Garlic Fingers were one of the most popular items at my family's pizza restaurant. We would make at least a dozen of them every Friday night. I have modified our original recipe to make it easier to make at home, but it tastes just as good as when we make it in the restaurant.
Looking for more garlicky sides? Try my Pizza Hut Garlic Bread recipe!
๐จ๐ฆ About This Recipe
When I was a teenager, I worked at my family's pizza restaurant on the weekends. Before dinner time, we would always prep between 5-10 garlic fingers, depending on the number of pre-orders and how busy we thought it might get.
The garlic finger dough is made with the same dough that we use for the regular pizzas, but instead of tomato sauce, it uses garlic butter. The garlic butter is the most important part of garlic fingers, and I think this is where most online recipes fall through. Most recipes just mix minced garlic and butter, but that's not enough. It needs to be seasoned with black pepper, garlic salt, and oregano to taste good.
I always make my own pizza dough, but you can use storebought as well. In my opinion, homemade dough tastes way better, but I understand not everyone has enough time to do it.
๐ง Ingredients
- Dough: It is a standard pizza dough recipe. You'll need all-purpose flour, salt, instant yeast, sugar, olive oil, and water. You can also use store-bought pizza dough.
- Garlic Butter: This is the most important part of the recipe. You'll need butter, minced garlic, garlic salt, dried oregano, and black pepper. If you don't have garlic salt, you can mix 3 parts salt with 1 part garlic powder.
- Mozzarella Cheese: We'll need about 2 cups of shredded cheese.
- Parmesan: For the parmesan, you'll want to use the shelf-stable kind, not the fancy stuff. Restaurants don't use the fancy stuff. I always use the Kraft brand of Parmesan.
๐ช Instructions
STEP 1: Combine flour, instant yeast, sugar, and salt in a bowl, then mix with water and olive oil until a scraggly dough forms. Transfer to a floured work surface and knead for 5 minutes until smooth.
STEP 2: Transfer to a large bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let it rest in a warm place for one hour until it's doubled in size. If it's the winter, you might need to let it rest for an extra hour. Just keep letting it rest until it doubles in size.
STEP 3: Make the garlic butter by combining butter, minced garlic, garlic salt, oregano, and black pepper in a small bowl.
STEP 4: Dust your hands and work surface with all-purpose flour, then stretch the pizza dough into a disc roughly 10 inches wide and ยฝ inch thick. Grease a pizza pan with oil, then transfer the pizza dough to it.
STEP 5: Spread 3 tablespoons of garlic butter and top with 2 cups of mozzarella and 2 tablespoons of parmesan. Try to spread the ingredients to all edges of the dough.
STEP 7: Bake in a 500โ oven on the middle rack for 9-11 minutes until the cheese is melted and golden brown. Remove from the oven and sprinkle dried oregano on top. Transfer to a cutting board and cut into strips.
๐ฅก Make Ahead Instructions
At our pizza restaurant, we made our dough up to 3 days in advance. As time goes on, the dough forms a dry layer on top, but it is totally fine and doesn't really affect the taste that much.
Follow the instructions through shaping the dough into the pizza pan, then cover it with plastic wrap and transfer it to the fridge. When you're ready to bake, let it come to room temperature for one hour, then follow the instructions as directed.
๐ Recipe
Cheesy Garlic Fingers
Ingredients
Pizza Dough
- 2 โ cups all-purpose flour (285g)
- ยพ teaspoon instant yeast
- ยฝ teaspoon sugar
- 1 teaspoon coarse kosher salt
- 200 ml water (200g)
- 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil (or melted butter)
Garlic Butter
- ยฝ cup butter (softened)
- 4 cloves garlic (minced)
- ยฝ teaspoon garlic salt (or garlic powder)
- ยฝ teaspoon dried oregano
- ยผ teaspoon ground black pepper
Toppings
- 2 cups mozzarella cheese (shredded)
- 2 tablespoons Kraft grated parmesan
- dried oregano
Instructions
Pizza Dough
- Whisk flour, instant yeast, sugar, and salt in a bowl. Stir in water and olive oil until a scraggly dough forms. Transfer the dough to a work surface dusted with flour and knead for 5 minutes until smooth.
- Transfer to a large bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let it rest in a warm place for one hour until it's doubled in size. If it's the winter, you might need to let it rest for an extra hour. Just keep letting it rest until it doubles in size.
Garlic Butter
- In a small bowl, mix together butter, garlic, garlic salt, oregano, and black pepper.
Assemble
- Preheat oven to 500โ for at least 20 minutes. If you're using a pizza stone, preheat it with the stone for 1 hour.
- Dust your hands and work surface with some flour and stretch the pizza dough into a disc roughly 10 inches wide and ยฝ inch thick. Grease a pizza pan with oil, then transfer the pizza dough onto it.
- Spread 3 tablespoons of garlic butter and top with 2 cups of mozzarella and 2 tablespoons of parmesan. Try to spread the ingredients to all edges of the dough.
- Bake on the middle rack for 9-11 minutes until the cheese is melted and golden brown. Remove from the oven and sprinkle dried oregano on top. Transfer to a cutting board and cut into strips/fingers.
John
These were so yummy! I used to get these from Canadian 2 for 1 before they shut down. Followed the recipe exactly but I made my own marinara sauce. Will definitely be making again ๐