Healthy Pizza With a Twist
I know – healthy and pizza shouldn’t really be used in the same sentence. It isn’t as bad as saying “healthy donuts” (once i figure that one out, I’m sure I will post the recipe immediately.) This pizza has a few secret ingredients that help to tip the scale towards eating healthy, or at least tricking your kids into eating spinach. You can’t see the spinach in the images? Well, let me explain.
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Use a bread machine to quickly make the dough
This pizza starts off with a homemade whole wheat pizza dough. One of the best gifts my husband ever gave me was my bread machine. He gave it to me over 8 years ago for Christmas and it has become one of my favorite and most used appliances.
Unfortunately a couple months ago if finally gave out on me. Let me tell you how upset I was. It was equivalent to a pet dying… well almost. It was sad. That bread machine was with us through the good times and the bad.. Then one day while out thrifting with a friend, I found the same machine Breadman Ultimate II
It looked brand new. $12.99 later I was back in business. We haven’t purchased more than 5 loaves of bread since I started using it. It is so nice to know what exactly is in the bread you feed your family.
Store bought dough can also be used. I used the recipe that came with my machine for the dough. If you don’t have a machine there are lots of recipes you can find for pizza dough. It is simple to make with or without a machine.
How to Roll out the pizza dough
Once your dough is ready, you will want to roll it out on a lightly floured surface. Anyone who knows me well knows that
- I can’t cut a straight line to save my life, and
- I cannot roll dough be it pizza, tortilla or pie crust into a nice round circle. Every one ends up odd shaped, but that is OK. It is really too bad that my daughter inherited this trait from me. All her dough ends up looking like flat animals.
That is why I makes cookie sheet pizza’s. Roll your dough out into a rectangle-ish sort of shape that will fit onto a cookie sheet.
LAZY TIP: Spread semolina flour onto the cookie sheet to prevent sticking, and get the perfect gourmet pizza crust found in most restaurants.
Once your dough is rolled out, roll up the edges of the dough all the way around to make a nice crust and hold in the fillings. Spread your favorite sauce (I will be posting a homemade freezer pizza sauce recipe to come soon) onto your dough.
The Secret Ingredients for making healthy pizza
Now for the secret ingredients. Dehydrated Spinach and Nutritional Yeast. Dehydrating fresh spinach is an excellent way to sneak veggies it into almost any meal. I dehydrate fresh organic spinach then store it in an airtight mason jar. Once the sauce has been spread onto the pizza, I crunch up a handful of dried spinach and crumble it over the sauce. The crushed spinach looks just like oregano, basil or any other seasoning you may use on a pizza. Your kids (or spouse in some cases) will never no the difference.
Then I add some nutritional yeast flakes to the pizza. Nutritional yeast has a nutty, cheesy flavor that adds another dimension to cheese pizza that you will not want to do without. It is a great source of protein and vitamins. Even though my husband and I have recently gone vegan, we still love the Nutritional Yeast on our pizzas. Makes it cheesy without the cheese.
For the kids healthy pizza, I then add the cheese. For the adults, sautéed onions, mushrooms and peppers and sometimes topped with vegan cheese. IF you can eat dairy or are not vegan, go ahead and put on as much cheese as you like.
Place the pizza in a pre-heated 425 degree oven for 15-20 minutes.
Let me know what you think. Other healthy ideas – add dried kale or swiss chard instead of spinach.