Hand Tossed Veggie Pizza

Pizza is by far one of my favorite foods. It’s tasty, filling, and versatile. You can top it with any combination of veggies (or fruits!) you can think of. Pizza comes in all shapes and sizes. Thin crust, thick crust, deep dish, white pizza, red sauce, meat, veggie — whatever you want! Pizza is also conveniently extremely kid-friendly.

I’ll let you in on a little secret — we’ve been making a lot of homemade pizzas lately. Our kids love them. They especially enjoy picking out the toppings and helping put it in the oven to bake.

Fun fact about me: My husband is a master pizza-maker. We met at a pizza place, actually — where we both worked. I was the phone girl and he was the pizza guy. Some nights he’d stay in the shop and toss the pizzas by hand and other times he was a delivery driver.

As such, we love making pizzas as a family. Today I’m sharing one of the better pizzas we’ve made as of late. It’s amazing. Hand tossed veggie pizza is delicious in a restaurant and even better when made at home.

Hand-Tossed Veggie Pizza

Ingredients

16 oz dough ball
sliced black olives (small can)
1/2 red bell pepper, sliced
1/4 red onion, thin sliced
4 oz sliced mushrooms
1/2 – 1 C pizza sauce
1 – 2 C mozzarella cheese

Directions

Allow dough ball to thaw, if frozen.

Preheat the oven to 425˚F.

Dust a cutting board lightly with flour. Remove from packaging and gently stretch the dough so it’s in a small disc, kneading in a evenly in a clockwise direction. If you feel confident tossing the dough, gently toss and spin the dough, catching with closed fists and tossing again until stretched to the desired size and shape. If you don’t feel confident tossing the dough, continuing gently stretching the dough to fit a pizza pan or stone.

Once the dough is on the pan or stone, spread the pizza sauce almost to the outer edges. You can use as much or as little sauce as you’d like. We use about a cup. Once the sauce is on, begin layering your toppings — we used red bell pepper, red onion, mushrooms, and black olives for this one. Remember to layer evenly. After you placed all your toppings, cover the pizza with cheese. Again, you can use as much or as little cheese as you’d like but what may look like a lot of cheese won’t be as much as you think once it’s baked and melted. It’s a bit of trial and error but more often than not, you should use more cheese than you think you should for an even covering.

Bake for 15 minutes or until cheese is brown and bubbly.

Hand tossed veggie pizza is delicious in a restaurant and even better when made at home. -Running on Happy