Totino's

Luigino “Jeno” Paulucci had been manufacturing prepared Chinese food products for a couple of decades when he realized that eggrolls could be filled with pretty much anything. Jeno tested dozens of fillings, but it was the eggrolls filled with pizza toppings that got the most raves, so that became Jeno’s new product. The pizza rolls were so successful that Jeno sold his Chinese food company and dedicated himself to producing the world’s best frozen pizza and original pizza rolls. His vision paid off. Twenty years later, in 1985, Jeno scored a $135 million payday when he sold his company to Pillsbury, the manufacturer of Totino’s—a competing pizza rolls brand inspired by Jeno’s invention. Pillsbury combined the two brands in the early 1990s, and today all pizza rolls are produced under the Totino’s name. Jeno’s brand has been officially retired to the dead food bin.

As I studied the ingredients for Totino’s Pizza Rolls, I was surprised to discover that they do not contain real cheese. I’m not sure why this is, but for my clone, I’m using all real ingredients. The original recipe for pizza rolls was likely changed at some point for cost reasons, and if that’s the case, then my Totino’s Pizza Rolls copycat recipe should be closer to the original from Jeno, which was made with real cheese.

For the dough, I initially tried using pre-made egg roll wrappers, but they didn’t bake well and were not a suitable match for Totino’s dough. So, I had no choice but to make a simple egg roll wrapper dough from scratch. You’ll need an easy way to roll a very thin dough wrapper for this recipe, and the best method for that is with a pasta machine. While you can certainly roll the dough very thin by hand, a pasta machine makes this process much easier.

Once your dough is rolled thin, fill it and fold it in the special way described below to create the same “pillow” shape as the original. After a quick par-fry, the rolls are frozen and can be baked anytime you feel a pizza roll craving coming on, just like the famous original Jeno’s—sorry—Totino’s Pizza Rolls.

Find more fun snack recipes here.