If your New Year’s Resolution is to eat healthier, then you’ll need to find out how to eat pizza when you’re on a diet or else your resolution will be very short-lived. A diet that deprives us of our favourite foods is a diet that won’t last. Instead, to have a shot at becoming a healthier and fitter you, you need to be kind to yourself with a realistic diet that can be sustained.
Pizza means something different to everyone. For some, it’s a guilty pleasure food topped with greasy, salty meats and a thick layer of cheese. For others, pizza can mean lots of veggies stacked on top of a thin crust with an elegant drizzle of olive oil.
Whether you’re ordering from a restaurant or making pizza yourself at home, there are lots of ways to achieve healthy and diet friendly pizza. With these helpful tips, you can keep enjoying all the deliciousness of pizza with none of the guilt.
How To Make Restaurant Pizza Healthier
Here are a few ways to keep your diet intact when ordering pizza from a restaurant.
- Choose the healthier options. Vegetable pizzas, especially when made with fresh, restaurant-quality ingredients, are no less delicious than salty meat and pepperoni toppings. Look out for seafood pizzas, zucchini pizzas, pumpkin pizzas and more.
- Cut your slices smaller. If you halve all your slices, then you’re much more likely to eat until you’re full and then stop. Pausing more frequently between slices will make you much more in tune with your stomach and whether you are genuinely still hungry.
- Dab away excess oil. Some restaurants serve pizza that has a collection of oil floating on top of the cheese. Take a napkin and gently blot at the top of your pizza to quickly absorb this oil. This is a very simple way to avoid unnecessary fat and calories!
- Ask for a doggy bag. Sometimes we don’t eat the last few slices of our pizza because we’re hungry. We eat them because they’re delicious and we don’t want them to go to waste. The far better alternative is asking your waiter to take those last slices home with you. That way nothing is wasted and you’ll enjoy them even more as your lunch the next day!
How To Make Healthy Homemade Pizza
If you’re after healthy pizza ideas for making at home, it’s easy! Making pizza yourself means you know exactly what’s going into it. Swapping out less healthy ingredients for equally, if not more, delicious, healthy alternatives is not hard.
The Base of all Evil
The crust is a big reason why pizza gets such a bad rap from health experts. By making your base without white flour dough, your pizza will already be radically healthier.
A simple and easy alternative is to make your homemade pizza on pita bread. This thin base is carb-friendly and saves you the time of making a base yourself. When baked in the oven the edges will become deliciously crispy while the centre stays wonderfully soft.
If you’re willing to invest a bit more time in your base, then cauliflower pizza bases are just the thing. It is one of the trendiest healthy pizza bases for a reason. The cauliflower holds together will ease, so making a cauliflower base doesn’t have to be difficult at all.
Avoid Store-Bought Sauces
If you can, resist the convenience of store-bought sauces. The benefits of making a tomato-based pizza sauce yourself are well worth the little bit of extra effort.
Not only will a pizza sauce with fresh ingredients taste even more delicious but it is far healthier too. Store-bought sauces are often made with excessive amounts of sugar that is not essential to the flavour.
Healthiest Cheese For Pizzas
Fresh buffalo mozzarella is the way to go with your cheese. It is a low-sodium, low-calorie option when compared to most other cheeses. Not to mention, buffalo mozzarella contains probiotics that have the added benefit of boosting your immune system.
If you still need more options, try goat’s cheese, feta, ricotta or cottage cheese. These are not only delicious and interesting additions to any pizza but contain a lot less fat than other cheeses too.
To Top It All Off
Last but not least, the toppings you put on your pizza will either make or break your healthy New Year’s Resolution. So long as you avoid fatty meats and creamy sauces, your New Year’s Resolution should remain intact.
In fact, pizza provides the perfect opportunity to load up on vegetables. After all, it can be tricky to reach the five serves of vegetables we’re supposed to have a day. The more vegetables you add to your pizza, the more delicious it will be. Pizza toppings that are heavy with vegetables will also make you feel more full after just a few slices.
Onion, capsicum, olives, eggplant, pumpkin, zucchini, artichokes and shallots are all great ways to fill up a vegetarian pizza.
Finally, egg is an often forgotten and highly underrated ingredient for a deliciously healthy homemade pizza. If you’re still curious, here are even more ideas for healthy pizzas at home.
At 11 Inch, we pride ourselves on having pizza that’s suited to everyone. Bring yourself, your friends and your New Year’s Resolutions to 11 Inch this year. We have extensive vegetarian pizza options that marry mouth-watering flavour with balanced nutrition. Not to mention, our friendly and accommodating team are willing to cater to a variety of needs. Whether that means making your pizza gluten-free, dairy-free or vegan, we’ll do what we can to provide you with pizza perfection.
