Have you ever wondered how to make crazy bread? You are in luck. Years ago in college, I fell in love with Little Caesar’s Crazy Bread. This delicious butter and garlic flavored bread is a treat. The Crazy Bread is even better when you make it with this copycat recipe.
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What Makes Little Caesar’s Crazy Bread so Good?
Almost every pizza place sells its own version of garlic breadsticks, but it’s the Crazy Bread Little Caesars serves that a lot of people crave. Maybe it’s the chewy, slightly greasy dough or the heavy hit of garlic and the coating of crispy Parmesan cheese.
Whatever the reason, there is nothing quite like Little Caesars Crazy Bread.
Why This Is the Recipe You Should Try for Homemade Crazy Bread
Nothing tastes better than fresh, straight out of the oven Little Caesars’ garlic bread, but if you can’t get to a Little Caesars restaurant, you can always try making this Crazy Bread recipe at home.
Baking these breadsticks may not be as easy as picking up an order, but the extra effort is well worth it when you can customize the flavor to get the perfect breadsticks for your palette.
What Is Crazy Bread?
Crazy Bread is the name of the breadsticks sold at Little Caesars’ pizza restaurants. Fans of Crazy Bread love the side’s garlic butter and Parmesan topping.
If you have never had this freshly baked bread topped with the flavors of butter and garlic, then sprinkled with Parmesan cheese, you are missing out on one of the best side dishes to have come out of a pizza place.
These are served with their Crazy sauce, but you can eat this fluffy breadstick plain or with your favorite marinara. Whenever I have ordered pizza here, I have always ordered some of their crazy bread.
Crazy Bread (Little Caesars Copycat)
We will start this recipe with a basic bread dough that you can use your food processor to help you put it together. This recipe also works well with a mixer, or even by hand.
Crazy Bread Recipe Ingredients
You only need a few simple ingredients to make crazy bread:
- Instant yeast
- Water
- Olive oil
- Bread flour
- Salt
- Butter
- Garlic salt
- Parmesan cheese
Ingredient Notes
Unlike the restaurant, we will use real butter for this recipe. I bet you will find it makes the crazy bread even a little bit better. You could also make this recipe with a can of pizza dough if you desire.
For this recipe, I like to use yeast that I buy in bulk. I find it when you buy a pound of yeast it costs a lot less than buying individual packages of yeast at the store. I have found yeast at big-box stores such as Costco, Sam’s, or even Amazon.com.
How to Make Crazy Bread
Here are the steps for making this copycat Little Caesar’s Crazy Bread recipe:
- Proof the yeast in warm water. Add oil and more warm water.
- Place flour and salt in a food processor and pulse to combine. You could use a dough hook if you are using a stand mixer.
- With the processor running, add yeast, olive oil, and water through the top tube. Process until the dough forms and is smooth and elastic.
- Place the dough ball in a greased bowl. Cover the dough and let it rise until doubled.
- On a floured surface, pat out the dough into a rectangle. Cut the dough in half then into strips, you may want to use a pizza cutter to make the slices even.
- Coat a baking sheet with non-stick spray and place the strips on it.
- Bake at 375°F for 18 minutes or until the breadsticks become golden brown.
- Combine melted butter and garlic salt. Brush the garlic butter mixture over the breadsticks. Sprinkle Parmesan cheese over the breadsticks.
What to Serve with This Crazy Bread Recipe
Little Caesars bundles their breadsticks with Crazy Sauce, a spiced-up version of the restaurant’s marinara sauce. In addition to Crazy Sauce, customers can purchase other dips at Little Caesars, including:
- Cheezy Jalapeno Caesar Dip
- Buffalo Ranch Caesar Dip
- Ranch Caesar Dip
- Butter Garlic Caesar Dip
You can keep it classic and stick to pairing your copycat Crazy Bread with one of the options above, or you can go a bit wild with these other ideas:
- Roast Shallot Chutney
- Bacon Jam
- Brown Gravy
- Mango Chutney
- Pizza Sauce
- Garlic Aioli
How to Store, Freeze, and Reheat Little Caesar Garlic Bread
Crazy Bread is best fresh, but you can keep any leftovers in a paper bag on the counter overnight.
