Hormel Pepperoni Pesto Panini

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Hey everyone! Today I have a simple meal idea using Hormel Pepperoni! Right now I’m sitting here in between preschool drop off and pickup drinking my second cup of coffee and wishing that I didn't have to head into work this afternoon. I’m scheduled to work the next two evenings and after a crazy busy week with travels and a few deadlines that kept me up until the wee hours of the morning, I feel like just curling up and taking a nap – but we've got things planned every day until Sunday. December is starting off to be one busy month!

When days get crazy around here sometimes I don’t get dinner planned and then I find myself staring into the refrigerator at 4:30 pm trying to figure out what I can throw together  - and last night I deemed it a soup and sandwich kind of night!

It’s been so cold out lately that I not only wanted hot soup, but a warm sandwich to go with it! Sometimes I’ll toast the sandwiches under the broiler, but other times I break out the waffle maker and turn the sandwiches into Panini’s. The kids think it is fun to eat a “waffle sandwich”, and they can help out making them because they are super easy to throw together.

We had some Hormel Pepperoni left over from all of the meat and cheese platters I created over Thanksgiving week (I’ll be sharing a post on that soon!) so I decided to make a Pepperoni Pesto Panini .

Here’s what I used:

Pepperoni Pesto Panini

Makes four sandwiches

1 Package of Hormel Pepperoni

1 Roma tomato

½ Small red onion

Fresh Mozzarella cheese

Pesto

8 slices bread (I used a whole grain)

Butter

Thinly slice the Roma tomato, red onion, and mozzarella cheese, and then turn on the waffle maker to warm it up.  Spread a thin layer of butter on the outsides of the bread and then flip the pieces over and add pesto, onion, tomato, cheese, and Hormel Pepperoni. Place the sandwich in the waffle maker and gently press down. Check the sandwich occasionally until it has the desired crispness that you want

My kids prefer their sandwiches with just pepperoni and cheese and then they like to dip them into ranch – because what else would you dip it in? J Wayne walked in the house last night after work and immediately commented on just how good dinner smelled. He had no idea that dinner only took me about 10 minutes to make!

If you want to try some for yourself, here’s a Hormel coupon you can use – it’s $1.00 off any (2) Hormel Pepperoni Packages.

Working on a new blog post this morning! We had pepperoni pesto paninis last night and they were SO good! Here's a sneak peek :) #pepitup #ad #cbias

A video posted by Melissa Kaylene (@melissakaylene) on Dec 12, 2014 at 9:39am PST

Have you ever used your waffle maker for something besides a waffle? I’ve also used it to make hash browns before, but would love to hear other creative ideas as well!

 ~Melissa