Like convenience foods? I do! But I like them best when I make them from scratch. For these little pizzas, I put my favorite pizza dough ingredients in the bread machine and let it do the work for me.
Then we rolled out the dough and cut it into circles using a jar lid from gallon sized penny candy jars.
A quick topping with jarred spaghetti sauce, turkey Italian Sausage (recipe to follow), and mozarella cheese. I put veggies on some of them, because I like it that way. Then bake at 400 for 15 minutes. Cool and Slide meal portions into gallon size freezer bags and freeze. To reheat, put frozen pizzas on a cookie sheet and bake at 350 for 20 minutes. They are great with veggie sticks or a tossed salad.
Pizza Dough
1 2/3 cups warm water
1 Tablespoon olive oil
2 Tablespoons honey
1 teaspoon sea salt
4 cups whole wheat flour
1 Tablespoon yeast
Put all ingredients in the bread machine in the order listed and start a dough cycle. This makes 2 extra large pizzas or 18-20 mini pizzas.
Turkey Italian Sausage
1 lb ground lean turkey
1 teaspoon garlic salt
1 teaspoon whole or cracked fennel seed
1/4-1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon crushed basil
Spread turkey in a skillet, sprinkle with spices, cook and press the spices into the meat as you chop it into fine pieces with your spatula. Easy and Yummy. It is less expensive and less calories than buying traditional Italian sausage.
Great idea! That’ll take some of the “boring” out of our lunch routine! I’m going to do it this week. 🙂
This is genius – especially with winter coming up. Who wouldn’t want a yummy, warm, gooey mini pizza for lunch??
One quick question – I don’t own a bread machine. Can I make it in the oven? What would the time/temp conversion be?
Thanks for sharing! My husband is a big fan of your recipes. 🙂
Laura,
I did bake mine in my oven so all the times etc. will be the same. But you can use a regular mixer for the dough instead of the bread machine. Keep your eyes out for a bread machine though. I just snagged one nearly new at a garage sale for $5. Craigslist is a good place too. I hardly ever bake in mine, just use it for hands off dough making.
What a great idea! I’ll have to try this. I’ve been reading your blog for a while now, and even added your link to my sidebar for easy access to your wonderful posts. Thanks so much for sharing all of your tips, ideas and recipes!
I made these the other night and they were a big hit! AND we have plenty in the freezer. They make great after school snacks. I especially love the recipe for making turkey sausage. What a great way to get sausage without the added fat. One tip on the pizzas… I first cooked some on my preheated pizza stone, but the crust got too hard. I cooked the rest on a cookie sheet with a silpat and they turned out perfect. Thanks for the ‘keeper’ recipes.
Thanks Angela! I forgot when I read this post the first time, but I actually had a frozen ball of pizza dough in my freezer from the week before. So I thawed the dough, baked a half batch of pizzas, and froze them (not as many as I made! – funny how that happens). I can’t wait to try them out to see how my dough worked. Thanks again for sharing.
made these tonight w/ my girls 5 & 3. They loved rolling out the dough and using the “cookie cutter” (jar lid). I got 23 mini pizzas out of this and they are all in my freezer right now! We spread pizza sauce on, sprinkled 1/2 w/ hamburger and made 1/2 cheese and popped them in the oven. 15 mins later we had lots of great little pizzas! I’m excited to be able to use these in a pinch for lunch for the kids, or send them along if my parents are watching the kids for the day, or give some to my friend to stick in her freezer since she just had baby #3 today! Thanks for this great recipe and help!