Healthy, Homemade Pizza in 20 minutes!

Written By: Rosemary Seguin CNP, NNCP

Pizza is one of my favourite foods of all time. Yes you heard me, pizza. Even though I’m a nutritionist it doesn’t mean I don’t eat pizza, I just eat tasty, delicious, wholesome and nutritious pizza! Yes there is such a thing, and yes it’s absolutely delicious.

I’m going to teach you how to make a gourmet pizza yourself in 20min that your entire family will love! To make a pizza in 20 minutes you can’t make the dough from scratch, but the premade pizza crust I use is nutritious, healthy and tastes amazing. Let’s face it, making your own dough is time consuming and not everyone has the time to do so especially for working parents (like myself).  

However, I want to clarify, even if time is an issue especially when it comes to making meals, you should never compromise on healthy, wholesome, nutritious meals for yourself or your family. It takes the same amount of time to whip up an unhealthy pizza or unhealthy dinner as it does to make a healthy meal. It’s all a matter of planning your grocery list and keeping healthy ingredients in your fridge and cupboards at all times.

This pizza is also great to make for kids birthday parties, as an appetizer, or as part of a meal with a side of veggies and some chicken.

Ingredients:

1  sticklings organic spelt pizza crust (you’ll find this on a rack beside the prepared roasted chickens)

4-5  Tbsp  Neal Brothers Organic roasted garlic tomato sauce

3 -4   Fresh organic mushrooms (thinly sliced)

3   Emma Marinated artichoke hearts (chopped)

½ cup   Sardo sliced Kalamata olives (drained and rinsed)

½ cup   Pecorino crotonese cheese grated (this cheese is made from sheep’s milk – making it easier to digest especially for those with lactose intolerance)

1/4 cup goat cheese crumbled (optional)

2-3  handfuls of organic arugula

Directions:

    1)      Preheat your oven to 390F or 200C

    2)      Take pizza crust out of package and lay on a flat surface

    3)      Place your tomato sauce evenly over the pizza crust (you can use or more or less sauce depending on how you like your pizza.) NOTE:  Make sure you go right to the edges of the crust with the sauce. Because this crust is thin, I’ve found that this trick keeps the crust from burning and becoming hard and dry when baked.

    4)      Cover the pizza in a layer of mushrooms

    5)      Sprinkle the grated cheese even over top the entire pizza (you can use more or less, or none at all depending on how you like your pizza.

    6)      Add the olives

    7)      Add the artichoke hearts and goat cheese   

    8 )      Place directly in oven or on a pizza baking pan

    9)      Cook for 7min, pull out oven rack enough so you can add the arugula to the pizza and put back in over for another 5 min. ( I put the arugula on mid way through cooking so the arugula does not get overcooked, burnt and destroyed of nutrients. 5min. is just enough time to wilt it down)

   10)   Take out of the oven and serve.

I hope you enjoy this pizza as much as my family and I do. Have fun with your pizza and try different combinations of other healthy toppings each time you make it. If you have a pizza topping recipe you like share it with us so we can try it too!

Buon Appetito!