Vegetarian Pepperoni Pizza...

A delicious oxymoron

I need to start off by saying that I was only a sous-chef while creating this meal. All credits go to my fiancé Sandeep. We are both mostly vegetarian, with the occasional egg-eating adventures. Hence, we create many meals with meat-substitutes, adding our own twist. Today, we want to share the Vegetarian Pepperoni Pizza. Fitting for my first post on here as we both LOVE pizza, still an understatement.

I will break this out into three separate parts: the sauce, the base, the toppings. Total prep time is around 20 mins and you only need a handful of ingredients, most of which can be found in your fridge on any given day! The below recipe makes 4 personal pizzas.

The Sauce

If you are short on time, you can opt to use your favorite red pizza sauce (Marinara, Vodka, Spicy Red). We ended up making our own sauce from scratch with 3 plum tomatoes, 1/4 red onion, 2 cloves of garlic, 5 basil leaves (props if you grow your own basil like me), 1/2 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp raw honey, and 1/4 cup butter.

First, you will need to add butter to your sauce pan. Once melted, add in your roughly chopped onions and blanched, diced tomatoes with the skin removed. Leave it on medium heat for about 5-7 minutes and then add the remaining ingredients. We kept stirring and smashing the tomatoes to make sure it had a chunky, but soft texture. You can feel free to add it all to a blender for a smooth paste. Voila, you are one-third of the way done!

The Base

For the base of the pizza, we bought Toufayan Bakery’s Hearty White Flatbread from our local grocery store. To prep the bread, we added a few drops of cooking oil on a baking tray and lay the bread. Then, we baked in the oven for 3-4 minutes at 350F to soften the bread. Next, we took out the lightly browned bread to add our toppings.

The Toppings

This is where you can get as creative as you want! What made this pizza extremely delicious, while providing added protein was the Field Roast Plant-Based Pepperoni. These pepperonis are made with many spices and hit the spot on any pizza.

We chose to layer the flatbread with the homemade marinara sauce, fresh baby spinach, Havarti cheese and the plant-based pepperoni. We sprinkled a few red-chilli flakes to add heat and popped it in the oven for another 10 minutes to bake. You can also broil for 1 minute just before serving to get a nice crispy crust.

This recipe is great for quick lunches, meal-prepping, or entertaining family and friends! Please subscribe and let me know what I should write about next!