“Beginners” is one of my favorite modern romcoms, and pizza rolls are one of my favorite food innovations.

To be clear from the start, these are not the small, thin-crust fried pizza bites many of us grew up eating. These are full-blown rolls with pizza ingredients stuffed in them.

This vegan recipe makes approximately 8 rolls. It can be gluten-free if you use gluten-free flour in the dough and a gluten-free vegan pepperoni.

Dough Ingredients
1.25 cups lukewarm water
1 packet active dry yeast
1 tablespoon sugar
2.33 cups gluten-free pizza flour
0.5 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 tablespoons olive oil (reserved for brushing the rolls before they go in the oven)

Fillings
15 ounces plain tomato sauce
1 tablespoon basil, minced (dried or fresh)
1 heaping cup vegan mozzarella, shredded
5 ounces vegan pepperoni

Instructions
Drop the sugar and yeast into the lukewarm water and let it activate (get foamy). It should take a couple minutes.

In a large bowl or using a stand mixer (with the dough hook), pour in the pizza flour, salt, olive oil and yeast/sugar/water mixture.

Mix until a dough is formed.

Cover the dough and let it sit at room temperature until it doubles (approximately 1 hour). Chill the dough in the fridge for 30 minutes to 24 hours.

Pull the dough out of the fridge and preheat your oven to 500°F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Mix together the fillings in a bowl. Honestly, you can use whatever fillings you want. If you prefer vegan sausage or mushrooms over pepperoni, use that instead.

Break or cut the dough into 8 pieces that are roughly the same size.

Flatten out each piece on a floured surface and drop in a spoonful of the fillings.

Wrap the dough as best you can around the fillings. It doesn’t have to be perfect, as this recipe is meant to be rustic.

Place each roll on your parchment-lined baking sheet. Brush them with olive oil.

Bake the rolls at 500°F for 10-15 minutes or until the dough is baked and a golden color.

Serve and enjoy with “Beginners!”

The Easy Route
You can use premade pizza dough for this instead of making it yourself. You can also use a premade pizza or pasta sauce instead of stirring in your own herbs and spices. We used pre-shredded cheese to have one less step.

Know of a restaurant or brand that makes vegan pizza rolls? Please share those details in the comments.

The Pairing
I first saw “Beginners” when it came out in theaters in 2011 and was immediately taken by this dramatic romcom and the unbelievably charismatic performances of Ewan McGregor, Melanie Laurent and Christopher Plummer.

As the last 14 years have passed, I grew to have a deeper appreciation for the film. With all of the places I’ve lived in my 20s and 30s, I found Anna (Laurent) to be especially relatable.

In voiceover, Oliver (McGregor) says this about her: “This is what it looks like when she cries. When she tells me there’s always a new empty room waiting for her. They used to make her feel free. Now they make her feel the opposite of free.”

I chose pizza rolls for this pairing because they were a staple of my diet in the years where my career brought me all over the country.

Anna and Oliver meet at a costume party as he is dealing with his father’s (Plummer) death and late-in-life coming out.

Laurent and McGregor have incredible chemistry, and they both can communicate more in one look than most actors could with a 10-page monologue.

McGregor also has fantastic familial chemistry with Plummer, and you are immediately drawn into their complicated dynamic. It should come as no surprise that Plummer won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for this film, as he does a wonderful job of bringing Hal to life, as perhaps the film’s most vibrant character, which is an interesting dichotomy with the fact that Hal is a dying man.

On top of these terrifically human moments, there is an adorable dog who is humanized with some hilarious and poignant subtitles.

“Beginners” transcends the romcom genre, moving past tropes and cliches to tell an original story that is just as moving as it is funny.

If you decide to make these pizza rolls and/or watch “Beginners,” let us know! Tag us in your Instagram posts & stories, threads, TikToks and/or tweets: @veg_out_recipes. We’re also on Bluesky as @vegoutrecipes.bsky.social.

This is part one of my third anniversary double feature, where I pair baked goods with favorite romcoms. The second part is white chocolate cranberry walnut oatmeal cookies paired with “Stranger Than Fiction.”