Healthy Homemade Pizza (Making a Family Favourite Healthier)

Healthy Homemade Pizza is baked up thin and crispy with seasoned ground turkey, fresh mozzarella and lots of herbs and veggies. The recipe also includes tips and suggestions for making pizza healthier while still enjoying the comforts of a family favourite!

This post is sponsored by Dominion as part of the #foodloversunite campaign. As always, all opinions are my own. Thank you for supporting the brands that make Crumb Top Baking possible.

As part of my continuing collaboration with Dominion, I was fortunate enough to have a follow-up appointment with Danielle, the in-store registered dietitian at my local Dominion store.

You may recall a few months ago I shared the details from my first appointment with Danielle. Dominion offers a range of personalized nutrition services including an initial nutrition consultation with an in-store dietitian. At this session, Danielle and I discussed my digestive issues and goals for improved gut health. If you haven’t read this post yet, you can check it out here.

Dominion’s personalized nutrition services also include an opportunity to shop with the in-store registered dietitian. For 30-60 minutes, clients are taken on a tour of the store where they are educated on reading nutrition labels and introduced to products that fit with their nutritional goals.

So, a few weeks ago, Danielle took me on a tour of my local Dominion store, where we discussed my nutritional goals and how we could make my family’s favourite meal a little healthier.

Homemade Pizza – A Family Favourite

It’s probably no surprise that pizza is our family favourite. It is for many families.

We eat pizza multiple times a week. Most often, we’re whipping up pita pizzas. They’re easy to make and come together quickly, which is important on busy weeknights.

But on the weekends, we love to order pizza or make homemade pizza. And by ‘homemade’, I mean a boxed pizza kit.

For years, I’ve been trying to make my pizzas a little healthier by going with a whole wheat crust and opting for lots of veggie toppings. But this usually meant my husband and I were making (or ordering) two separate pizzas.

During my visit with Danielle, we discussed ways to make a healthier pizza that both my husband and I would enjoy but wouldn’t make us feel like we were sacrificing the taste and comfort of our family favourite.

Luckily, my husband and I enjoy grocery shopping together and cooking up a storm in the kitchen. And being food lovers, we were both excited about the challenge of making our family favourite a little healthier. So, last weekend we headed to Dominion, which is our go-to for fresh, local produce, and picked up everything we needed to make this healthy homemade pizza!

How to make Homemade Pizza Healthier:

• Crust: Opt for whole wheat or whole grain, and where possible, go for a thin crust. If you’re not filling up on crust, you have more room to fill up on veggies.

• Sauce: There can be a lot of sodium in store-bought pizza sauce. I sometimes make a homemade marinara or use a simple no-salt added tomato sauce and add my own seasonings.

• Seasonings: Forego the salt and opt for fresh or dried herbs such as oregano, basil or parsley. Fresh garlic is also a flavourful option. As for spices, you can heat things up with ground chipotle peppers, smoked paprika or crushed red pepper flakes.

• Veggie toppings: Load up your pizza! Veggies can be a contentious topic for families with picky eaters. So, find those 2-3 vegetables that all of your family members enjoy and pile them on your pizza. While I’m sticking to the basics in this recipe, you can be as creative as you want with your veggie toppings.

• Protein: Go for leaner meats such as ground turkey or chicken instead of ground beef, sausage or bacon. If this is a tough sell with your family, try mixing ground turkey or chicken with ground beef or sausage. Going half and half can be a good way to ease your family into leaner meats.

• Healthy fats: Sprinkling hemp hearts on top of your pizza sauce is also a great way to add some healthy fats (Omegas 3 and 6) and protein to your pizza without affecting the taste.

• Cheese: For a lot of people, cheese is the most important pizza topping. I don’t mind light cheeses, but if this is too much of a sacrifice for you or your family, go with full fat cheese. Just use less of it and grate it so it goes further. Fresh mozzarella has a lower sodium content than regular mozzarella so keep that in mind when selecting your cheese.

• Balance your plate: Instead of eating 3-4 slices of pizza and calling that your meal (which is usually what we do!), try eating only 1-2 smaller slices and pairing it with a side salad. An easy way to whip up a side salad is to buy pre-washed greens and top them with the leftover veggies from your pizza toppings.

