I’ve been avoiding tomatoes the past two weeks while doing an elimination diet. After seeing several practitioners about a particular health ailment I’m dealing with, one of the avenues I’m exploring is the possibility of food sensitivities. As a happy result I chanced into my aunt suggesting we make pizza with pesto instead of tomato sauce. It was so amazing I may never go back.

Give Yourself a Break

Before I write out the recipe, let me say if you have a grocery store that sells premade pesto in the deli area, even if it costs and arm and a leg, buy it! I made my own for the photo here but in the future I plan to let the grocery store chefs do the work. You can also get premade dough, preshredded cheese, pre-cut mushrooms… do you see a trend here? Even with premade dough, between making my own pesto and chopping and cooking all these ingredients took me over an hour, which is about fifty-five minutes too long when you’re multitasking and taking care of two kids. As I cooked my one-year-old daughter ran in and out of the kitchen, frequently stopping to play her favorite new game of opening and closing the fridge door over, and over, and over again. I distracted her with a tasty smoothie for about three minutes before she was back at it. So let me be the first to say that buying premade things is totally worth it. On the other hand, making your own means you can customize things. If you are cutting out nuts or cheese, making your own pesto is the way to go.

Pesto Pizza Recipe

Ingredients

• Pesto (buy premade if available – make your own if you need to exclude nuts or dairy)
• Pizza dough (buy premade if available – make your own if you need to exclude gluten)
• Toppings of your choice. We like various combinations of:
  • Precut mushrooms
  • Preshredded mozzerella cheese
  • One green bell pepper
  • Chicken sausage

Directions

1. Prepare all your toppings. Slice the green pepper into small pieces, precook the mushrooms in a bit of coconut oil or butter, and precook the sausage into small crumbles.
2. Prepare your pans. If you have a pizza stone, great! If not you can use a regular cookie sheet. Do yourself a favor and use parchment paper if you have it. If not, lightly oil the area of the pan where you’ll be placing the dough so that it doesn’t stick after it comes out of the oven.
3. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.
4. Divide your dough. I split mine into pieces sized for three personal pizzas and one mini-pizza for our toddler.
5. Roll out your dough. Sprinkle some flour onto a clean, flat kitchen counter or table. Flour your hands and a rolling pin. Roll out each piece of dough to the thinness of your liking. Place the rolled out dough onto your prepared pan.
6. Decorate your pizza. My kids love helping with this step. Spread about a tablespoon of pesto over the pizza and then layer on any toppings of your choice. My kids like cheese and chicken sausage, while I like green peppers, mushrooms, and cheese. I also made one dairy-free pizza using just sausage and green peppers (but don’t forget premade pesto will most likely have parmesan cheese, so if you want your pizza to be truly dairy-free you’ll need to make your own without cheese.
7. Cook your pizzas in the oven until the cheese bubbles and the crust is golden brown just under the edge. For me this took about 11 minutes.
8. Let pizza cool, slice, and enjoy!

 

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HealthyYogaMom is written by Tess, a writer and mother of two who is passionate about health, happiness, and a sustainable living on the planet. Learn more about Tess here.