Mozzarella Sticks 🧀

I LOVE mozzarella sticks, they are the key to my heart! It's gooey, fried, flavorful, and socially acceptable to eat more than 5 in one sitting 😊. You would think, it's easy to make, it has to be hard to screw up right? WRONG! So many places I've been to have had mediocre mozzarella sticks. Bars are notoriously known for their chicken tenders, fries, and cheese sticks, but I've lost count of how many I've been to that have had C+ mozzarella sticks, and it blows.

The best place I've ever had mozzarella sticks was in Paris, believe it or not. They brought out 2 giant mozzarella sticks that were the size of a plate (I'm exaggerating, but they were very big!), and they had to be eaten with a fork and knife!!

After taking one bite, I melted into the sweet

bliss of cheese and fried gooeyness, while looking up and relishing that I was in Paris!

Exhibit A- le paradis du fromage 🧀

Now I won't be looking to recreate something that massive, but I wanted to try my hand at making my favorite snack, and what better time to do it than Ramadan? I'm kicking off the start of my Ramadan recipes with my favorite appetizer, and I hope you devour it up, cause you deserve it after fasting for hours!

Mozzarella Sticks 🧀

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups Panko

• 1/4 cup of bread crumbs

• 2 tsp of Italian seasoning

• sprinkle of red pepper

• 3/4 cup flour

• 1 tsp of salt

• dash of black pepper

• 1 tsp garlic salt

• 1 tsp parsley flakes

• 2 eggs

• 20 or so pieces of mozzarella cheese sticks, sliced in half

Steps:

1. Line a tray with parchment paper, we will need this later.

2. Take 3 separate bowls. To the first bowl, add the Panko, bread crumbs, Italian seasoning, and red pepper, and whisk till combined. In the second bowl, whisk together flour, salt, pepper, garlic salt, and parsley flakes till combined. In the third bowl whisk the eggs with a dash of water.

3. Line all 3 up together, with your mozzarella sticks sliced in half.

4. The simple method to this is egg-flour-egg-panko. So dip the mozzarella in the egg until fully drenched, add to the flour mixture and make sure it's fully coated, then add back to the egg mixture, and finally add to the panko mixture and make sure it is fully covered.

5. Line the mozzarella sticks onto the parchment paper until you've gone through all of the cheese sticks.

6. Freeze the cheese sticks for 45 mins, or up to 24-48 hours. I froze mine for 48 hours, so keep them in the freezer for I would say no longer than 72 hours. This is great for when you prep the day before or the day of, for your iftar.

7. Once ready to fry, take a large pan or wok and add a considerable amount of oil, enough that the mozzarella sticks will be able to be covered by oil, but they can still rest on the bottom of the pan. The oil needs to reach 350 degrees.

8. Add your cheese sticks carefully to the oil, cooking for 2 mins on one side, and about 1 min on the other, or until you notice browning. Once browned on one side, flip over so the other side can cook.

9. BE AWARE- once you see the cheese oozing out, it's overcooking so make sure you have a close eye on them.

10. Once the cheese sticks have been browned and are still intact, remove them and add them to a tray lined with a paper towel.

11. Serve immediately with marinara sauce.

12. Bon Appetite!