Yes, You Can Make At Home: Mozzarella Sticks Edition
And no, you don’t need a deep fryer or a restaurant-quality hood. You just need to love mozzarella sticks and gather a little courage if you’ve never done deep frying before. Once you dive into this mozzarella stick recipe, though, you’ll probably be surprised by how simple they really are to make. And the best reason to make mozzarella sticks at home—Other than freshness, obviously—is that you can make sure that you’re eating the very best mozzarella sticks out there because you get to control the whole mozzarella stick-making process! There’s nothing worse than craving all of the deep-fried, crispy-crunchy, gooey-salty, cheesy greatness of a perfect mozzarella stick and excitedly getting an order of them only to find that you’re faced with a dreaded pile of mediocre, lukewarm, soggy mozzarella sticks. That’s a disappointment that simply will not stand! Make them at home and you can banish that horrid mozzarella stick sadness for good. For a similar fried zuke experience, try our Fried Zucchini!
What Are Mozzarella Sticks Made Of?
We’d like to let you in on a little dangerous secret. It’s kind of a blue pill / red pill moment, though, so be sure you’re braced, OK? And that you really do want to make mozzarella sticks at home. Do you? OK, then! Read on to have your mind blown: It’s quite likely that you already have everything you need to make mozzarella sticks in your home right now. Seriously! Because mozzarella stick ingredients are actually super basic. Here’s what you’ll need:
Flour
Sea Salt
Pepper
Garlic powder
Eggs
Panko
Italian seasoning
Low-moisture mozzarella cheese or string cheese (yep, you can make mozzarella sticks with string cheese—truly the easiest trick ever!)
Why Do You Need To Freeze Mozzarella Sticks Before Frying Them? And, BTW, Can You Make Them Ahead of Time?
Freezing mozzarella sticks before you fry them is essential! Do not pass GO, do not collect $100, and most of all, do not skip this step. Why? Because if you were to drop a mozzarella stick right into the boiling oil, the coating would come off and the mozzarella stick would basically completely disintegrate before your eyes. It’d be a gooey, stringy mess. Freezing allows the crispy panko-and-egg coating to really solidify and get sturdy so that when it hits the oil it can withstand all of that heat. The nice thing about the freezing step is that it means yes! You could make these mozzarella sticks a few days ahead of time, if you want to! Follow the recipe up to the point of freezing, and then once the mozzarella sticks are frozen (after about an hour), you can pop them off the baking sheet and store them in a Ziploc freezer bag until you’re ready to fry them.
How To Make Mozzarella Sticks
The best ever fried mozzarella sticks are the ones that you make yourself. Why? Because they’re pretty fun to make—a little mess, deep-fry, snack on cheese while you wait—and they’re so, so, so delicious. The hardest part of making mozzarella sticks at home? Waiting for them to cool enough to eat (and please please please try to wait at least a few minutes!).
Grab three bowls and line them up.
One bowl is for flour, salt, pepper and garlic powder. The second bowl is for the whisked egg thinned with a bit of water. The third bowl is for the panko and Italian seasoning.
Time to coat your mozzarella sticks! Take one string cheese piece or mozzarella cheese piece and dip it in each bowl. Start with a dip in the egg, then the flour, then the egg, and lastly in the panko mixture. So that’s three bowls, four dippings total! Yes, your fingers will get a little messy! Yes, this is a great job for the kids to help out with! Once again, the best mozzarella stick dipping order is egg -->flour-->egg-->panko.
Freeze! Yep, you’ve got to freeze those sticks before you drop them in the oil. Lay them on a baking sheet and freeze them for at least 45 minutes.
Fry! Once your oil reaches 350°F, fry the mozzarella sticks. Only fry a few mozzarella sticks at a time and keep an eye on the oil temperature. If you see the number dropping, stop adding mozzarella sticks and give the oil a chance to heat back up—you don’t want to drop the oil temperature too much, or the sticks will turn out soggy instead of crispy.
Cool! This is essential. Let those crispy, golden, perfect mozzarella sticks cool a bit before eating. Trust us on this one.
Eat! Serve them with some marinara sauce for dipping, if you really want to have the best mozzarella stick experience ever.
Tools You’ll Need
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Homemade Mozzarella Sticks, Here You Come!
Crisp and golden and perfectly melty on the inside, these are so irresistible! We hope you’re as into them as we are! When you make them, let us know how it goes! Share a photo and tag us on Instagram using @themodernproper and #themodernproper so that we can see your stuff! Happy eating!
