Vegetarian Breakfast: Easy Pizza Recipe

If I were to name two of the top foods on a kids list of favorites they would be: pizza and peanut butter and jelly; and yes, I do consider the ‘PB & J’ combo all one. In this meatless recipe I take those two favorites and combine them to make a cool, vegetarian breakfast alternative.

I am the type of parent who sees nothing wrong with serving pizza for breakfast. Thus, when slumber party girls wanted to finish off the pizza from the night before I said, “…with my blessing”. Devouring the remains of pizza always made room in the refrigerator and saved me the temptation of those unnecessary calories.

There’s not a thing nutritionally wrong with serving pizza in the morning, in my estimation and, unless your child is obese and does not burn calories off easily, any active child will be finished with the 400 plus calories that a piece of pizza might hold within a few hours of her daily routine.

Serving pizza at breakfast as an alternative to more traditional breakfast foods serves three purposes:

1. It provides important nutrition at the start of the day

2. It encourages the fussiest of eaters to eat before school

3. It offers a vegetarian recipe for those families who are looking for meatless alternatives.

Not only is this an easy, no fuss way to start the day, but by eliciting your son or daughter’s active participation it builds the skills of decision making, choice selection, and ownership. After all…if they are dissatisfied with their breakfast after they helped to make it they can’t blame mom or dad.

In researching breakfast pizza I noted there are two main categories and variations of these recipes listed. The first is the good old-fashioned eggs and sausage baked on pizza dough. While that may satisfy most Americans, who devour this classic breakfast staple, any vegetarian will ignore it. The second breakfast pizza recipe was a standard cream cheese on cookie dough with fruit topping. How many calories would one have to consume in this version and call it healthy?

I was pleased to note that there did not appear to be any semblance of my creation of Breakfast Pizza using refrigerator dough and a combination of a kid proof favorite: peanut butter and jelly. Add the fruit and nut toppings for extra nutrition and everyone is happy!

While the dough is baking in the oven chop the fruit and nuts for the topping and set the peanut butter and fruit jams out on the table.

Zap ¼ C. of cold peanut butter in the microwave for 10 second intervals until spreadable, but not runny, for an easy-to-spread first ingredient.

This is my version of breakfast pizza and, since I had never made it before or found a similar recipe, I had to go through a trial and error period. Here are some options and notes I’d like to share with you regarding the outcome of my tests.

1. Rolls:

Option #1 Bake the rolls separated and ready to add ingredients hot out of the oven.

Option #2 Bake the rolls with the ingredients added and rolled up crescent shaped.

Option #3 Roll the dough onto the baking sheet like a rectangular pizza shape.

Option #4 Use a commercial premade pizza crust.

2. Peanut Butter: Allergy alert-skip this ingredient if allergic to nuts.

Option #1 spread the peanut butter pre baking.

Option #2 spread the peanut butter post baking.

Option #3 Use only an organic brand, (usually requires refrigeration).

Option #4 Make your own peanut butter

Option #5 Use a nonorganic commercial brand

Option #5 Substitute other nut butters as an alternative, such as almond.

3. Jelly Toppings:

Option #1 your homemade fruit jam or jelly—homemade is always preferred, right?

Option #2 Store bought ‘Fruit only’ jam or jelly

Option #3-whatever jams and jellies you have on hand

Here are some helpful hints I discovered through creating this healthy version of Breakfast Pizza. For those who avoid white flour products substitute wheat dough, even if it does not come in a ‘crescent’ shape, and let your child knead that dough into his own, individual pizza pie.

Notes: The first pizza I made was with the commercial precooked dough that you heat in the oven. This did NOT pass the taste test either for my nephew or me. I found the dough to be tough and chewy-a real disappointment. It led me to further shopping and experimenting until I found the right product to use.

I knew that the bakery product I was looking for had to be light, versatile and tasty. I chose to skip substituting a refrigerated roll out pizza dough, and selected a crescent roll because it was already precut into ‘pizza’ shaped wedges that kids could easily identify with.

In my test kitchen I split the rolls in half between: baked with peanut butter spread before placing in the oven vs. spreading peanut butter after baking. What I discovered was baking the roll with peanut butter dried the peanut butter out too much.

I used the last four triangles baked for about 8 minutes and spread them with peanut butter after baking. I found that taking the ‘pizza wedges’ hot out of the oven and adding the rest of the ingredients worked the best.

As far as the actual shape of the pizza-if you add the ingredients to the crescent roll and then roll it up into the crescent shape, per the instructions on the can of dough, it defeats the purpose of it appearing like a piece of pizza-the triangular wedge that kids love to hold in their hands…it just becomes a breakfast roll. The most satisfying choice of these options, which was a hit in my house, was the ‘everyone-can-make-their-own-pizza’ wedge after the dough was baked. The important thing is to teach your child is the value of breakfast and thinking outside of the ‘cereal’ box.