I don’t know about you, but I always have trouble coming up with something to eat for lunch on the weekends. It’s easy if you go out for brunch, but sometimes you just want to sit around in your pajamas and have something at home. On weekdays, we usually eat leftovers. On weekends, though, I want something different.
For some reason, I remembered pita pizza yesterday. Pita pizzas are great because they’re so easy to make. There’s no rolling out dough and having it spring back on you (which is what happens when I roll out dough). The crust gets nice and crispy, which I like. And, you can top them with whatever you want. Plus, it’s cheaper than ordering pizza.
I ran into a few problems making the pizzas yesterday. At first, I assembled the whole pizza and placed it in the oven on a pizza stone. The edges got crispy, but the bottom didn’t. It still tasted good, but wasn’t as crispy as I wanted. I figured out that the answer was to pre-toast the pita bread in the oven for about 4 or 5 minutes first. Then, you can top the pizza with sauce, cheese, and toppings, and then bake it. The result was a fully crispy crust.
This is a great food to make with kids. After waiting for the toasty pitas to cool down, you can help them spread out the sauce, sprinkle cheese on them, and then put some healthy toppings on top (by, of course, only offering healthy toppings). Fun!
Pita Pizza
Serves 4 (1 pizza per person)
Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 10 minutes
Ingredients
1 15 oz can tomato sauce
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
4 large pitas (I like the thinner ones)
4-5 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. If you have a pizza stone, put it in the oven to heat up. In a small bowl, mix the tomato sauce, garlic powder, oregano, and basil.
When the oven is heated, place the pitas on the pizza stone (if you don’t have an oven, you can either put the pitas on a sheet pan, or just on the bare rack). Leave them in the oven for 4-5 minutes, until just toasted. Remove them from the oven using tongs. Carefully and without burning yourself, spread 1/4 cup of the tomato sauce mixture on each pita leaving a small edge so you have something to hold when you’re eating.
Divide the cheese mixture evenly over each pizza. If using toppings, place those on top of the cheese now.
Place back in the oven on either the pizza stone or a baking sheet for another 4-5 minutes until the cheese is bubbling (if your stone or oven aren’t big enough, you can do one or two at a time). Remove carefully from the oven and cut into pieces.
Possible substitutions, omissions, and additions:
- Use more or less cheese, low-fat cheese, or a different type or mix of cheese. Or, use fresh mozzarella. That would be good.
- Use toppings, like pepperoni, sausage, mushrooms, onions, peppers, spinach, or whatever else you like to put on pizza
- Use a different sauce (like a white sauce) to change things up
- Use smaller pitas
- Use the same recipe to make French bread pizza or bagel pizza
- Adjust the recipe to make fewer or more pizzas. This amount of sauce will get you about 7 pizzas (almost 8, really). I account for about 1 cup of cheese per pizza +/- 1/3 cup.
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