I will always love going to Olive Garden for its famous breadsticks.
If I had my druthers, I would eat these god-sent appetizers all the time, but since I don’t have a Never Ending Pasta Pass at my disposal, I decided to save some money and make my own.
Turns out, there are a lot of DIY Olive Garden breadsticks copycat recipes, but all of them are very involved. Take this Food Network recipe for example — it takes nearly 2 hours of preparation and cooking time, requires a stand mixer (which can cost over $200), and involves active yeast.
I’m sure those breadsticks taste amazing, but I wanted my snack ASAP.
After a little more research, I finally had a recipe I was ready to try — and it turned out even better than Olive Garden’s.
Here’s how I did it:
First, I bought some pizza dough, flour, unsalted butter, and garlic salt.
I looked around for Pillsbury’s Breadsticks, but couldn’t find any at my local grocery store. After a little research, I went with frozen pizza dough as a decent alternative.
After the dough spent a few hours thawing, I sprinkled it — and my hands — with some flour and broke off small bits to lightly roll into a breadstick-esque shape.
I tried to keep them around six or seven inches long, but mine certainly weren’t as perfect as Olive Garden’s.
I alternated them on a baking sheet and heated up one tablespoon of butter. Using a little brush I had bought at Bed Bath & Beyond on a whim, I lightly brushed my pizza dough sticks with the butter.
Then I threw them in the oven for 12 minutes, checking on them periodically. I let mine get a little darker than Olive Garden’s breadsticks since I love a good crunch.
I took them out and re-buttered them with another tablespoon of butter. Then I sprinkled them with garlic salt and let that seep into the dough.
I might be biased, but my finished product tasted better than Olive Garden’s.
I was worried the pizza dough would just taste like dense crust, but thanks to the butter and the garlic salt, it was fantastic. It helps that I was in charge of how much butter and garlic salt went on my breadsticks (a lot) rather than Olive Garden.
In the future, I might give Pillsbury Breadsticks a try since that would save me even more time, but if you’re in a pinch, pizza dough works just as well and tastes amazing.
Eat this with marinara sauce and thank me later.
Recipe (modified from the Budget Savvy Diva):
- 1 pizza dough ball (I found mine in the frozen foods section)
- 2 tablespoons of unsalted butter
- 1 tablespoon of flour
- 2 tablespoons of garlic salt (to taste)
Time: 20 minutes
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
- Let your pizza dough ball thaw and rise before dusting it (and your hands) lightly with flour. Break off chunks of dough and shape them into 6-7 inch sticks.
- Space out your sticks on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and brush with 1 tablespoon of melted butter.
- Bake until golden brown (baking times will vary, check your pizza dough package — mine took roughly 12 minutes).
- Take out breadsticks and brush with remaining 1 tablespoon of melted butter. Sprinkle garlic salt on top of butter (to taste) and let cool. Eat and enjoy!
