Homemade Pizza Bagel Bites

I am always looking for ways to improvise for different snack foods. Buying a bunch from the store is super convenient, but can get really expensive. Pizza bagel bites are one of my favorites, and I'm usually really good about not buying them because they are ridiculously expensive! (I saw them on sale last week, 40 for $10....25 cents a bagel bite yikes)

SO....I decided to make my own!

I used the bagel recipe that I wrote about a few weeks ago here...though I made a few changes. I doubled the recipe, and then made smaller bagels to look more like the bagel bites. I also opted not to flip the bagels during the baking process, which worked fine and saved a little time.

Once my bagels were completely cooled, I cut them in half with my bread knife and placed them on baking sheets like this:

Then I put them in the freezer for about 30 minutes (I took the first tray out at 30 minutes to start working, but the others were in longer). The reason I did this was so that the sauce would sit on top of the bagels instead of soaking into the soft bread. There's nothing worse than mushy pizza!

I used my homemade sauce on the bagels, and then topped them with mozzarella cheese. This was the most time-consuming part. I found that it was easier with a smaller spoon (I used a soup spoon first). Here's what they looked like after the toppings:

Then I popped the baking sheet back into the freezer for another hour or so to let the sauce and cheese set. After they had frozen, I packaged them into large ziplock containers. I made 3 trays worth, so I ended up with 80 or 90 bagel bites!

Bake in a preheated oven at 450 for 8-10 minutes for perfection!

I really enjoy how these came out. They actually taste better than store bought because of the homemade sauce and the bagels are better. And of course, these are way cheaper than store bought. Since it takes a little while to make, I recommend doing a large quantity. My daughter is too young to help at this point, but I can imagine that this would be loads of fun for older kids to help with!

There's still time to enter my giveaway here!