Just because you’re craving pizza doesn’t mean that you have to kick all of your healthy eating and hard work to the curb. While traditional pizza is known to be saucy comfort food covered in toppings, with just a few changes, you can turn it into a smart choice that’s filled with fiber, protein, dairy and vegetables! You’d be surprised at how simple it is to make a healthy homemade pizza recipe that still has all the flavor of your favorite takeout.
Making your pizza at home is also a great way to control what goes into it and perform any modifications needed to meet your dietary restrictions. Here are a few of our favorite tweaks for making the healthiest and most delicious pizza possible!
Choose a Thin Crust Over Deep Dish
Avoiding deep dish pizza can help you save both calories and carbs. Because deep dish pizzas often have a thicker crust, the recipes call for a lot more dough. While thick crust may taste delicious, it adds a lot more calories to the pizza. Deep dish pizza also has a lot more toppings and cheese. To slim down your pizza, we recommend choosing a light crust recipe and keeping the cheese to a minimum.
Skip the Stuffed Crust
While we’re on the topic of thick crusts, some pizza recipes provide a stuffed or cheesy crust option. While it might taste great, a stuffed crust can add a lot more calories and saturated fat to your pie. For a healthy pizza option, stick to a thin crust pizza and leave the toppings for the top of the pie, not in the crust.
Use a Healthier Flour Option
If you want to boost the nutritional value of your homemade pizza dough, try swapping out white flour for a whole grain alternative. White flours are refined, meaning that a lot of the nutritional value has been removed. On the other hand, whole wheat flour and almond flour are full of nutrients and will leave you feeling fuller for longer. Here are a few of our favorite flour swaps:
Made for 100% stone ground from dark northern hard red wheat, our whole wheat flour has the nutritious bran and germ still intact. This high-protein whole grain flour is perfect for both novice and advanced bakers and creates a consistent, high-rising pizza crust.
Our Paleo Baking Flour makes grain-free baking quick and easy! This delicious flour blend can be used to create a variety of baked goods like cookies, muffins, flatbreads and pizza crust!
Try it out and use this recipe to make the perfect Paleo Pizza Crust!
On the hunt for a gluten free, low carb flour? You just found it! Made from the finest California-grown almonds, our almond flour is the perfect choice for gluten free pizza dough and a must-have when making a healthy homemade pizza recipe!
A premium high-protein flour milled from America’s highest quality wheat, our Artisan Bread Flour is popular amongst bakers and is perfect for making a chewy, tasty pizza crust!
Make Your Own Sauce
Whether you enjoy topping your pizza with traditional tomato sauce or something a little more unique like pesto, give it a healthier spin by whipping it up from scratch! Homemade sauce is a great way to add everything you do like and skip the ingredients you don’t. Store-bought sauces are often full of sugar and processed ingredients. By making a sauce at home, you gain control of how much of each ingredient you add. Using organic, unprocessed ingredients can turn your sauce into an extra boost of nutrition that most store-bought sauces lack.
Looking for a healthy and straightforward homemade tomato sauce recipe? Look no further. Using tomatoes, herbs and garlic, this homemade sauce is delicious and easy when testing out different healthy pizza options. Prepared in just under an hour, you’ll be able to whip up your pies in no time at all!
Go Easy on the Cheese
Many (if not all) pizza recipes use cheese as a topping. While delicious, cheese is a calorie-dense food that contains a fair amount of fat. Lighten up by using a good-quality cheese with a lot of flavor, and sprinkling it on lightly.
You can also learn how to make healthy pizza at home with a silicone baking mat. These tools are a great way to reduce the number of calories in a pizza, as they create a non-stick base without having to oil the pan first.
Opt for Smaller Slices
While it may sound simple, cutting a pizza into smaller slices can trick your brain into thinking you’re eating more.
Choose Your Toppings Wisely
When choosing toppings, choose wisely. After all, toppings can make it easy to sneak some extra nutrients onto your pizza. Veggies are the easiest way to make your homemade pizza just a bit healthier. Tomatoes, onions, peppers and even asparagus are all healthy pizza options for toppings, just make sure you choose vegetables you enjoy! Uncured and lean meats are also a great way to boost the protein content and flavor of a homemade pizza recipe.
Add Less
Creating a pizza from scratch provides you with the opportunity to tailor the flavor of your pizza to your preference. With the proper use of toppings and unique sauces, you can create a delicious pizza with just half the sauce that a regular pizza would use. Get creative in the kitchen and use sauces that you wouldn’t usually think about using for a pizza. Some of our favorite sauces include pesto, hummus and even olive oil!
Pair Your Pizza with a Salad
Didn’t get enough greens on your pizza? Pairing your pizza with a yummy salad is a great way to work in those extra veggies. Salads are loaded with nutritious whole foods that are also tasty and satisfying. Not only will adding a salad to your meal give it a nutritional boost, but it’s also a great way to control portion sizes. Pairing your pizza with the perfect salad will add more bulk to the meal and help you consume fewer calories without even thinking twice. The trick to creating a salad that satisfies your cravings is to load it up with delicious toppings like veggies, fruits and healthy dressing! Here’s a list of our four favorite salads that will pair perfectly with your healthy homemade pizza recipe.
Healthy Homemade Pizza Recipes
Now that you know what it takes to create a healthy pizza at home, it’s time to choose a recipe. We’ve outlined some of our favorites below to help you get started!
Winter Harvest Pizza
This delicious pizza recipe is the perfect way to keep warm this holiday season. The delightful healthy pizza options and topping combinations used in this recipe are mouthwatering! Packed with yummy veggies like Brussels sprouts and butternut squash and topped with bacon, dates and blue cheese, this recipe really is a show-stopping pie.
Hawaiian Pizza
Bring the tasty summer flavors of Hawaii to your dinner table with this healthy homemade pizza recipe. To amp up the nutritional value, this recipe uses a fiber-rich honey whole wheat crust topped with yummy Canadian bacon and juicy chunks of pineapple.
Veggie Pizza with a Spinach and Flaxseed Crust
Overflowing with tasty veggies, at first glance, this pizza might be mistaken for a salad. The spinach and flaxseed fiber-rich crust is jam-packed with flavor and omega-3 essential fatty acids. This flourless recipe uses our ground flaxseed meal, spinach, mozzarella, eggs and salt, which creates a delightful crust. The incredible flavor of this crust allows you to get creative with your pizza topping combos, which is why we’ve outlined some of our favorites like sliced asparagus, sun-dried tomatoes and fresh ricotta cheese!
Looking to test out more pizza recipes? Visit our website today to discover more pizza making tips and a variety of recipes for tasty homemade pies!
