Crescent roll dough is easier to cook with than it looks. Here's how to choose, use, and store it, what to substitute, and 98 recipes to get you started.

What is crescent roll dough?

Crescent roll dough is the refrigerated canned dough that pops out of a cardboard tube, scored into triangles you roll up into flaky little crescents. It bakes up soft inside with buttery, layered tops.

The appeal is that it is sold ready to shape, with no mixing, kneading, or rising to wait through. Pillsbury made it a household staple, but most stores carry a generic version too.

The dough comes perforated into triangles, or as a plain uncut sheet for shapes you cut yourself. Think of it as a shortcut laminated dough: quicker than puff pastry and softer, less crisp, forgiving on a weeknight.

How to Use Crescent Roll Dough

The default is plain crescents. Unroll the dough, separate the triangles, roll each from the wide end to the point, then curve the ends and bake per the tube, usually around 375°F (190°C) for 11 to 13 minutes until golden.

From there it becomes a wrapper. Roll a triangle around a cocktail sausage or a cube of cheese to make pigs in a blanket and stuffed bites. Cheeseburger Crescent Rolls and Veggie-Stuffed Crescent Rolls both work this way.

Lay the triangles out flat and you get a crust.

Pressed into a sheet pan with the seams pinched shut, the dough becomes a base for Easy Crescent Vegetable Pizza or a breakfast bake like A Texas Breakfast Casserole. It also turns sweet, wrapping around marshmallows or fruit for pastries like Magic Marshmallow Crescent Puffs and quick Danishes.

Working With It and Common Mistakes

Keep the dough cold until the moment you use it. Cold dough is firm and easy to handle, while warm dough turns slack and sticky and tears as you roll it. Pull the tube straight from the fridge and work quickly.

When you flatten triangles into a sheet, press the diagonal seams together firmly or filling leaks through the gaps as it bakes. A plain crescent sheet, sometimes sold as a dough sheet, skips the perforations and saves that step.

Do not overwork the dough. Handling warms it and presses out the layers that make it flaky, so it bakes up tough, and the same goes for stretching it thin to cover more pan. Brush the tops with egg wash for a glossier crust if you like.

Substitutes

For wraps and bakes, refrigerated crescent sheet dough is the obvious stand-in, and puff pastry works when you want a crisper, flakier result. Puff bakes hotter and rises much higher, so adjust expectations.

Refrigerated biscuit dough subs in for a softer, bread-like texture without the flaky layers. Pizza dough works for savory crusts when you want chew rather than flake.

From scratch, a quick homemade crescent or rough puff dough does the job. You just lose the main appeal, which is opening a tube and skipping the work.

Buying and Storing Crescent Roll Dough

Find it in the refrigerated case near the biscuits and cookie dough, never on a shelf, since it has to stay cold. Check the date and that the tube is firm, not bulging.

Keep it refrigerated right up to baking and respect the use-by date. Once opened, the dough should be baked the same day; it dries out and loses its puff if it sits exposed.

You can freeze an unopened tube for a month or two, then thaw it overnight in the fridge before using. Do not leave the tube out at room temperature to soften, because warm dough is exactly what you are trying to avoid.

Quick facts

In Chinese

新月形面团滚

British (UK) term

Crescent roll dough

en français

rouleau la pâte à croissants

en español

media luna rollo de masa

Recipes using crescent roll dough

There are 98 recipes that contain this ingredient.

All 98 recipes

More crescent roll dough recipes

• Apple Cinnamon Rolls
• Bacon 'N Eggs Crescent Sandwich
• Cheesy Zucchini Quiche
• Cherry Crescent Cheesecake Cups
• Chicken & Cheese Crescent Chimachangas
• Chicken & Guava-Filled Bundles
• Chicken Dish
• Cool Dessert Pizza
• Creamy Chicken Roll-Ups
• Crescent Cheese Delights
• Crescent Cheese Squares
• Danish Cream Cheese Cake
• Easy Breakfast Casserole
• Easy Chicken Pastry Bites
• Hamburger Pie
• Onion Cake
• Pizza in a Crescent
• Short-Cut Monkey Bread
• Smores Bars
• Spinach wheels
• Sweet Little Things
• Zucchini Crescent Pie