Last month I had more than 6 pizzas from Pizza Company alone (with their 2 for 1 deal), and yes, I eat the whole pizza (or 2 in this case). I wouldn’t normally eat this much pizza in a month unless I’m in Napoli (Italy), where I’d eat pizza every day!
A Pizza Company pizza definitely is NOT my favourite pizza, but it is easy, quick and for the month of March…super cheap!
My favourite is the Napoletana wood fired pizza, where ingredients, preparation time (for the dough), cooking temperature, and cooking time are very important, and hence why it can be so difficult to find a TRUE napoletana pizza.
Anyway, I love my pizza! It’s my favourite food and would it every day if there were a healthy way of doing it. Although there’s no true healthy way of eating pizza every day of the week, I do create my own home made pizza quite often where although is not what I’d a call a healthy meal, it is “healthier” than what you’d order from a restaurant or online delivery.
Here’s a home cooked pizza I make often, which although still isn’t a light option for a meal (cause I eat the whole thing), it’s much healthier than the what you’ll find in a restaurant and particularly from a fast food pizza restaurant…and it’s still super tasty.
The best thing with any home cooked meal, is you know what’s in it, and you can control what’s in it. Even if you order what you think is a healthy meal (like a salad) from a restaurant, there could be heaps of fats and sugar in it (which is usually the case) to make the meal tasty…so with any meal, if you want it to be healthier, better off making it yourself.
Here’s the things I cut back on when making a homemade pizza
- Oil
- Cheese
- Fatty meats
- Processed Sugar
- Tomato Base (can sometimes have a lot of sugar) – Although in the second pizza in my photos (the one with tomato sauce), I have added some BBQ/Tomato sauce on the base.
How I bring out the flavour with healthy ingredients
- Garlic
- A little salt
- Lean ham (cured so it has a savory flavour to it)
- Cherry tomatoes (very sweet in flavour)
- Herbs (oregano / basic)
A pizza without cheese might sound boring, and perhaps it is, but for me it’s not a necessity AND like I said…this is a “healthier” version of a pizza, so we can’t have it a 1:1 match of our favourite. But even if you want the cheese, you can choose what cheese to put on it, and also the quantity…but like I said…I don’t really need it. For me…what I love most about a pizza is the base, so I try and get that part done right, and the rest of it just brings out the flavour.
So the Base I make is a simple recipe with just a little yeast, flour and water. A lot of bases generally contain sugar, oil and other ingredients to make them taste so good, and YES, they taste amazing. The most important thing in making the base work so well is patience. For example, once I’ve prepared the dough I leave it in the fridge for 2 days before using it. so that’s the first thing. The second thing would be using a pizza stone (preheated), however they can make things a little more fussy so I’m using just a standard over tray in this example.
I’ve made different variations of the base to make it more flavoursome on its own, like adding salt, garlic, shallots, onion….all healthy ingredients and add extra flavour.
For the topping on my base, in these photos it’s just tomatoes and a little salt. But sometimes I heat up a little olive oil with salt and garlic and then spread this over the top…amazing strong flavour!
After that I just add my meats. In these photos, I added both ham and chicken, both lean. Other ingredients are onions and garlic. I’ve added things like peppers/capsicum, olives and spinach as well, but was low ingredients tonight so it’s pretty minimal.
Then once the topping is on, you’re done. Just put it in the oven on about 200 degrees (calcius) and leave it for about 15-20 minutes.