If you are going to make this Little Caesars Crazy Bread recipe, you might as well double up and keep some extra in the freezer for later. You can freeze the breadsticks by wrapping them individually in parchment paper and putting them in a larger container for up to three months.
If you plan to freeze the Crazy Bread from the start, it’s best to bake the breadsticks without the buttery coating and add it later when you reheat the bread.
To reheat:
- Let the Crazy Bread thaw in the fridge. Meanwhile, you can make a new butter, garlic, and cheese coating, if desired.
- Put the thawed breadsticks on a parchment-lined baking tray and pop in a 350-degree Fahrenheit oven until hot, about 8 to 10 minutes for cold Crazy Bread and 3 to 4 minutes for room temperature breadsticks. Turn the breadsticks over midway through the baking time.
Little Caesars Breadsticks FAQs
Why Do They Call It Crazy Bread?
This classic menu item first appeared on Little Casaers’ menu way back in 1982 as Crazy Crust, but later changed the name. In a 2009 article, the company claimed that it was the first pizza chain to sell a “side bread item”.
As for why Little Caesars decided to call it “crazy” in the first place? Well, the company tweeted in 2013 they named it after the guy who created it, “Crazy” Brett.
More legend than fact? Who knows, and when Crazy Bread tastes this good, who really cares?
Does Little Caesars Crazy Bread Have Cheese?
Little Caesars sold Stuffed Crazy Bread with mozzarella cheese inside, but many locations no longer carry it. However, Italian Cheese Bread is a standard menu item that caters to cheese lovers.
Love Other Pizza Favorites? Try These Recipes
- Pizza Hut Cheese Stick Recipe
- Pizza Wonton Recipe
- Pizza Margarita Recipe
- Garlic and Parmesan Bread
- Monkey Pizza Bread
- Crescent Roll Veggie Pizza with Hidden Valley Ranch
- Pepperoni Pizza Rolls
- How to Make Pizza Crust from Scratch
- How to Make Pizza Bowls
- How to Make Chocolate Pizza at Home
Do you have leftover bread? Make these recipes
Be sure to check out more of my easy bread recipes and the best copycat restaurant recipes.
Little Caesars Crazy Bread
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup warm water ~100° to 110°F
- 2 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast 1 package
- 1 1/4 cups water
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 4 cups (22 ounces) bread flour plus more for working the dough
- 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
- 3 tablespoons butter melted
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
- 3 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
Instructions
- Place 1/2 cup of warm water and yeast in a medium bowl and whisk together briefly. Allow the yeast enough time to bubble up and become active. This should take a few minutes. If the yeast is inactive, you may need to replace the yeast and try again.
- Add room temperature water and oil to the yeast mixture, and stir to combine.
- Place the flour and salt in a food processor, and pulse to combine.
- Add the yeast mixture through the tube of the food processor and process. The dough will form into a ball. Process until the dough is smooth and elastic.
- Place the dough in a bowl that has been sprayed with non-stick spray, and cover with plastic wrap. Let the dough rise until doubled in size, up to 2 hours.
- Preheat the oven to 375°F.
- Gently pat out the dough on a floured surface into a rectangular shape.
- Cut the dough into two equal portions down the middle. Then make about 8 cuts horizontally across the dough.
- Roll each portion of dough into a breadstick.
- Spray a baking sheet with non-stick spray and place the dough strips onto the baking sheet.
- Bake for about 18 minutes or until the breadsticks become golden.
- Mix the melted butter and the garlic salt.
- Brush the garlic sauce over the breadsticks and sprinkle Parmesan cheese on top.
Elisabeth
Excellent recipe! I used the dough cycle on my bread machine and cut the dough with a pizza cutter into 1 1/2″ wide strips after rolling out. I will never have to buy Crazy bread again now! Thank you!
Ariana
So excited to try these! I don’t have a food processor and I’m wondering how I should mix it in place of it? Thank you!.
Stephanie
If you do not have a food processor mix the dough by hand, and then knead the dough on a floured surface for about three minutes. It will do the trick as well!
