Sausage and kale pizza gives you the best of both worlds. A delicious cheesy pizza with the health benefits of kale, the superfood!
Kale is more fibrous than your average green veggie. It can be slightly bitter and tough to chew sometimes. Chopping it into smaller pieces and cooking it until its softer can make it easier to chew. Also, once its covered in cheesy goodness and eaten with a salty savory bite of sausage, you won’t even notice it’s there.
Why is kale healthy?
Loaded with vitamins such as A, C, K, B
Packed with minerals such as phosphorus, potassium, calcium and zinc
Very high in powerful antioxidants such as quercetin and kaempferol
Kale is one of the top superfoods. The more ways we can find it into our diets the better!
Pizza is usually considered fast food or junk food, especially if you are ordering the typical delivery pizza. But here, I have a few tips to make a family favourite meal a bit healthier so you can serve it happily any day.
How do you make a healthier pizza?
Try my healthy homemade pizza dough recipe that uses garbanzo bean flour. This boosts the fiber and protein versus a dough made up of only white flour. Just a 1/4 cup has 7g of protein and 6g of fiber!
Choose a ham that is nitrate free. Nitrates are preservatives that are potentially cancer causing.
Load up the veggies on the pizza. Once it’s all covered in cheese, all the veggies will taste terrific!
Instead of mozzarella, try a mix of cheeses with stronger flavour such as parmesan, asiago and mozzarella mixed together. With more intense flavour you’ll need less cheese.
What’s the best way to form the dough into pizza crust?
If you are like me and haven’t mastered how to toss pizza dough in the air, the best way I’ve found is to pat it out and stretch it. I’ve tried using a rolling pin, but the pizza crust doesn’t turn out as airy because the air bubbles in the dough get pushed out.
What’s the best way to cook the pizza?
I love using a cast iron pizza pan. I brush a bit of oil on the pan before putting the pizza dough on it. After my pizza is assembled, I heat up the pan on the stove using high heat before putting the pizza in the oven. That way, the pizza crust has a nice crispy texture on the bottom.
Small bunch of kalestocks removed, chopped and cooked
200gof shredded cheeseI prefer a blend of cheeses like parmesan, asiago, mozarella
1tablespoonof canola oil
Instructions
Make pizza dough and pizza sauce. If you are short on time, store bought is perfectly fine.
Prepare the toppings. Remove the stalks, chop and sauté the kale. Slice the sausages.
Brush oil on cast iron pizza pan.
Pat out and stretch the pizza dough. Then put it on the pizza pan.
Put on the toppings except basil.
Heat the cast iron pizza pan on high heat until the bottom of the crust is slightly browned. Use a wok spatula or tongs to lift the crust up slightly so you can see if its browned nicely. Careful to not burn it. This will give your crust a nice texture, slightly crispy on the outside but still soft on the inside.
Finish cooking the pizza in the oven at 475 °F for 5 minutes or until the cheese is nicely browned the way you like it. The pizza will cook faster since the bottom of the crust is already cooked.
