mexican salad pizza // quinoa crust

Justin and I have a few food traditions that began early on in our relationship - Sunday morning breakfast and Friday night pizza, beer & movie night. We have continued with these "dates" religiously, hands down Sunday's and Friday's are my favorite days of the week.

I love salad pizza's, a warm pizza loaded with veggies and topped with fresh greens - this pizza has a Mexican flare which I love and topped with a healthy dose of greens & fresh tomatoes, which I love even more.

For novice bread makers, pizza dough is one of the easiest yeast breads to make. The dough only requires 1 rise and comes together super quick. I prefer a little sweeter dough, if you don't simply omit the sweetener. Red enchilada sauce is the "pizza sauce" topped with frozen corn and black olives. The pizza is baked then topped with mashed avocado & fresh lime juice.

Layered on top of the avocado, a healthy handful of salad greens & chopped tomato .

Did I mention what makes this dough extra special? Tri color quinoa is mixed in with the dough adding a nice helping of protein, if you don't believe it this pizza just got even healthier. If you don't have tri color quinoa, white quinoa will work you just won't see the pretty colored speckles throughout the pizza as you would with the tri color quinoa. 

What is your weekly food tradition?

Do you love pizza salads just as much as I do?

Mexican Salad Pizza ~ Quinoa Crust

serves 2 ~ dough serves 4 (8 slices)

you will need:

for the dough

1 cup warm water

2 tsp dry active yeast

3/4 cup cooked tri color quinoa

1 tsp salt

1 tsp liquid sweetener (honey, agave, pure maple syrup)

1 tbsp olive oil

3 cups all purpose or bread flour - divided

for the toppings

1/3 cup enchilada sauce

1/2 cup frozen corn

1/4 cup black olives

1 avocado

1/2 lime- juiced

1 tomato

handful of salad greens

assembly:

for the dough

place warm water in a medium mixing bowl - sprinkle yeast on top of the water and allow to sit for 10 minutes.

add 2 cups of flour, quinoa, olive oil, salt & sweetener (if using) - stir with a wooden spoon until water is absorbed and dough begins to form a ball and pull away from the sides of the bowl.

turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface, knead in remaining flour a 1/4 cup at a time until dough is smooth and elastic. in a clean bowl, drizzle a bit of olive oil in the bottom - place dough ball in bowl turning once to coat the ball. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and allow to rise in a warm area free of drafts for 30 minutes or until double in size.

to make the pizza

pre heat oven to 425*

turn dough onto a floured surface & cut in half - save other half of dough for another pizza or for later use.

on a parchment lined pizza stone shape dough into a circle - spread enchilada sauce over the dough and sprinkle with frozen corn and olives. bake in pre heated oven for 10 minutes or until bottom and crust is golden brown.

while the pizza is cooking mash avocado in a medium bowl and stir in lime juice.

remove pizza from oven and top with avocado, field greens & tomato. cut pizza into 6 slices.

enjoy!