Liz
I made these and they turned out great! After reading the reviews (and having had some bread-baking experience) this is the recipe I followed:
1/2 cup warm water
2 1/2 teaspoons 1 package of instant yeast
3/4 cups water*****(there seemed to be way too much water here so I reduced it by half a cup)
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 cups (15oz***) of bread flour + more for sprinkling (I weighed 4 cups and it came to 15oz, not 22oz)
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
*I brushed the breadsticks with a little olive oil and water, and then sprinkled with a little garlic salt prior to baking*
*baked 375F for 15 minutes, then let rest for 2 minutes on the pan*
3 tablespoons melted butter
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
1/2 teaspoon of dried parsley flakes**** (optional)
A generous amount of parmesan cheese (I just used the normal stuff in a cylinder and it tasted fine, you don’t need fresh)
*Make sure to flip breadsticks over so both sides get the butter mixture and parmesan applied!*
Hope this helps anyone struggling!
Jakub
Great recipe although I would recommend that you put about a half to 1 full teaspoon of granulated sugar for the yeast mixture, other than that, the end result was great! I got fluffy long bread sticks with a slightly crunchy bottom which created a great texture contrast which I absolutely just love. Comparing them to the original product from Little Caesars, this had a flavor that was really close if not better than the original. I also only let the dough rise for an hour and it was more than enough time for the dough to double in size. Overall great recipe and I recommend you give it a shot!
Mixie
This was average. Nothing special. Def didnt “wow” me like other recipes ive tried.
It will give you bread ill give em that. We also had issues with dough, , i had to adjist recipe. But other eise it was “ok” , but not the best ive tried. Also not the worst!
Stephanie
I am sorry the results were less than stellar for you. I want you to be “wow’d”. What adjustments did you need to make to the dough?
Layla R.
Can I use regular flour for this recipe??
Stephanie Manley
You can use all-purpose flour.
Stephanie
These are my new favorite bread stick recipe. I followed the recipe and had no trouble at all. They were super easy to make and so good. I would take these over little caesar any day.
Maddie
Despite my issues with the dough and needing extra flour, I am giving this 5 stars because it is absolutely delicious!
I just added a little extra flour until the dough was able to form. My boyfriend who worked at Little Caesars, said this recipe is just like the real thing! He also said they use the same dough for pizza! so this recipe can easily be used to make some Little Caesars pizza!
Thank you for this recipe!
Jenn
Am I the only one who had trouble with this recipe? I read all the comments before and got no real input. First, instant yeast does not require activation, so I found that weird. Second, with the food processor I did not get a “ball of dough,” rather a very wet dough resembling a batter.
** I folded in at least half a cup of extra flour to get anything resembling dough. Let rise 1.5 hours, which was still too much. Kneaded the dough a little bit with flour just so it was possible to cut into sticks. Once baked, they came out as decent breadsticks, but nothing resembling crazy bread. **I followed the recipe to the letter up till here.
Not trying to diss this recipe, but genuinely confused by the results not matching what’s described.
Stephanie
I am sorry you had trouble with this recipe, this is the first time someone has had difficulty with the dough that I can recall. You are correct you do not need to activate instant yeast, this is something I do to make sure my yeast isn’t old.
The dough may be a little bit sticky, but it’s not a batter. It sounds like not enough flour was added, or too much liquid was added. I am certain you measured properly, so I don’t know what went sideways.
Katy
I made this and it was great. I would add more butter next time.Thank you for your recipe!
Steph K
This delicious butter and garlic flavored bread is a treat.
Kaleb
Loved these, my husband wants me to make them for the third time in a week!
weldon
A new favorite for movie night at my house.
William
My kids loved these.
maron
My kids loved these
Diya
Hey! Made these the other night and posted to my blog. I linked it back to your website for the recipe.
Rodrick
These were perfect for my party!
mathias
These are a favorite in my house!
Tonie
Loved these, my husband wants me to make them for the third time in a week!
Erika
Easy and quick. Will make again and show my girls how to make. Maybe put in the directions how to form or roll the sticks out.
ROBYN
Thank You for posting this recipe, I made these the other night & they turned out amazing. I’ve recently had a craving for garlic and so, I love the garlic & parm combination. Very good, thank you.