Batch Cooking Homemade Hot Pockets

by Sarah | Jun 4, 2019

My kitchen is the most used room in the house. It seems that someone is always in there searching for a snack, cooking something up, or grabbing a drink (but never washing a dish. Hmm…)

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Having food on hand, which require little to no prep, is enormously helpful! If I can grab something from the freezer and reheat it in a snap, my kids are always happy. Batch cooking like this also cuts down on the preservative laden premade foods or the all too frequent “emergency trips” through the Drive Thru.

These would also be awesome to freeze and then toss into the cooler for a camping adventure or family road trip! I love using frozen food items in the cooler to act as freezer packs! It’s the perfect way to keep things cold, but not waste space with freezer packs that will be rendered useless when they thaw in a day or so. It also replaces the ice that would thaw into a big mess. Frozen foods to the rescue!

With nine people sharing a not-too-huge home and a pretty tiny kitchen, it can really get crazy. I am constantly trying to get ahead of the game, but it doens’t always work.

A couple of weeks ago, I made about 50 ham and cheese hot pockets, which I planned to pop into the freezer for future snacks and lunches. I made the error of running out to pick up a child from practice, before getting all of the sandwiches into the freezer. Of course, when I returned, they were nearly all gone!

Yesterday, I happened to have an afternoon with out my ~~vultures~~, I mean teenagers. The girls and I were able to knock out 35 beautiful hot pockets AND get them into the freezer, before the big kids came back home.

I used my go-to bread and pizza dough recipe to make these little pockets. I quadrupled the recipe {so it would have made four loaves of bread} and ended up with 35 homemade hot pockets.

First, mix up the dough. Make sure your water is room temperature – too hot will kill your yeast, but too cool will really slow things down.

Measuring by weight is far more accurate than measuring by volume.

Allow your dough to rise for about two hours. It will do its thing and you’ll come back to beautiful, workable dough!

After you’ve let it rise, it’s time to divide it all out for your perfect little pockets! Flour your work surface and turn your dough out onto it. I am pretty liberal with my flour sprinkling here, because this high hydration dough can be a little sticky.

A bench knife is a wonderfully helpful tool for this job.

Now to divide. You want to take this giant pile of dough and make 32, roughly evenly sized, pieces. The easiest thing to do is divide the big piece into half with your bench knife and then divide those halves in half. You should have four fairly evenly sized pieces of dough.

Now we will keep dividing each piece by four until you have 16 pieces. Divide each on those in half and you’ll have your final 32 pieces of dough. Make sure each piece is a nice little round ball and let them rest for about 10 minutes.

Small helper make messy, but delicious Hot Pockets.

After the dough has rested, it’s time to roll it out. Roll each piece into a 6-8 inch round piece. On your rolled out piece, place a few pieces of meat and cheese {I did 3 pieces of salami and 1 piece of cheddar, but the room for creativity here is endless!}. Fold the dough over and seal is close with a fork. Brush each pocket with egg whites.

At this point, I roll, stuff, seal, wash, and place on a baking sheet and then move onto the next. Alternatively, I’ll set up an assembly line of kids – one rolls, one stuffs and folds, one seals, and one does the egg wash.

Pop those suckers in the oven to bake! They’ll be a beautiful golden brown in about 25 minutes. Once they’ve cooled, you can either freeze them in ziplock bags or serve them to your starving masses.

Hot Pockets – for Freezer or a Crowd

Sarah

This huge batch of Homemade Hot Pockets with keep the crowds happy and fed! Perfect for a party or a the freezer.

Print Recipe

Prep Time 1

Cook Time 35

Course lunch, on the go, Snack

Cuisine American, Hot Pockets

Servings 32 sandwiches

Ingredients

1500 g water room temperature
2000 g all purpose flour
20 g dry yeast
20 g salt
96 slices salami or meat of choice
32 slices cheddar cheese or cheese of choice
2 egg whites

Instructions

Put 1500 g of room temperature water into a large bowl (allow for the dough to rise. I use my HUGE bowl!)
Sprinkle year over the water and allow it to activate.
Add 2000 g of all purpose flour (I always use King Arthur).
Add salt, after the flour.
Mix well, cover with a clean cloth, and allow to rise about 2 hours.
Once the dough has risen (about double in size), turn it out onto a floured surface. Note that the dough will be quite hydrated and may be sticky. Sprinkle with flour, if needed.
Divide dough into four parts with bench knife. Divide each of those four parts into four more parts. Continue until you have 32 small dough balls.
Allow the dough to rest fifteen minutes.
Take one dough ball and roll into about a six inch round. Place meat (I used 3 pieces of salami per hot pocket) and cheese (one slice per pocket) on one half of the dough round.
Fold the dough over and pinch the sides with a fork.
Brush each pocket with egg white and place it on the cookie sheet.
Bake at 450 for about 25 minutes or until nicely browned.

Notes

These hot pockets freeze beautifully and are a breeze to reheat. Put frozen pockets on a cookie sheet and bake at 350 for about 15 minutes.

Keyword Freezer Meals, Hot Pockets, Quick Snack

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