Turkey & Cheese Rolls

Soft, pillowy, melt-in-the-mouth, these Turkey & Cheese Rolls will leave you wanting for more!

Raise your hands if things have changed drastically in your homes over the past few weeks! I cannot begin to tell you the many ways life has changed in our home. Apart from the fact that the husband is home more than ever (which I love!), I’m also back to working on the blog full time. Which means, things have changed drastically in my kitchen too. Working long hours at my old job meant ordering in more times in a week than we wished to. So the fact that I’m now my own boss, coupled with the worldwide mandate to stay home and step out as little as possible, has resulted in some very very creative cooking!

I sincerely hope you are adhering to your government’s mandate to stay home. And since you’re shopping for weeks at a time, I’m not about to post a fancy recipe for you, urging you to go out and get some crazy cheese with an un-pronounceable name, or some ingredient with a price tag that makes your eyes bulge! Now more that ever, it is important to make do with what we have lying around in the pantry and refrigerator. And so, I bring you these Turkey & Cheese Rolls.

The recipe I used for the bread rolls is one from TASTY, but I did find that I needed to make some adjustments to get the dough to a kneadable consistency. While I have worked with Tangzhong before in my Sausage Rolls recipe (click the link, and you’ll get a bonus view of how TERRIBLE my food photography was back when I started the blog!) and love the softness it brings to bread, you can also try my Cinnamon Rolls which don’t quite require as much work to put together and STILL yield a really soft bread roll!

Here’s what you need:

For the Tangzhong:

Water – 3 tbsp (45 ml)
Whole Milk – 3 tbsp (43 ml)
All Purpose Flour – 2 tbsp (20 g)

For the Dough:

All Purpose Flour – 450 g, divided
Granulated Sugar – 56 g
Salt – 1 tsp (5 g)
Active Dry Yeast / Instant Yeast – 1 tbsp (14 g)
Whole Milk – 246 ml, warm
Unsalted Butter – 60 g, melted
Egg – 1, large

For the Filling:

Turkey Strips – 8, lightly browned
Cheese Slices – 8
Egg – 1, beaten, for egg wash
Vegetable oil, for greasing

Here’s how you make these hearty Turkey & Cheese Rolls:

Make the Tangzhong: On medium heat, cook flour, water and whole milk, stirring continuously until thick and paste like. Once done, transfer it to a bowl, cover with clingfilm and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Make the Dough: In a large bowl, whisk 360 g of flour, sugar and yeast. In a separate bowl, mix milk, melted butter, tangzhong and the egg until combined. Then pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients slowly. At this point the dough will be very wet. Add a few tablespoons of flour at a time until you can knead the dough into a ball. However, don’t add more than a total of 450 g of flour as the bread will become dry. If at this point the dough is still sticky, wet your hands and work it. Knead the dough for a total of 20 minutes – if you have a stand mixer with a dough hook, you can make use of the same too. Then transfer the dough to a bowl greased with vegetable oil, cover and let it rise in the warmest part of your kitchen for 1.5 hours.
Make the Rolls: Once the dough has doubled in size, lightly punch it down and transfer it to a lightly floured surface. Roll it out until about 1 cm high. Place the slices of turkey and cheese all over and begin rolling the log away from you. Make sure it is a tight log. Then slice the log into about 14-16 rolls and place then in a greased baking tin. Cover and let it rise for another 30 minutes.
Bake: Preheat the oven to 180 ºC/ 350 ºF. Once the rolls have risen, lightly brush with egg wash and place the baking tin in the oven and bake for 25-30 minutes, or until the tops are golden. Do not over bake. Take the rolls out of the oven, and serve hot, slathered with herb/garlic butter. Or cover and allow them to cool, then store them in ziplock bags and freeze.

I could wax poetic about these Turkey & Cheese Rolls, because I love Love LOVE bread, but because I want to shorten the amount of time between you reading this and you feasting on these rolls, please find below my short-ish marketing pitch…

These rolls are soft. Seriously SOFT! Like, I cannot believe how pillowy they are. The crumb on these rolls is sure to make you close your eyes and let out a satisfied sigh!
The aroma of these rolls baking in the oven is unparalleled. Your home will be filled with that warm, welcoming scent of a bakery that both comforts you and makes you immensely hungry!
The Turkey and Cheese filling of these rolls is such a great combination that I love even in sandwiches. I used turkey strips and cheese slices because that is what I had on hand. I urge you to go with whatever you have at home – any kind of ham or bacon works, or you can even stuff these with a mix of sautéed spinach and yogurt/feta.
I made these into swirls or rolls because I was lazy to cut up my filling into tiny bits. However, if you have leftover pulled chicken or pork, or stir-fried veggies and meat, literally ANYTHING, you can make these into stuffed buns. All you have to do is divide the dough once it is proofed into small sections, flatten out each roundel and spoon the filling into the centre. Pull the sides together and pinch them taut, then set on a baking tray to rise for another 30 minutes before you bake them. Baking time remains the same.
These are best when eaten straight out of the oven, hot and delicious. However, they freeze really well, which means you can store them in a zip lock bag and you’ll have breakfast ready for a later date. All you’ve got to do if heat it up in the microwave and you’re sorted.

These rolls are a great way to up your cooking skills during this time. I hope you make them and love them. And do drop a comment below to tell me how things have changed in your homes during the quarantine! 🙂 Stay safe and healthy, Dear Reader ❤