Baked Honey-Cornbread Mozzarella Sticks (with spicy marinara)

Breaded in a (gluten-free) sweet honey cornbread and spice mixture, then dredged in more honey, and baked instead of fried, creating a delicious healthy twist on an old snack favorite.  When dipped in spicy marinara sauce, this sweet and spicy snack is taken to the next level.  We call this guy a game-changer.

Oh lawdy lawdy do I have a game changer for you today!  I can’t even.  I just can’t.  I can’t even talk about anything else except this recipe, so here goes ….

So once upon a time, there lived a girl who had one big hankering for mozzarella sticks.  Prob was, was that she couldn’t eat restaurant or grocery store types {#GlutenFreeProblems}.  Whomp whomp.  That is, until she tried making them herself.

So she tried making her own… she was moving right along…. until that ingredient called ‘bread crumbs’ became an issue.  She didn’t have any in sight… but what she did have was some corn bread a cookin’ in that oven of hers.  So she tried the recipe with those dang cornbread crumbs and good mighty… it was delicious.

She loved that sweet hint that the honey cornbread gave off in every bite…but she longed for more.  So she set out to make them again, only this time make them even sweeter by dipping them in honey before baking…. and adding some spicy marinara as a finish…. and her work was complete… a complete game-changer was made.  The end.

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Baked Honey-Cornbread Mozzarella Sticks (with spicy marinara)

Prep Time 30 minutes

Cook Time 5 minutes

Total Time 35 minutes

Servings 24

Author J Trogstad

Ingredients

• 12 in pack mozzarella string cheese cut half
• 2 cups gluten-free cornbread crumbs
• 1 cup gluten-free flour* I use white rice or GF all-purpose flour here
• 1 egg beaten
• 1 TBSP fresh honey
• 2 tsp garlic powder
• 2 tsp onion powder
• 1 TBSP parsley finely chopped
• cracked black pepper to taste

Instructions

1. Place the halved cheese sticks in the freezer for 30 minutes to completely freeze. Preheat the oven to 400*F.
2. In a medium mixing bowl, combine the flour, garlic and onion powders, parsley and black pepper together. In another bowl, combine the egg and honey and mix well. Place the cornbread crumbs in a third bowl.
3. Once frozen. cover each cheese stick in the flour, then the egg mix, then the cornbread crumbs. place each one on a cookie sheet lined with tin foil that has been lightly sprayed with cooking spray.
4. Bake for 3-6 minutes or until cheese is bubbly and browning around the edges. You may want to flip your sticks halfway through the baking process. Allow ample time to cool down before inhaling them all. Enjoy them messy with some spicy marinara sauce!

*I used this gluten-free flour and this gluten-free cornbread mix for the cornbread crumbs (affiliate links).

Oh my goodness!  And this Mezzetta Marinara Sauce is so so good.  Hubby and I devoured our jar or Spicy Marinara so quickly that we didn’t have any left when I took pictures of these mozzarella sticks!  And the sweet and savoury Marinara flavor was a good second choice too!

Mezzetta Napa Valley Homemade Sauce; The Sauce Memories Are Made Of:

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