Pepperoni Basil Pizza Bites

Happy New Year! Hope everyone had a happy and healthy holiday season!

For my first post of 2011 i'm starting with these appetizers I made on Christmas Day. Warning: You might want to make them only if you're have company because they are so good, you won't be able to stop yourself from eating the entire batch, all 32 of these delicious bites!

Ingredients:

8 oz pckg cream cheese, softened

2 eggs

1/4 cup pizza or pasta sauce, the lowest carbs you can find. The one I used had 2 net carbs per 1/4 cup

1 cup mozzarella cheese, shredded

5 fresh basil leaves, chopped or torn into small pieces

2 tbsp parmesan cheese, grated

32 slices of pepperoni, plus an additional 1/4 cup chopped pepperoni

1 mini muffin tin, preferably a 24 capacity one

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven at 350 F.

2. Place one pepperoni in the bottom of each mini muffin tin. Press down on them to make them stay.

3. In a large mixing bowl, mix the cream cheese and eggs until thoroughly combined. Add the pizza or pasta sauce, mozzarella, parmesan, basil, and chopped pepperoni.

4. Fill each mini muffin space to the top with this mixture. Be careful not to overfill.

5. Bake in the preheated oven for 12-15 minutes or until lighly golden brown and set.

6. Remove them from the pan by passing a small knife around the edges. They should pop right out with no problem but if you know your pan tends to stick then add pam before baking.

7. Place remaining pepperoni's in the bottom of the tins and add remaining mixture and bake as directed.


You have to do this in batches since the recipe yields 32 and the pan only holds 24.

Each pizza bite has 0.35 Net carbs.

The carbs counts will vary slightly depending on what kind of pizza or pasta sauce you use.

I made a second batch that I turned into Supreme pizza bites. So please check that post out as well!