Is it possible to make a healthy pizza?
From
| June 29, 2009
In Healthy Living, Kitchen Basics
Featured Recipe: Mini Ham "Pizzas"
Kids love pizza, but nutritionally speaking, pizza doesn’t love kids. Can you make a healthier pizza at home that kids will actually eat? After scouring nutrition panels on various ingredients and testing recipes for a couple of days our answer is: We hope so!
Pizza is pizza – bread, sauce, toppings and lots of cheese. But within those basic categories, the ingredients you choose make all the difference.
After plain cheese pizza, our money is on pepperoni as the most popular pizza choice – but pepperoni is fraught with issues. Ham is a much better option. Turns out the list of healthy trade-offs is a long one.
So while our Mini Ham “Pizzas” won’t look exactly like the pizza older kids and teens might have in mind, they passed our teenage taste tests with raves all around. In an effort to make the healthiest pizza at home we could, here’s our run-down on the ingredient choices:
Crust: A prepared traditional pizza crust has 5 fat grams per serving – 4 more than an English muffin. We went with the whole grain muffin for fiber.
Sauce: Supermarket options are very high in sodium. The only choice was to mix our own. (It’s easy and quick!)
Cheese: This is where pizza veers toward killer. In our opinion, mozzarella is an obvious requirement, and luckily it’s the less-evil of all the options. Shredded part-skim mozzarella has 6 fat grams per 1/4 cup (1 ounce) and 3.5 grams of that is saturated. The challenge is holding it to an ounce per serving.
Toppings: Plain cheese or vegetables are best, but if it’s meat you crave, resist pepperoni -- 14 grams of fat and 510 mg sodium per serving. Thinly sliced deli ham has 1 fat gram and 335 mg sodium per serving and still adds a lot of flavor.
All in all, Mini Ham “Pizzas” weigh in at 253 calories per serving and just over 7.5 grams of fat. That’s 24 percent of calories from fat, and that’s as low as we could get. If you have more ideas on how to cut the fat from pizza, please leave your ideas on the comments attached to this blog post.
Comments
From Alicia Ross - June 29, 2009
Do you cook the fresh mushrooms before adding them to the pizza? A friend used to micro-steam sliced mushrooms and drain the water off before she added them to the pizza. Haven't thought about this in years until I read your comment! Thanks!
From Maria M. - June 29, 2009
My husband and I don't do heavy pizzas anymore, but on the occasion that we're hosting a pizza dinner and it includes my teen nieces and nephews, then we amp up the veggie count. After dicing the veggies smaller than I normally would -- too much of a bother for most teenagers to pick off completely --- I put the veggies on the sauced base, THEN put the cheese over the top. Most pizzas are base, sauce, cheese then toppings. And in terms of cheese, I use just enough to make it cheesy, but not enough to form a thick layer in its own right.
From Beverly Mills - June 30, 2009
Maria, just curious, do the teens seem to like this pizza version? Do you use mozzarella or parm? Sounds like a good idea!
From Maria M. - June 30, 2009
Hi Beverly. My teen nieces and nephews don't seem to mind eating veggies on their pizza if the veggies are diced extra small. Plus with the cheese providing cover, they don't seem to get a sense of just how many veggies I've hidden underneath. In terms of cheese, I use whatever is handy, mostly the part-skim mozzarella, though a spicy jack cheese has been known to make its appearance.
From Beverly Mills - July 01, 2009
I'm definitely going to try this on my meat-a-tarian son when he gets home from a college internship in a couple of weeks!
From Maria M. - July 01, 2009
Good luck Beverly!
From Pat - July 07, 2009
Can you tell me how much fiber is in the mini ham pizza? Thanks,
From Beverly Mills - July 07, 2009
Thanks for the question Pat! There are 10 grams of fiber per serving. If you go to the recipe (click on it's title in related recipes just below these comments) then there is a "tab" at the top of the "recipe card" with says nutrition info. If you click on that tab, you can see the detailed nutritional analysis. (This is also true for all recipes here on Kitchen Scoop, btw.)
Related Recipes
Mini Ham "Pizzas"
February 21, 2012
While our Mini Ham “Pizzas” won’t look exactly like the pizza older kids and teens might have in mind, they passed our teenage taste tests with raves all around. And they're actually healthy!
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From Tammy - June 29, 2009
Use mushrooms on the pizza, and thinly sliced tomatoes instead of sauce. Add some basil, and you have something yummy. My grandmother found tomato sauce too acidic, but with the tomatoes, she really liked it.