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Making a Healthy Personal Pizza Lunch
Posted on October 4, 2012 by Shannon Carino of BentoLunch.net
When you think about kid-pleasing foods, pizza is probably one of the top items on the list. It’s portable, yummy, and can be healthy if made correctly.
My own children, ages 10 and 7, love mini pizzas made with English muffins. I’ve told them how my grandma would always let my brother and me make them when we stayed over at her house, so it’s a favorite recipe to replicate. There’s something special about traditions, especially food ones.
For this week’s pizza tray, we started with Van’s Multigrain English Muffins. I defrosted them in the microwave for 30 seconds – enough to split them in half – topped them with a bit of spaghetti sauce and some Italian-style shredded cheese, then let my children choose the rest of the toppings.
For meat toppings, they used mini turkey pepperoni, grilled chicken and nitrate-free deli ham that I sliced into smaller pieces. For the veggie toppings, they chose mushrooms, sliced black olives, yellow and green peppers, and diced tomato. Other toppings suggested by my kids included green olives, onions, and diced pineapple, which all went onto the grocery list for next time.
I let the two of them top each pizza (we made six this time) in a different manner and they came up with some great combinations:
- Traditional cheese and pepperoni
- White pizza, using no sauce, extra cheese, grilled chicken, tomato and black olives
- Ham, mushroom, green and yellow peppers
- Pepperoni, olives and peppers
- Ham, chicken, olives, peppers, tomato and mushrooms
- Veggie lovers with mushrooms, olives, peppers and tomato
Bake the pizzas on a lined cookie sheet at 350 degrees for approximately 10 minutes or until the cheese is bubbly.
Besides a great after school snack, the mini-pizzas make a perfect lunchbox addition. Just add some fruit and veggie side dishes, a drink, and an icepack of course, and lunch is ready. We included baby carrots, a mini-orange, and some strawberry slices for lunch, along with a container of Greek yogurt for snacktime.
Shannon Carino is the author of BentoLunch.net, a five year and counting blog, featuring the adventures of feeding her children. She lives in Colorado with her husband and their two kids, now ages 10 and 7.
Authors
- Alysa Bajenaru, RD, CPT
- Amie Valpone of TheHealthyApple.com
- Bree Hester of bakedbree.com
- Eric, Van's CEO
- Kimberly Bouldin
- Lauren Jones-McLain, CPT
- Robin Plotkin, RD, LD
- Sarah, Director of Marketing
- Shannon Carino of BentoLunch.net
- Silvana
- Silvana Nardone of SilvanasKitchen.com
- Suzanne Miller
- Suzanne Rostler, RD
- Van's Natural Foods