Healthy Pita Pizza Recipe

Healthy Comfort is a series on Type-A Parent featuring a fit spin on classic comfort food recipes.

Pizza is the ultimate comfort food that has a nasty reputation when it comes to diet. The biggest offenders are the cheese and the bread, however, and playing around with it I found that you can cut back and both of those without losing that classic pizza taste. Another big issue is the sheer size of a typical piece of pizza, whether it’s delivery or freezer pizzas. An actual serving of pizza from either is typically one to two pieces, but with a whole pie in front of you it can be tempting to overeat pizza.

This recipe uses pita for the crust, which is thinner and tastier than many of the store-bought pre-made crusts. It can also help a lot to sprinkle the cheese lightly. As much as I love cheese, I didn’t notice much of a difference when I stuck to one serving of shredded mozzarella. In fact, the recipe here uses standard mozzarella, but if you like to go heavier on the cheese you could always use a light version of the cheese.

Also, the serving below provides for two pita pizzas. For dinner, I found that one just wasn’t filling enough, although you could make just one and it would be great as a lunch. I know brands can vary, but I bought pitas with 150 calories each. You can compare labels, but most pizza sauces and shredded mozzarella brands have pretty comparable nutritional information.

Healthy Pita Pizza Ingredients:

• Pita bread rounds (two)
• Pizza sauce
• Shredded mozzarella (one serving)
• Optional toppings can be added. Best choices are veggies. If you will add another cheese type or meats, just be sure to add those calories. The information below is for a straight cheese pizza recipe. Pictured above is a pita pizza with a sprinkling of crumbled goat cheese, yellow peppers and 25-calorie per serving Hormel bacon bits.

Healthy Pita Pizza Instructions:

• Preheat oven to 375 Fahrenheit. While you can cook it higher, I found the pita gets too hard and crispy with typical pizza cooking temperatures. The pizzas still cook very quickly.
• Place two pitas on a pizza pan or cookie sheet. Spread a serving of pizza sauce on each one. Add optional toppings, then sprinkle with cheese (half a serving per pita).
• Bake for eight minutes. To check if it is done, the cheese should be melted and the pita should be just starting to crisp but still retain softness.

Healthy Pita Pizza Nutritional Information

This information assumes a cheese pizza, so any additional toppings must be added. If you just have one pita pizza, divide the totals below in half.

Calories: 410
Fat: 6
Carbohydrates: 69
Protein: 20
Weight Watchers Points: 9

Photo of healthy pita pizza, © Kelby Carr

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2. Pizza is the Perfect Food
3. Pizza Soup
4. Healthy Eating Patterns
5. Spicy Turmeric Chicken Recipe