Ingredients to make this Healthy Homemade Pizza:

So, with the above tips in mind, here’s what you’ll need to make this homemade pizza:

• Whole wheat pizza dough
• No-salt added tomato sauce
• Hemp seeds
• Nutritional yeast
• Fresh basil and oregano
• Garlic cloves
• Seasoned ground turkey crumbles
• Red and green peppers
• Red onion
• Tomato
• Fresh mozzarella
• Crushed red pepper flakes

Tips for making this Healthy Homemade Pizza Recipe:

• I like making this pizza in a cast iron skillet because it creates an extra crispy crust. If you plan to use one, make sure it’s a 12-inch skillet. If it’s smaller, your crust will not turn out thin. Alternatively, you can just use a standard sized 12-inch pizza pan.

• This recipe calls for one pound of ground turkey because that’s the size of a standard package. While the pizza only requires one cup of seasoned ground turkey, I like to cook the entire package and freeze the leftovers for future pizzas.

• When it comes to adding tomatoes to pizza go for less juicy varieties that hold up well to slicing such as beefsteak tomatoes. Juicier tomatoes will make your pizza toppings watery.

• If you don’t have fresh herbs, you can use dried. Just reduce the amount to one-third as dried herbs are usually more potent than fresh.

Pin this Healthy Homemade Pizza to make for dinner tonight!

How do you make your family’s favourite meals healthier? Let me know in the comments below!

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Healthy Homemade Pizza (Making a Family Favourite Healthier)

5 Stars 4 Stars 3 Stars 2 Stars 1 Star 5 from 29 reviews

• Author: Leanne
• Prep Time: 15 minutes
• Cook Time: 30 minutes
• Total Time: 45 minutes
• Yield: 6-8 slices
• Category: Dinner, Lunch
• Method: Bake
• Cuisine: American, Canadian

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Description

Healthy Homemade Pizza is baked up thin and crispy with seasoned ground turkey, fresh mozzarella and lots of herbs and veggies. The recipe also includes ways to make pizza healthier while still enjoying the comforts of a family favourite!

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Ingredients

For the seasoned ground turkey:

• 1 pound extra lean ground turkey
• 3 cloves garlic, chopped or minced
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

For the pizza:

• 1 pound whole wheat pizza dough (Store-bought or I use this recipe and use whole wheat flour)
• 1/2 cup no-salt added tomato sauce
• 1 tablespoon hemp seeds
• 1/2 tablespoon nutritional yeast
• 8-10 fresh basil leaves
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh oregano
• 1 clove garlic, chopped or minced
• 1 cup seasoned ground turkey, cooked (see above)
• 1/2 large red bell pepper, seeded and thinly sliced
• 1/2 large green bell pepper, seeded and thinly sliced
• 1/2 large red onion, thinly sliced
• 1/2 large beefsteak tomato, thinly sliced
• 1 cup grated fresh mozzarella
• 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

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Instructions

1. Cook turkey: In a greased skillet, add the turkey, garlic, oregano and salt. Break turkey into crumbles and cook on medium-high for 7-10 minutes, or until the turkey is no longer pink and a meat thermometer indicates the internal temperature has reached 165F. Set aside one cup for the pizza and freeze the remainder for future pizzas.
2. Assemble pizza: Pre-heat oven to 400F and grease a 12-inch cast iron skillet or pizza pan. Spread dough out in the skillet or pan, making sure to press around the edges to create a crust. Spread on the tomato sauce and sprinkle on the hemp seeds, nutritional yeast and garlic. Layer on the basil, oregano, ground turkey, peppers, onion and tomatoes. Top with cheese and crushed red pepper flakes. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until the edges of the pizza are crispy and the toppings are cooked.
3. Serve pizza: Let rest in pan for a few minutes before cutting into 6-8 slices and serving with a side salad.

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Notes

1. I usually make pizza in a cast iron skillet because it creates an extra crispy crust. If you don’t have one, you can use a standard pizza pan. Just make sure whatever you’re using measures 12 inches in diameter as this will create a thin crust.
2. This recipe calls for one pound of ground turkey because that’s the size of a standard package. While the pizza only requires one cup of seasoned ground turkey, I like to cook the entire package and freeze the leftovers for future pizzas.
3. Use less juicy tomato varieties that hold up well to slicing such as beefsteak tomatoes. Juicier tomatoes will make your pizza toppings watery.
4. If you don’t have fresh herbs, you can use dried. Just reduce the amount to one-third as dried herbs are usually more potent than fresh.
5. For an easy side salad, chop up your remaining peppers, onion and tomato and pair them with some pre-washed greens.