Not much is tastier than a bacon and cheese combo! Cheesy Garlic Pull Apart Bread with Bacon is loaded with crispy bacon, cheddar and monterey jack cheeses, chives, parsley and garlic butter. Mix with pizza dough balls and cook until perfectly golden brown. This bread is great as a holiday party appetizer, game day appetizer, or a snacking bread for your family any day of the week.
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Cheesy Garlic Pull Apart Bread with Bacon is an out of this world, full of flavor bread recipe that will be eaten so quickly you better make sure you have an extra loaf!
Pull apart breads make great holiday and party appetizers (no knife needed). Even with limited parties going on this year pull apart breads are still one of my favorite bread recipes.
There are so many variations, the options for pull apart breads are really endless. Serve cheesy garlic pull apart bread with pizza and cheese dipping sauces and it's the ultimate crowd pleasing appetizer.
My favorite pull apart breads are cheesy breads made completely from scratch. From scratch how I make this cheesy garlic pull apart bread, complete with the best 5 star homemade pizza dough.
Don't let making bread from scratch scare you, though! It sounds overwhelming if you're not a bread maker, but it is very easy. If you have a bread machine, making from-scratch breads is as simple as can be.
And while I do make this cheesy garlic pull apart bread recipe from scratch, you can also make it with store bought pizza dough.
My daughter calls this bread "bacon bread" because it's not only stuffed with lots of shredded cheddar and monterey cheese, but with lots and lots of bacon!
Bacon. Cheese. Pizza. Garlic. 4 of the best foods on the planet combined into 1.
And it's seriously easy to make. Combine all of the ingredients, dump into the pan, and bake. Let's see how it's done!
If you're new to making bread or have never made a cheesy bread or pull apart bread, you may have questions about how it's done. I've put together answers for the most common questions readers have about making cheesy breads, particularly pull apart breads.
How do you make cheesy bread from scratch?
The best way to make cheesy bread from scratch is to have a really great homemade pizza dough recipe. For my pull apart bread recipes, I use a bread machine pizza dough. If you don't have a bread machine, here are the instructions for making pizza dough by hand in 30 minutes.
If you'd like to opt for a quicker cheesy bread, use 2 packages of store bought pizza dough.
Once you have the dough, cut it into 1-2 inch pieces and shape them into balls. Mix the dough balls with lots of shredded cheese and a little bit of butter. Put the mix into a pan and bake. You can use a bundt pan or loaf pan.
If you don't have a bundt or loaf pan, a baking sheet will work. Dump the dough balls on the baking sheet and press them together with your hands. The dough will be sticky so the balls will easily stick together.
Over all, the key to making cheesy bread from scratch is to use lots of shredded cheese, pizza dough, and butter.
Why is pull apart bread called monkey bread?
Pull apart bread is commonly called monkey bread because it's pulled off the loaf with the fingers and eaten without any utensils. Just as monkey's eat with their hands, people eat pull apart with their hands, too. But when most people talk about "monkey bread", they are referring to bundt pan pull apart bread made with biscuits, cinnamon, sugar, brown sugar, and sometimes nuts.
We've since taken this traditional sweet monkey bread recipe and varied it to make lots of different "monkey breads". One of the more popular is pizza monkey bread.
Do I need to make the pizza dough from scratch?
No, you can use store bought pizza dough instead of homemade dough.
Can I use all purpose flour instead of bread flour if making my pizza dough from scratch?
You absolutely can use all purpose flour instead of bread flour when making pizza dough. In fact, when making thin crust pizza dough I use all purpose flour to get a thinner crust. To make a thick crust pizza dough, I would use bread flour like I do in this recipe.
Bread flour has more protein than all purpose flour, so it rises a little bit more. If I were making a bread that I did not want a high rise, like flatbread or naan, I would use all purpose flour. But, if making a rising bread, like this sundried tomato basil bread, I would use bread flour.
