Pizza Night Nudged Right | Roasted Veggie Pizza Recipe

I think most of us can agree on one thing - pizza is delicious. It's the perfect marriage of crispy crust, tangy tomato sauce, and creamy melted cheese. Often times it can be topped with other tasty toppings that add to this trifecta of flavor, however why is pizza often targeted as an unhealthy food that is the downfall of every diet? Why is it any different than a sandwich that has bread, cheese, meat and veggies?

Nudge knows pizza is at heart a healthy and delicious meal. The problem is that most of us get our pizza from restaurants or from a box in the freezer section. Both of these sources usually add unneeded fat, preservatives, and cut back on quality healthy ingredients to save money and time. You can make incredible pizza at home that is cheaper than what you get in the freezer section and loaded with healthy nutriuents if you understand the building blocks.

1. Great Crust - While there's plenty of great recipes online, look for the simplest artisan recipes - flour, salt, water, yeast. That's all you need...along with alot of time and handling. I've been able to recreate amazing crust from these recipes but if you're like me, I don't always have time to spend 3 hours mixing, kneading, and rising dough. Your best bet is to find a bakery, grocery store, or pizzeria that will sell you raw pizza dough. It can be frozen and thawed when you need it...or when you don't want to knead it (sorry, bad joke).

2. Great Sauce - This was something that was hard for me to understand. I always thought you had to treat pizza sauce like a complex marinara and simmer it for hours to get the right flavors. I was so wrong. Pizza sauce needs really good whole canned tomatoes with a few other fresh ingredients that are mixed together raw. The sauce cooks on the pizza while it's baking and THAT'S what gives the sauce its signature flavor.

3. Cheese - I found is that expensive cheese does not make a great pizza. I've tried buffalo mozzarella, fresh mozzarella, whole mozzarella,  part skim mozzarella - all with different results. While they all have their place, part skim shredded mozzarella melts just like the cheese on pizza you're most likely used to and is by far the cheapest. It also contains much less fat and calories.

4. Toppings - Last but not least is that pizza can be healthy if you load it up with healthy, delicious toppings. Roasted vegetables have a great smoky flavor that work great on a pizza. If you want to add meat, make sure it's lean and doesn't contribute alot of fat to your pizza. 

Roasted Veggie Pizza Recipe

Ingredients

1 28 oz can good whole tomatoes (preferrably San Marzano), half of the juice drained

4 cloves garlic, minced

1/4 cup fresh basil, chopped

1/2 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup part skim mozzarella

1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese

2 cups broccoli florets

1 red bell pepper, sliced thin

2 cups fresh spinach

1 Tbls olive oil

2 premade uncooked pizza doughs

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place broccoli, bell pepper slices, 3 cloves minced garlic, spinach and olive oil on a foil lined baking sheet. Season with salt and pepper and mix until well coated. Roast vegetables in oven for 30 to 40 minutes. Remove from oven and cool.

Meanwhile, make the pizza sauce. In a blender, put tomatoes, 1 clove minced garlic, fresh basil, salt, and sugar. Blend on low until well mixed and switch to high to liquefy.

Roll out pizza dough and swirl on about 1/4 to 1/3 cup pizza sauce. Don't overload with sauce or it will not cook evenly. Sprinkle 1/4 cup mozzarella and 1/8 cup parmesan cheese on each pizza. Place in oven and cook as directed with your pizza dough. Pull the pizza out about 3 minutes before done and put roasted vegetables on top. Place back in oven and finish baking time.

Serves 8

Nudge measures how healthy you're living with a single health score, the Nudge Factor. Now syncing with your favorite health apps, Nudge is your healthy lifestyle in one place, with one health score. If you'd like to learn more about how to engage your audience and get more brand advocates, contact Nudge.