Healthy Pizza

3 Healthy Pizza Recipes

Pizza is a favorite amongst kids, college students, and adults alike. I will be giving unto you three versions of pizza, which I have made based on preferences of me and my family! I also made a cheese pizza for those who do not like meat! These are all good pizzas, my favorite is the pepperoni. Enjoy and leave me comments if you have any suggestions to make the recipes even better!!

Utensils needed:

Bowl for mixing dough

Medium pan

Whisk

Larger pizza pans (or several smaller pans)

Spoon

Grater/Knife

Rolling Pin

Fork

Platter

Ingredients for Pizza Dough:

2 cups of self rising flour

2 small containers (11.2 ounces) of plain greek yogurt

Olive Oil

Ingredients for Pizza Sauce:

30 ounces of tomato sauce

12 ounces of tomato paste

1 Tablespoon Italian Seasoning

1 Teaspoon Onion Powder

1 Tablespoon Dried Oregano

1 Teaspoon Garlic Powder

Ingredients for Pepperoni Pizza:

Above sauce

Mozzarella Cheese

Healthy Switch #1: Turkey Pepperoni

Ingredients for 3 Cheese Pizza:

1/2 Cup Ricotta Cheese

Mozzarella Cheese

2 Tablespoons Parmesan Shreds

2 Tablespoons Fresh Thyme

Ingredients for Smoked Salmon:

3 Tablespoons of Fat-Free Cream Cheese

1 HEAPING Tablespoon Fresh Dill (because I <3 Dill!!)

1 Tablespoon Fresh Squeezed Lemon Juice

A Serving of Salmon

Extra Dill for Garnish

Using some fresh seasonings in the recipe has definitely swayed my mind. I think I want to add these to my inside garden :)

No more wasting time, lets get down to making this pizza your family will be

begging for over and over! For this recipe the sauce takes the longest to prepare. Overall cooking time (for the sauce) needs to be around an hour or as close as the hungry mouths can wait!

Pizza Sauce:

30 oz tomato sauce

12 oz tomato paste

With a pan over medium heat mix together the tomato sauce and the tomato paste. Using the whisk, mix together the two until they are one consistency. Takes about 30 seconds to a minute.

(L->R; 1 T Italian Seasoning, 1 t onion powder, 1 T Dried Oregano, 1 t garlic powder)

Add seasonings to sauce

Once your sauce is one consistency, now is the right time to add the seasonings. Whisk in the seasonings and continue stirring until the sauce begins to boil. At that point you will want to turn the heat down to lo, cover, and you will want to stir it about 8 times over the next hour. I set my timer for 15 minutes the first time, but when I came back the tomato sauce had begun to stick to the bottom. So after that I set the timer down to about 8 minutes, the sauce was no longer sticking. So I would say set the timer for 8 minutes and stir it then over the course of the next hour.

When the sauce is about 30 minutes into the cooking process, I would recommend starting the dough. Only because you need to cook the salmon crust before you top it, but it needs to cool before you top it. Then you can prepare/roll the other doughs to have them ready.

Pizza Dough:

This is literally the easiest crust I have ever made! Preheat the oven to 420 degrees.

Mix greek yogurt and flour

2 cups self rising flour

You will need self-raising flour, next time I try this recipe I am going to use whole grain flour! Mix that with the greek yogurt. And I know how gross this may sound/feel, but I found it mixes WAYY easier when you use your hands. I mixed it in the bowl until it was just flour on the bottom and I turned it upside down on the counter and mixed the rest of it by hand, literally.

3 pizza dough balls

This will make about 3 personal size pizzas. I made one of the pizza balls smaller, because I was unsure if I would like salmon, but I added that dough to the pepperoni dough ball because I knew I would love that one! No way you can screw up pepperoni pizza!! After that take whichever dough ball you want for the salmon pizza and set the other two to the side for now.

Make sure you are still stirring the sauce!!!!!

