Puff Pastry Cheese Sticks

5 from 10 votes

Apr 05, 2020

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Puff Pastry Cheese Sticks are flaky and addictive movie snacks and great party food ideas! Packed full of melted cheese and your favorite spices, these crunchy sticks will be your new favorite indulgence.

Puff Pastry sticks ready to serve in a white cup.

Why You’ll Love This Cheese Sticks Recipe

Great Party Food Ideas: From movie snacks to game day, these puff pastry cheese sticks are a huge hit! Adults love the fresh take and kids just love them!
All That Flavor: These Puff Pastry Cheese Sticks are savory, cheesy, flaky, and once dipped in your favorite sauce, there’s no turning back. You’ll be hooked!
Better Than Mozzarella Cheese Sticks: I’ve always been a fan of fried mozzarella sticks. They’re gooey and cheesy, but can be a bit much after one or two. These puff pastry delights, on the other hand, are sooooooo addictive! It’s kind of a mix between a homemade breadstick and a crispy cheese stick. Heaven!
Kid Friendly: These cheese sticks rank higher than popcorn or candy in my house for movie snacks! Now, my kids aren’t some sort of foodie kid anomaly. Nope, they just like what they like.

What is Puff Pastry?

Puff pastry is pure buttery, light and flaky goodness. If you haven’t tried it, you must!

Now, of course, that isn’t the technical description. If you’re looking for that – here goes! Puff pastry is made of only 4 ingredients – butter, water, flour, and salt. The dough is rolled out, then dabbed with butter, and then folded over and over again to create hundreds of buttery layers. In the oven, the water evaporates and creates air bubbles within the dough that gives the puff pastry it’s signature airy and flaky texture.

It can be difficult and time consuming to make from scratch, so I typically use frozen puff pastry dough in my recipes. No shame in my game.

Puff pastry cheese sticks fresh out of the oven on their baking sheet.

What You’ll Need

Puff Pastry Dough: You can definitely make this from scratch if you love complex baking, but I buy mine frozen. It’s fantastic!
Olive Oil
Seasonings: We’ll be using smoked (or sweet) paprika, salt, and pepper. Feel free to use any seasonings that sound good to you!
Cheese: Grab some cheddar and fresh parmesan cheese. Please don’t use the stuff in the green can!

How to Make Puff Pastry Cheese Sticks

Prep: Preheat the oven to 400˚F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Season: Set the puff pastry dough onto a lightly floured work surface to thaw. Brush the top of the puff pastry with olive oil and season with salt, pepper, and paprika. Sprinkle the top of the pastry with the cheeses and press down so it sticks to the dough.

Puff pastry layered with cheese and spices.

Puff pastry layered with spices and cheese, then sliced.

Cut: Using a pizza cutter, cut the dough into 10 to 12 long strips, about 1-inch wide.
Twist: Pick up a strip of dough, place it seasoned-side-down on your work surface; hold one end with one hand, and the other end with your other hand, and twist from both ends about 8 times.
Bake: Transfer each twisted strip of dough to the previously prepared baking sheet. Bake for 10 minutes. Then, flip them over and continue to bake for 5 to 8 more minutes or until they’re browned and crisp.
Serve: Remove the cheese sticks from the oven and serve warm.

Tips and Variations

Change Up the Seasonings: Feel free to get super creative with the seasonings on these homemade breadsticks. Everything bagel topping is pretty great, as is garlic. Hot take – try cinnamon and sugar for a dessert variation!
Change the Cheese: Swap out the cheeses. Think, blue cheese, goat cheese, or pepper jack instead!
Rolling the Homemade Breadsticks: If you roll your strips tighter and longer, they will bake up crispier and hold their shape. If you roll them wider, they will be more bread-like and not as crispy.

What to Serve With Mozzarella Sticks

These puff pastry cheese sticks are great with your favorite dip or sauce. Obviously, a classic marinara will be great for dipping. If you’re feeling a bit fancy, dip them in a garlic butter sauce (from our sister site Diethood), buffalo chicken dip or spinach artichoke dip. If you go sweet with these homemade breadsticks, I highly recommend dipping them in my chocolate dipping sauce. So good!

They are also great on the side of any meal in place of a breadstick. If the dish has a yummy sauce, use these cheese sticks to sop it up!

How to Store and Reheat Leftovers

Now, this is definitely one of those recipes that we very rarely have leftovers. If, by some crazy chance, one of them manages to go uneaten – I’ll usually gobble it up in the kitchen myself. Shhhhh, don’t tell. If you do end up with leftovers, you can store them in an airtight container at room temperature for about 3-5 days. They will get more dry and crisp as they sit.
I suggest reheating these cheese sticks in the oven only to avoid sogginess.

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5 from 10 votes