‘The Pioneer Woman’: Ree Drummond Shares the Secret to Perfect Mozzarella Sticks

Ree Drummond has a couple of easy hacks for making mozzarella sticks, and it’s another perfect snack idea. The Pioneer Woman star uses a different coating for the fried treat and has a quick tip that yields the best results.

Ree Drummond uses a unique coating in her easy mozzarella sticks recipe

Drummond demonstrated how to make “super fast garlic and herb mozzarella sticks” on an episode of The Pioneer Woman. She pairs the snack with an easy pink sauce that takes dipping to a new level.

“So I’m going to make a little bit of a spin on fried mozzarella,” she explained. “I’m going to make garlic herb mozzarella, and you won’t believe what I’m going to coat it in.”

Drummond cut mozzarella string cheese in half and coated each stick in flour, shook off the excess, then dipped the stick into egg, and dredged it once again in the flour. She dipped the stick into the egg again, explaining, “And then normally I would use panko crumbs or regular seasoned Italian breadcrumbs, but I am using garlic herb pita chips. And I ground them up fine, so they look like breadcrumbs.”

She added, “Well, they are breadcrumbs but totally different than ones I’ve used before for mozzarella sticks.”

Drummond repeated the process and placed the mozzarella sticks on a parchment-lined baking sheet.

Drummond shares her ‘secret’ for the best results

The Pioneer Woman star shared an easy tip for the best results when frying mozzarella sticks. “So here’s the secret whenever you fry mozzarella sticks. You want to stick them in the freezer first,” she explained. “You just need to stick them in there for about 15 minutes or so, and it’ll just kind of give you a little bit more wiggle room as you’re frying them before the mozzarella starts to bust out of the coating.”

Drummond placed a few of the mozzarella sticks on a slotted kitchen utensil then lowered them into a pot of oil. “You want the oil to be hot, but not just hot, hot, hot,” she explained. “Because you don’t want to burn the crumbs before the cheese has had a chance to melt.”

She added, “And vice versa — you don’t want to blow up the cheese and melt it too much before the crumbs have a chance to brown.”

Drummond noted that the cheese sticks are done when “they’re golden and the cheese is ooey-gooey and perfect.”

‘The Pioneer Woman’ star gives classic marinara dipping sauce a new twist

Drummond made “a delicious dipping sauce” for the mozzarella sticks. She combined marinara sauce, cream, and pesto in a saucepan and simmered it on the stovetop. “It kind of elevates just the regular marinara dipping sauce for fried mozzarella,” she explained.

The Food Network host removed the mozzarella sticks and placed them on a plate lined with paper towels. To serve, she put the pink dipping sauce in a bowl and placed the snack on a platter.

“This is like a revolutionary batch of fried mozzarella,” Drummond noted. “Because not only did we use garlic herb pita chips to coat them, we made a pink sauce to dip them in.” After taking a bite, Drummond gushed, “Oh, heaven,” adding that using pita chips is “the next new wave.”

The full recipe is available on the Food Network website.