I like to use bread flour for most of the breads that I want a really great rise to. But, if you don't always have bread flour on hand, all purpose flour is perfectly fine. To the untrained eye, the difference in bread made with all purpose flour and that made with bread flour will be too minimal to notice.
This is especially true of this cheesy garlic pull apart bread. Because the main attraction of this bacon, cheese and garlic loaded bread is that it can be pulled apart easily, how high it rises really isn't that important.
📋 Ingredients
You'll need:
- store bought pizza dough (or bread flour, yeast, sugar, salt, and olive oil for a homemade dough)
- cheddar cheese
- monterey jack cheese
- garlic
- cooked bacon
- butter
I use extra sharp yellow cheddar cheese. Any sharpness of cheddar cheese will do fine, as will white cheddar cheese. You can also use all cheddar instead of monterey jack. Feel free to vary the types of cheese you use and replace the cheddar and monterey with your favorite shredded cheeses. Some others that will be great are: pizza blend, mexican blend, swiss and asiago, or pepper jack.
You should use fully cooked bacon for this recipe, and not raw bacon. I use crispy, well done bacon.
You'll also need a loaf pan or bundt pan. I use a bundt pan for my pull apart breads because of the look, but a regular loaf pan is fine. Or use a baking sheet if you have neither of these.
🔪 Step-By-Step Directions
There are 2 ways to make cheesy garlic pull apart bread. First, let's walk through how to do it with homemade pizza dough.
Either make your pizza dough in the bread machine using this recipe, or by hand with this recipe. The one change you should make is to use bread flour instead of all purpose flour as the recipe indicates. Unless you do not have bread flour, then all purpose flour is fine.
Once the dough is done, break it into small balls and put in a well oiled mixing bowl.
Break the bacon into pieces and add it to the bowl of dough. Then add the cheeses and chives. In a small bowl, melt the butter. Mix the butter with the parsley and crushed garlic. Pour into the dough and mix everything well, until all ingredients are distributed evenly. Transfer to a well greased bundt pan.
Bake for 20 minutes at 350 degrees. Let cool in the pan for 10 minutes before removing.
Serve warm, straight from the oven for the best tasting cheesy garlic pull apart bread Enjoy!
🍽 Serving and Storing
While this bread is fantastic eaten plain, it is great served with sauces for dipping. My kids love dipping it in pizza sauce. My husband and I like using a cheese dipping sauce. Nacho cheese sauce is also great.
Cheesy garlic pull apart bread with bacon is best eaten the day that it's made. If not eaten immediately, warm up the leftover pieces before eating. This will soften the bread up again and re-crisp the bacon a little. The best way to warm up it is in the toaster for 2-3 minutes. The microwave for about 15 seconds is the second best option.
📖 Recipe
Cheesy Garlic Pull Apart Bread with Bacon
Ingredients
- 2 pizza dough packages (or 1 homemade dough)
- 5 cooked bacon slices, broken into pieces
- 2 cups cheddar cheese
- 1 cup monterey jack cheese
- 2 tbsp chives
- 3 garlic cloves, mashed
- 8 tbsp butter
- 1 tbsp parsley
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350° and coat a bundt pan with butter.
- Cut the pizza dough into 1-2 inch pieces. Roll into balls and put in a well greased mixing bowl.
- Add the bacon pieces, chives, cheddar cheese, and monterey jack cheese to the bowl.
- In a separate bowl, melt the butter and mix in garlic and parsley. Add to the bowl of dough and mix well to evenly distribute all ingredients.
- Transfer to the bundt pan and spread out dough balls evenly around the pan. Bake for 20 minutes.
- Let cool in the pan for 10 minutes before removing. Serve plain or with your choice of dipping sauces.
Notes
Nutrition
And that's all there is to making cheesy garlic pull apart bread with bacon. If you made it I'd love to hear what you thought. Please leave a comment below and let me know!
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Cheese, bacon, bread - yes, please!! This sounds soo good - can't wait to try it out!
My family goes crazy for this! So good!!!