This pizza is a healthy scrumptious addition to my pizza collections. The color contrast between the red base sauce and the green spinach leaves on top create a harmonious combination and create such an amazing experience that you will feel like you are walking the lanes of some small, beautiful town in the countryside.
Spinach is recognized as one of the most healthy greens and it is highly recommended as it contains various antioxidants and is iron rich. For my family though, spinach is not a favorable vegetable as we don’t like the taste much. Now this factor makes it really tough for me to incorporate these in our usual dishes and enjoy its health benefits. With that constraint, comes the creative thinking !
I have made use of spinach in various forms like kneading it into a beautiful green dough as used for making Oriental Samosas here Oriental Garden Samosas or my salad spin here – Herb Feta Salad
This time, i am creating a spinach topping for a pizza ! Yum right? With the delicious smooth tomato base sauce and a nice healthy sprinkle of feta and cheddar, this pizza is awesome… and when u change the base from a pizza dough to a Naan, the combination becomes Oh so Delicious !!
Spinach cheddar Naan Pizza
Spinacheddar naan pizza
Recipe
This Naan Pizza has 3 components : Naan Base, Base Sauce and Toppings
Naan Base
- 300 gms All purpose flour
- 1 tsp dry active yeast
- 1.5 tsp sugar
- 1 tsp sesame seeds
- 1/4 cup vegetable oil
- 1/2 cup yoghurt
- Salt to taste
Base Sauce
- 2 ripe tomatoes, finely chopped
- 1 onion, finely chopped
- 3 cloves of garlic,finely chopped
- Salt to taste
- Pepper to taste
- 1/4 cup fresh basil leaves
- 2 tsp vegetable oil
Toppings
- 100 gm spinach (roughly chopped)
- 1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese
- 1/2 cup olives
- 1/3 cup feta cheese, crumbled
- Salt to taste
- Pepper to taste
- paprika powder to taste
- 2 tsp Extra virgin Olive Oil
Method
We would start with preparing the Naan Base.
- Follow the same procedure used for making the Whole Wheat Bread (recipe here) except including the yoghurt with the other ingredients while kneading the dough.
- Let the dough rest and rise for about 2 hours. The dough will rise to double the quantity
- Once risen, flatten out by punching the dough and roll out the dough into thin discs like naan and sprinkle sesame seeds on top. Let the naans rise for anther 20 minutes.
- Meanwhile pre-heat the oven to 400 F.
- After 20 minutes, bake the naans for 7-10 minutes with rotating the sides once in between. The Naan Base is ready.
Now we would preparing the Base Sauce.
- Take a pan. To it, add in the oil and garlic and cook on medium flame for 2-3 minutes.
- Next, add in the chopped onions and let it saute till the onions are transparent. Now add in the chopped basil leaves and let it reduce.
- Add in the tomatoes, salt and pepper and cook on medium high till the tomatoes become mushy and soft.
- Now simmer with the lid on for about 15 minutes. The tomatoes will be thoroughly cooked and leave oil on sides. The Base Sauce is ready.
Making the Spinacheddar Naan Pizza :
- Take a Naan Base. To it, put 2 tablespoons of Base Sauce and spread evenly on the base.
- Now, we will prepare the toppings. For this, take the spinach and blanch it just for 2 minutes. The spinach leaves will wilt a bit and release some water.
- Drain off the excess water and squeeze the leaves a little to remove the extra water. Now sprinkle some salt and pepper on top and mix well.
- Now, take some spinach and spread it on top of the Naan pizza. Next add in some crumbled feta cheese, cheddar cheese and olive pieces.
- Sprinkle some paprika on top and bake the naan pizza for about 5 minutes or till the cheese melts and forms a slight browning on top.
- Remove from the oven and sprinkle some extra virgin Olive oil on top before serving. The Spinacheddar Naan Pizza Is ready.
This Pizza came out exactly as i had assumed : Healthy, delicious and enchanting. The naan pizza takes only a couple of minutes to whip up if you have the naans already in stock. We enjoyed our Spinacheddar naan pizza with some home made tzatziki (recipe here) and Sichaun Sauce and it was just perfect ! Spinach not only added a beautiful color to the pizza but gave a nutritious spin to the usual greasy, cheesy pizza which made this a very attractive dish for my family. Now i usually keep a good stock of naans and base sauce in my refrigerator pantry and whip these up whenever i get my hands on some really fresh, locally grown spinach. You can also use my hummus as base sauce and make a completely different and greek version.
If you like unusual pizza toppings like me, try another of my creation with hash browns here :
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