Arugula Pizza

After falling into a pizza topping rut, I decided to try a new, easy dinner idea: Arugula Pizza. We have pizza almost every week, but we had been having the same old pizza toppings over and over again, and it’s been enough to make me want to skip our weekend pizza ritual. But this changed things up and it was a fairly healthy pizza too.

Now, arugula is totally new to our family. I tried it last year for the first time at a farmer’s market. While browsing the market, one of the grower’s gave me a sample. I was quite surprised to find out that it’s majorly packed with flavor, with a bit of a spiciness (not heat) to it. I bought some and used some of it in a salad and ever since I’ve been interested in using it something other than salad. Arugula seemed like a perfect pizza topping, so I gave it a try — and we loved it!

But, even more important than the toppings on pizza, is the pizza sauce.

My husband is the sauce maker in our house. He loves making his own creations of just about any sauce or condiment and one of his top favorite sauces to make is pizza sauce. His pizza sauce is usually made with canned tomatoes and while looking over the selection at Walmart one day, I spotted a brand new option: Classico Tomatoes! When I was given the opportunity to create a recipe using them, I didn’t hesitate for a second.

While we make our own spaghetti sauce a lot, I’m not opposed to using great jarred pasta sauces and Classico is one of our favorites (I also love their pesto and buy it often to make pizza with it). Seeing that they now have their own canned tomatoes totally excited me because if their tomatoes taste anything like the quality of their pasta sauce, I knew I would be happy. The label said “all natural” and one look at their ingredients and I could see that to be true — definitely 100% all-natural. I was happy to find that Classico tomatoes are always packed fresh, with no preservatives, additives or added citric acid.

Making this Arugula Pizza is crazy easy! If you made this for guests, I bet they would be very impressed. The first thing to do is to make the pizza sauce. In a saucepan, you’ll combine one can of Classico Crushed Tomatoes, minced garlic and seasonings and heat to a low simmer. My husband continued to cook the sauce for about 10-15 minutes to develop the flavors and reduce the tomatoes a bit.

I have to mention that usually, my husband adds sugar to his pizza sauce, but as he was working on it, we both felt that this needed no sugar at all. The Classico tomatoes, with the added seasonings, made this an extremely flavorful and healthy pizza sauce, with no added sugar.

When the sauce is ready, you are now ready to assemble your Arugula Pizza.

I kept things very simple and used a pre-made pizza crust that our local grocery store sells. Lots of grocery stores sell pre-made pizza crust or sell pizza dough in a bag. It’s a great timesaver! Of course, I do make my own pizza dough lots of times, so you might be interested in how I make pizza dough in a food processor.

Spread the pizza sauce evenly on the pizza crust and then top with slices of part-skim mozzarella cheese.

The pizza is baked in the oven until the cheese is hot, bubbly and starting to brown.

After removing from the oven, you are ready to top with the arugula! Sprinkle it all over the top of your pizza — use as much, or as little, as you would like. After adding the arugula, I gave it a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil.

And it’s ready! Cut, serve and enjoy!

With healthy arugula (an excellent source of vitamin A) and an all-natural pizza sauce made from Classico tomatoes, this is a pizza you can feel good about. I know we are total fans of Classico tomatoes now — my husband was extremely happy with them. He’s already planning other recipes already with the extra cans I bought.

I’m not saying we won’t go back to our usual pizza toppings, such as our Pesto Pizza with Sun-Dried Tomatoes, but this was an excellent change up and something we’ll be doing again!

Here’s the pizza sauce recipe and instructions for putting together the Arugula Pizza. Feel free to add to your ZipList or print — and pins on Pinterest are always appreciated!

Arugula Pizza

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• Author: Brandie Valenzuela

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Description

After falling into a pizza topping rut, I decided to try a new, easy dinner idea: Arugula Pizza. We have pizza almost every week, but we had been having the same old pizza toppings over and over again, and it’s been enough to make me want to skip our weekend pizza ritual. But this changed things up and it was a fairly healthy pizza too.

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Ingredients

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• 1 pre-made pizza crust (14″)
• 1/2 batch pizza sauce (see below)
• 12 ounces mozzarella cheese (sliced)
• 2 cups baby arugula (more or less, as desired)
• Extra-virgin olive oil

Pizza Sauce

• 1 oz can Classico™ Crushed Tomatoes (28 .)
• 2 tablespoons dried oregano
• 1 tablespoon dried basil
• 1 tablespoon minced garlic
• 1 tablespoon onion powder
• 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (optional)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper

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Instructions

To make pizza sauce:

1. In a small saucepan, heat crushed tomatoes and all seasonings over low heat. Simmer, uncovered, on low for 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally, to reduce tomatoes. Remove from heat and allow to cool slightly.

To make pizza:

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. Spread sauce evenly on pizza crust. Top with mozzarella slices. Bake in oven until cheese it hot, melted and beginning to brown (about 10 minutes). Remove from oven. Sprinkle with arugula. Drizzle with olive oil. Cut into pieces and serve.

Notes

–Pizza sauce recipe make enough for 2 pizzas, while the other ingredients for this recipe make 1 pizza. If you don’t wish to make another pizza at this time, this sauce does freeze well.

–16 ounces of fresh pizza dough may be used instead of a pre-made crust, if you prefer.

–To make your pizza even healthier, use a thin crust. Using flour tortillas are also a fun way of saving calories on pizza.

• Category: Pizza
• Method: Baking
• Cuisine: Italian

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 For more information on Classico Canned Tomatoes, visit their website: www.tomatoes.classico.com

Disclosure: I am a member of the Collective Bias®  Social Fabric® Community.  This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias®  and Classico #cbias #SocialFabric #CookClassico