Veggie Pizza Best Vegetarian Pizza Recipe
*Disclaimer- This Veggie Pizza Is Hot!
Some days are more boring than others. At least this recipe exists to spice up your life a bit whenever you need it.
Pizza Base
We suggest making your own dough (it is far better) follow our easy steps to making your own pizza dough or try a tortilla (why tortilla?)
Pizza Sauce
- some tablespoons of canned crushed tomatoes
- basil pesto
- crushed garlic
- Toppings:
- zucchini (thinly sliced)
- green bell pepper (thinly sliced)
- fresh hot chilli (thinly sliced)
- avocado (cubed)
- parmesan (grated)
- cherry tomatoes (halved)
- fresh rocket (arugula)
- black pepper
Method
- Pre-heat oven to 400 F/200 C.
- While the oven is heating, chop all veggies.
- Pre-toast tortilla in the oven so it’s crispy.
- Add a couple of dollops of tomato sauce, a dollop of pesto and a dollop of crushed garlic to the tortilla. Mix and spread around so it gets all the way to the edges.
Tip: You want to cover the full tortilla, but don’t pile on too much sauce or it’ll be soggy – yuck! - Add the cheese. (We all love cheese, but again, not too much.)
- Scatter the rest of the toppings, saving the fresh rocket for after cooking.
Tip: I wouldn’t add salt as the parmesan cheese is already salty. - Bake at 400 F/200 C for 8-10 min.
- Cut into 6 pieces and dive in – careful though, this one packs some heat!
Note: The level of heat for this recipe really depends on how hot your chilis are.
How Can You Make It Less Hot?
- green bell pepper or any other kind of bell pepper
- zucchini or any other kind of squash
Take It To The Next Level
Tortillas are the perfect quick-and-dirty, healthy alternative to your typical pizza (any Mediterranean Pizza lovers out there?)
Should You Pre-Cook Your Pizza Toppings?
Any toppings you add to your pizza which are raw, should be toppings which you would eat raw and be ok with eating raw. If you’re not ok with that, make sure it’s cooked first.
Any type of meat that goes on your pizza needs to be cooked first.
Veggies aren’t as big of a deal, but the same rule still applies. Sometimes it just comes down to a texture thing.
For example, putting on raw peppers adds a nice crunch, but cut them too thick and they become a little overwhelming.
That’s where pre-cooking them could help.
Does this mean you need to cook everything before you even cook your pizza? No!
It means that a fridge full of leftovers is the perfect time to make pizza!
Bonus Tip:
When topping your pizza with any sort of green (i.e. basil, rocket/arugula, spinach), these need to go on after your pizza is cooked.
Why? Because otherwise they get overcooked and will crunch up and dry out – not good.
If you add them after the pizza is cooked, then the heat from the pizza will be enough to wilt them, which is exactly what you want.
A Brief Background of the Veggie Pizza Recipe
It can be very hard to find a good vegetarian pizza, and the recipe goes so much further than just ‘leaving out the meat’.
Many vegetarians find that making their own veggie pizza from home is the only way to go. We have also seen that non-vegetarians can also enjoy the occasional veggie pizza too.
‘This Veggie Pizza recipe will delight with a little bit of bite’.
Requiring more time (extra few minutes) in the oven is needed to achieve a well-rounded full flavour in your vegetarian pizza.
Hit Chilli – Is Eating Fresh Chili Good for You?
The human love for hot food can be highly confusing to some, however, there are millions of chilli fans in the world who absolutely love the taste (and burn) of hot chilli.
In a great article by the BBC which explores the health benefits of chilli, they wrote:
‘A team at the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences tracked the health of nearly half a million participants in China for several years. They found that participants who said they ate spicy food once or twice a week had a mortality rate 10% lower than those who ate spicy food less than once a week. Risk of death reduced still further for hot-heads who ate spicy food six or seven days a week’.
Why are chillis hot?
The element of heat inside a chilli is a yellow/light green ‘placenta’ which is under the seeds of the chilli and is called the ‘capsaicin’.
Capsaicin is the chilli’s superpower. Depending on the type of chilli, the capsaicin could be colourless and different strengths apply to different types of chilli.
How is hotness in chillis measured?
According to this article from Wikipedia, the hotness of a chilli is measured in a scale known as the Scoville and referred to as the ‘Scoville scale’. Scoville scale measures the strength, heat and pungency of the chilli.
Experts indicate that the Scoville heat testing method is the best and most common way to determine the power of a chilli.
Interesting fact: The Scoville scale is named after its creator, American pharmacist Wilbur Scoville, who conjured this method in 1912 method and is known as the Scoville organoleptic test.
To explain the Scoville scale in a very basic way, it is a number system scored from low to high with the lowest number representing the weakest strength and the highest number representing the strongest and hottest.
Pungency SHU (According to the Scoville Scale)
Extremely strong – Above 80,000
Highly strong – 25,000 to 70,000
Moderately strong – 3,000 to 25,000
Mildly strong – 700 to 3,000
Non-strong – 0 to 700
A green pepper (bell pepper) has a Scoville score of 0, whereas the habanero pepper scores a high of between 100,000 and 350,000 on average.
Want a Little More Guidance to Make Homemade Pizza Dough?
Making pizza from scratch is one of the most satisfying things you can do in the kitchen. It’s surprisingly easy to make a pizza that you’ll be stoked about, but it can also be a little daunting at first.
With this e-book, you’ll get everything you need to know to make pizza from scratch with what you already have at home.
