sort of makes this a much easier version of a mini Stromboli dinner.  The kids really liked this one and dipping made it even more fun.

Pepperoni bites were a big hit with our group!

Mmm... delicious.

dippin' away

I was also thinking this would make a great game day appetizer if you cut the crescents in half (like you would for little smokies) and roll them up with 1/4 of the string cheese stick and half the pepperoni. Throw a big bowl o' dipping sauce in the middle and you'd have yourself a winner.  I'm sure they'd fly right off your party platter.