You guys, I am a pizza crust connoisseur! I have been on the hunt for AGES to find the perfect pizza crust recipe! And guess what?! THIS WAS NOT IT! Haha, I had my first slice of pizza and thought it was pretty good, but by slice number 2, I couldn't even finish it. The worst part was, the recipe I had for Almond Flour Pizza Crust had over 1000 reviews and had a 4.5 star rating, so I was almost certain this would turn out great.
It was horrible!
So that being said, I'm going to tell you what I wish I did, and what swaps I made to make for healthier toppings!
First, if I weren't allergic to wheat (which I am, but apparently NOT gluten), then I would have made a sourdough pizza crust. In the past this is what I have done and it turns out soooo good every time! The recipe I use is in my Nutrivation Recipe Book. I just take my super simple, Dutch Oven Sourdough Bread recipe and roll it out into pizza crust. It's 4 ingredients: water, salt, flour, sourdough start! That's it! So GOOD! You can get that recipe here!
Second, since I am not eating any wheat, I wish I would have just used Siete's almond flour tortillas as a thin crust pizza, Cappello's pizza crust, or bought a gluten free pizza crust mix. But no, I had to try and make my own crust just for the fun of it!
Ok, now for the toppings. Let's get to it! We keep it simple most days when we make pizza. My kids aren't too adventurous and my husband it happy with good ol' supreme pizza. I always like to make a BBQ pizza as well so I'll show you how we can make our homemade pizza TOPPINGS just a little bit better.
When it comes to the sauce, pizza sauce is easy to buy, but did you know that it's also extremely easy to make? And you can put non-inflammatory ingredients in it like salt, garlic, and Italian seasonings? Tonight, I grabbed a 15 oz can of organic tomato sauce (look for a kind that doesn't have sugar in it, we all know sugar isn't great for us so cut it out when we can!) We didn't need to use all of the sauce for 3 pizzas, but I'd say about 8 oz. So in that 8 oz I added 1/2 tsp Redmond's Real Salt, 2 cloves of garlic (we like garlic), and about 2 tsp of Italian seasoning. Stir that all together in about 30 seconds and you've got a delicious, healthy, pizza marinara!
Whenever I make a BBQ pizza I steer clear from using anything BUT organic sauces. Why? Because this means there will be no artificial dyes, artificial sweeteners, no fillers, etc. Sure BBQ has sugar in it, but I know that going into it and since I do, I am aware with how much sugar I will be consuming when eating it. Tonight I used Kinders Organic BBQ sauce! One our favorites for sure!
When it comes to cheese, I stopped buying shredded cheese because of the anti-caking agents they put on them. They are meant to help kill mold and prevent caking, but it's just another chemical we don't need in our bodies. For pizza, I buy fresh mozzarella and let me kids slice it up however they like. It melts anyways so it doesn't matter what it looks like. Fresh mozzarella ingredients are as simple as: Pasteurized milk, vinegar, enzymes, salt. That's it, no anti-caking agents!
Pepperoni is a hard one to find super clean, but we did our best. Tonight we used Hormel Natural Choice Uncured Pepperoni. It does have sugar and natural flavors in it but does NOT contain nitrates, BHA, BHT, Corn Syrup or any other artificial ingredients!
To help increase the nutritional value of your pizza, don't be afraid to go nuts on veggie toppings! The standard toppings for us are onions, mushrooms, bell peppers, tomatoes, pineapple, olives, and sometimes even arugula!
In another post for another day I will show you how to find frozen pizza's that are better options than your standard $5.00 pizza!
Glad I learned now not to make my own almond flour crust, but sad it had to be wasted on all of these tasty toppings!
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Happy Cooking!
Danielle
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