Cheater’s Sriracha Cheese Bread

My dear foodie friend Oakley, who I mention  often, hosted a dinner party. After we had our fill of tandoori chicken and a half-naked Ryan Reynolds on tv, there was gifting!

I came away with a cookbook dedicated to all things sriracha, aka rooster sauce. I put this on everything, when I’m not using (or—gasp!—out of) salsa verde. So it was only natural that I’d want to make little vittles with it too. Well, it turns out the book is a bit simple (add sriracha to whipped cream cheese and voila! A new dip…?), but the one recipe that intrigued me was a loaf of sriracha cheese bread. 

I’ve stopped saying that I don’t bake, but I’m still not in love with getting flour all over my kitchen. When you have tile countertops, cleaning flour particles out of the grout is a huge pain in the ass. But you could cut 15 steps out of the recipe by simply using pre-made pizza dough and I’m all for shortcuts! Trader Joe’s sells pizza dough for all of $1.50. With that, a quarter cup of rooster sauce, and a cup of cheese, you’re done!

Homemade bread!

Of course, flour still gets all over the kitchen because you have to roll said pizza dough out to a 9-inch rectangle, so it’s still a pain in the ass. But it wouldn’t be baking if we missed this crucial step.

Spread about a quarter cup of the sauce out, leaving a 1-inch border. Cover with shredded cheese (I used cheddar—but you can substitute your fancy sriracha cream cheese dip…?), roll it up jelly roll style, and bake for 20 minutes in a bread pan at 400 degrees. You will want to slice the top to give the bread room to puff up. And give it a good egg or olive oil wash, to crust the top. You’ll have a spicy bread within the hour (once you let it cool, lest burning your tongue is on your agenda).

I didn’t do the wash part and my loaf looked a bit albino in the end. Note for next time.

For the original recipe, check out The Sriracha Cookbook.

Look at me. I bake. Huh.