Leftovers Pizza

We enjoy making pizza most Friday evenings. Not only is pizza one of those dishes that all the family loves to eat, easy, and quick to cook; but for me, making pizza has the added benefit of being a great way of using up bits and pieces in the fridge or ends of packets of things to avoid food waste. Leftovers pizza is an easy way to feed the family and save money on your food bills – here are some ideas for bases, sauces and pizza toppings!

If your family is like mine, if ingredients are on a ‘pizza’ it’s pretty much guaranteed to be a success 😉 Pizza is especially good for using up those those small amounts of leftovers, like 2 mushrooms or a leftover beef burger. If there re ingredients that some family members aren’t too keen on, you can make a ‘half and half’ pizza so one half of the pizza has different toppings than the other, or top like a four seasons pizza which has a different pizza topping on each quarter.

Jump to:

• The Pizza Base
• Pizza Sauce Ideas
• Cheeses
• Vegetables
• …and fruit!
• Fish
• Meat
• Extras
• Cold pizza toppings
• FAQ
• My recipe tips
• Some Of Our Favourite Pizza Topping Combinations
• Italian Pizza Toppings
• Why not try…
• Pizza from leftovers

The Pizza Base

• Homemade pizza dough: I love to make homemade pizza dough from scratch, if I have time. If I am in a rush and need a last minute dough, I often make this yeast free pizza dough using baking powder as it doesn’t require any resting time.
• You can don’t have to limit it to homemade or even bought pizza dough or store bought pizza bases though:
• You can use: puff pastry, naan breads, chapatis, flatbread, Turkish bread, pitta bread, English muffins, bagels (like the image below), French bread, or even sliced bread (bread crusts from the end of the loaf are best for this as they are less likely to go soggy).

Pizza Sauce Ideas

• Homemade tomato sauce – this can be frozen in batches in a bag that is laid flat in the freezer allowing it to defrost quickly.
• Pesto – bought or homemade, my homemade cashew pesto is especially delicious on pizza, or this Thai basil pesto is great for a vegan pizza.
• If you aren’t a tomato fan but like a sauce on your pizza, this lentil and roast veg sauce is good, but use it sparingly to avoid the dough becoming soggy. I used to use this quite a bit when my son was a toddler to provide added protein and veggies to the pizza.
• Greek yogurt or sour cream – like this German flammkuchen, you can spread a thin layer of sour cream or Greek yogurt over your pizza base. It is especially delicious topped with bacon, sausages and onions.
• Or if you are stuck for time and ingredients, spread the base with tomato puree / tomato paste.

Cheeses

1. Mozzarella is the classic pizza cheese, but if you don’t have it whilst it may not have that springiness factor, grated cheddar cheese or tasty cheese works well.
2. Cottage cheese or ricotta – great dolloped over the pizza.
3. Sliced brie, camembert.
4. Crumbled blue cheese, feta cheese or goats cheese.
5. Cubes of halloumi.
6. A shaving of parmesan – this is best added after the pizza has come out of the oven.

Vegetables

• Many vegetables work well on a pizza, especially leftover roast vegetables, or other cooked vegetables such as fried mushrooms, cooked broccoli, or sweetcorn.
• Vegetables that can be used raw in a pizza: sliced mushrooms, thinly sliced courgettes/zucchini, handful of baby spinach (a great way of using bagged spinach!), thinly sliced red onion, sliced spring onions.
• Vegetables that need to be cooked before being added to the pizza: broccoli, broccolini, silverbeet, English spinach – just blanched in boiling water for 10 seconds. Aubergine / eggplant, potatoes, sweet potatoes, beetroot, pumpkin and butternut squash, fennel (roasted fennel is delicious on pizza!), and potatoes.

…and fruit!

If you can have pineapple on a pizza, why not other fruits?! Figs and pear go especially well with prosciutto or goats cheese on a pizza. You can add them before or after cooking.

Fish

• Smoked salmon – you can add this before or after cooking. Cooking brings out the saltiness of the smoked salmon.
• Prawns – peeled and deveined, cook on the pizza.
• Leftover cooked salmon – or dot over spoonfuls of salmon pate as soon as soon as the pizza comes out of the oven.

Meat

• Leftover meat – leftover lamb, beef, chicken, pork, leftover ham or gammon and even leftover Christmas turkey. Slice it, or if you only have a small bit, finely chop and mix with the sauce to stop if from drying out when being cooked – the picture below is of a leftover lamb pizza with finely chopped leftover lamb mixed with tomato pizza sauce.
• Leftover cooked sausages, ham, leftover cooked bacon, or salami. You can cook sausage on the pizza from raw, just sure to roll it in to very small balls or crumble it over the base.
• You can even use a spoonful of leftover stews or curries – savoury mince or Mexican beef mince or even beef curry (perfect on leftover naan!). Just make sure you don’t use too much of the sauce as this can make the pizza base soggy.

Extras

If you want to add a little extra to your pizza, here are some of my favourite pantry staples that can elevate any pizza:

• Anchovies
• Chilli flakes – or pickled chillies.
• Garlic oil – this is used on my Puttanesca pizza recipe.
• Eggs – crack a whole egg into the middle of the pizza once you’ve added the rest of the toppings.

Cold pizza toppings

These pizza topping ideas are best for adding to the pizza when it comes out of the oven:

• Cherry tomatoes – halve or quarter.
• Parmesan shavings
• Fresh herbs: basil is the obvious herb for sprinkling over pizza, but others work just as well: oregano, parsley, chives and dill – dill works especially well on fish pizzas.
• Diced avocado.
• Fresh rocket / arugula.
• Pickled chillies
• Sumac onions
• Yogurt garlic sauce – this is really delicious drizzled over chicken pizza!

FAQ

My recipe tips

• Use a hot oven to cook your pizza if using homemade pizza dough.
• Don’t roll the dough out too thinly, unless you want a thin and crispy base.
• Don’t add too much sauce, to prevent your pizza base from becoming soggy.
• Same with your toppings – if you overload the pizza base with toppings it can become soggy and pretty hard to eat without a knife and fork!
• Make sure you have the toppings chopped and prepared, so you can work quickly. If the sauce and dough have to sit for a while whilst you prepare them the base can become soggy.

Some Of Our Favourite Pizza Topping Combinations

• Yogurt / sour cream with smoked salmon, baby spinach and red onion.
• Tomato pizza sauce and mozzarella with Prosciutto and rocket / arugula added after it comes out of the oven.
• Pesto, goats cheese and rocket / arugula.
• Pesto or tomato paste, sliced zucchini / courgette, feta and olives.
• Tomato pizza sauce, mozzarella, cooked chicken, olives and sundried tomatoes.

Italian Pizza Toppings

• Napoletana – 5 chopped tomatoes, mozzarella, a pinch dried oregano, and 7-8 anchovy fillets.
• Pizza alle patata – thinly slice cooked potato and place on top of pizza dough then drizzle with olive oil and bake for 10 minutes. Scatter over 2 teaspoons of chopped rosemary, 50g parmesan and 100g Talegio cheese and 200g diced pancetta then return to the oven and bake for 10 mins.
• Margherita  – tomato sauce, mozzarella, olive oil and basil.
• Four Seasons Pizza – mushrooms, artichokes, prosciutto and olives.
• Puttanesca Pizza (image below) – anchovies, olives, capers, chilli flakes.

Why not try…

If pizza is as popular with your family as it is with mine, you may also like these other pizza flavoured recipes: