Healthy Up Your Favorites - Frugal Food Friday

I took all the pictures and everything for this post...but then I almost scrapped it...because it's about pizza.  Pizza is not exactly known for being a weight loss food, and I don't have calorie counts for this either.  So more than being about pizza, it's more about taking some of your favorite recipes and making them healthier.

Last Friday my daughter asked for pizza.  We were a bit in the mood for celebrating since the Hubby had a job interview that day (which we'll hopefully find out today if he got it)!  The frugal part of this is that making your own pizza is WAY cheaper than buying it when you're in the mood for something special.

The healthy part of this somes in some modifications you can make to typical pizza.

1. Use whole wheat flour.  I typically use 1/2 whole wheat and 1/2 white flour.  We also love to add 1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder and 1 teaspoon of oregano to our dough to make it taste yummier.  (Can you see all that whole wheat and spices goodness?)

2. Go HEAVY on the veggies.  Load it up!  We love to add bell peppers, tomatoes, mushrooms, and onions.  Some other great options I've seen and are tasty is artichoke hearts, spinach leaves, fresh oregano or basic leaves, zucchini.  If there are other things you love, please leave them in the comments!

3. Switch out the meat.  You can either leave the meat out altogether or substitute something like low-fat sandwich meat for the higher fat pepperoni. 
4. Go LIGHT on the cheese.  Just use less.  It's nice to have a little to help "glue" all the toppings on, but you don't need a lot.  You can also buy lower fat cheese, because it's usually quite a bit more expensive, so we prefer the use less option.
5. Drink some water and eat your salad first.  This helps fill you up, so you don't eat as much pizza in one sitting.

One more frugal pizza tip...make your own pizza sauce.  This doesn't make it healthier, but it does make it cheaper.  We do this by mixing one part tomato paste with one part water.  You could also add some spices, but we don't because we've already added garlic powder and oregano to the bread dough.

I'm not going to put my pizza dough recipe up here because I really have no idea what the calorie counts and everything.  Whatever recipe you use, though, you can always look for ways to make it healthier.  For example last time I made it, I substituted oil for the shortening.  It worked great, it's healthier...and I didn't have to wash out a nasty shortening measuring cup.  (Not a big deal if you have a dishwasher, but I HATE washing those by hand.)