Using the rolling pin flatten out the first dough ball until desired thickness, just remember the thicker the dough the longer cook time will be needed. However, after you have flattened the first dough ball, place it on a olive oil greased pizza/cookie pan. Prick the flattened dough to prevent air bubbles. Place this pan in the oven on the lowest shelf. Set timer for 15 minutes and start preparing the other pizzas.

Thickened Pizza Sauce

Cook this crust, while rolling out other crusts

By now the pizza sauce should be thick. Put it on a platter or just remove from heat and allow to cool before adding it to the pizza. While this is cooling roll out the other two dough balls to desired thickness.

Do not forget about the pizza crust in the oven!

Pepperoni Pizza:

Turkey Pepperoni before being cooked

Pizza sauce on Crust

Next step: Mozzarella

Start with the uncooked pizza crust. As you can tell by the picture, my crust are not exactly round, who cares!! Add as much cooled sauce as you would like. I added about 4 tablespoons to this pizza. Then instead of using regular shredded mozzarella, I got a ball of fresher mozzarella. This was a true experiment. "How the heck do you even cut a ball of mozzarella?" was my immediate thought. I tried the grater, ended up basically shredding it, so I just used a sharp knife, just so you know, in my experience, I squished the cheese once it started getting closer to room temperature. So after I added the right amount (depends on your personal preference), then I switched regular pepperoni for turkey pepperoni! COULDN'T EVEN TASTE THE DIFFERENCE! The only two differences I could tell was that I did not get heartburn immediately after. This pizza was also FAR less greasy than normal.

3 Cheese Pizza:

3 Cheese before baked

Grab that last pizza crust you have rolled out. While this may not be the best choice because cheese is basically fat, but it does provide you with calcium, protein, and Vitamin B. And this is something easy to make for your friends who may not like meat!

Maybe check your pizza crust in the oven, I think mine may have been going off by this point. You will know when it gets closer to being done, because the edges will begin to brown and look yummy! If it is ready pull out from oven, however leave the oven at 420 for the other pizzas, and set that aside.

You will want to gather all your cheeses at this time!

Spread evenly over crust

Put ricotta on crust

First spread out 1/2 cup ricotta with the back of a spoon as the "sauce" we could call it.

Then cut up some more chilled mozzarella, I used my trusty knife again. Then add 2 Tablespoons parmesan shreds.

After adding mozzarella, add parmesan shreds

Then add the fresh thyme

After I feel like I have precisely put every piece of cheese on every slice of pizza, I began to work with the thyme. Let me just say if you have never worked with this before, it smells like springtime! I just want to cut this shit up to smell it!! I think I was watching Rachel Ray one day and I remember her dealing with thyme. I think she said the way to prepare it was to take it from the bottom of the stem and pull the leaves off. So thats what I did anyway until I had 2 Tablespoons. Then I spread/sprinkled that our over the cheese.

I warmed up about a cup or so, to allow for dipping the cheese pizza in. I had quite a bit of leftover pizza sauce (so I may cut it in half, unless you are making pizzas that have all this sauce)

Smoked Salmon Pizza:

The recipe I feel has the most anticipation!

2-3 tablespoons Fat-Free Cream Cheese

1 tablespoon lemon juice

Once your crust has been allowed to become cool, much like me, you will want to prepare the "sauce"

for this pizza. It consists of mixing 2-3 tablespoons of fat free cream cheese, 1tablespoon fresh squeezed lemon juice, 1 tablespoon freshly chopped dill.

1 overfilled tablespoon of fresh dill

OMG I also found out I loved this! So I added a HEAPING tablespoon HA. It may be hard to mix, depending if you left the cream cheese in the fridge to harden. If you let it sit out on the counter for a minute or two it becomes more soft and easier to mix.

Smoke Salmon Pizza Sauce

This "sauce" has a strong lemon taste. So if you are not one who is in to sour things, I would not recommend this, however, it pairs very well with the smoked salmon which has a strong flavor in and of itself.