The cherry tomato, arugula and goat cheese pizza is my second experiment in a light topping to use on pizza with lighter ingredients.
I repeat myself, but I will write it in all my pizza recipes: when you are dieting you can still eat pizza but with some precautions otherwise in just a few bites you end up ingesting an exaggerated amount of calories and Weight Watchers points. You will find tips about this in the Notes at the end of the recipe.
For the base you need to prepare my Pizza dough ‘with clean hands’ to make a really easy dough with little flour, and for the sauce I recommend this: Light pizza sauce.
The result will be a light and thin pizza but soft inside and crispy outside. Of course it’s not like eating pizza in Naples at the pizzeria but this light version is also delicious and very filling. Let’s prepare it.
A few more ideas for light pizza toppings are here:
- Difficulty: Easy
- Cost: Very inexpensive
- Preparation time: 10 Minutes
- Cooking time: 20 Minutes
- Portions: 3
- Cooking methods: Oven
- Cuisine: Healthy
- Seasonality: All seasons
Ingredients
- 2 1/3 cups Manitoba flour (or type 0 (tipo 0) or whole wheat)
- 1 1/2 tsp active dry yeast
- 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1 cup water (warm)
- 2 tbsp skim milk
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 1/4 cups tomatoes (peeled or in chunks)
- 1 tsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1 clove garlic
- to taste salt, basil, oregano
- 1 tsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1 cup mozzarella (light, or 1.8 oz (50 g) Gouda-type cheese)
- 4.2 oz fresh goat cheese (soft)
- 20 cherry tomatoes
- 1 red onion (or Tropea onion)
- 1 tbsp grated Parmesan (about 1 tablespoon)
- to taste arugula
- to taste basil and oregano
- to taste salt and pepper
- Points per serving = 14 WW points (10 for the base and 4 for the topping)
Steps
First prepare the dough following the recipe for my Pizza dough ‘with clean hands’ using 300 g of flour, let it rise and perform the precooking suggested in the recipe.
Then prepare the Light pizza sauce following the instructions: it should be well reduced and dry. If you don’t want to prepare the sauce, drain the canned diced tomatoes well to remove the watery part and season with a teaspoon of oil, salt and oregano raw.
Then prepare all the ingredients for the topping: slice the onion thinly and halve the cherry tomatoes. I used Gouda cheese and so I grated it; alternatively cut the mozzarella into cubes.
Once the dough’s precooking is finished, remove it from the oven and carefully detach the dough from the baking pan with a spatula: this will make it easier to remove the pizza onto a cutting board after final cooking.
At this point spread the tomato sauce evenly over the pizza base.
Add the mozzarella or the grated cheese and then the goat cheese in pieces, distributing it well over the entire surface of the pizza.
Continue by spreading the thinly sliced onion, the halved cherry tomatoes with the cut side up, torn basil, salt and pepper to taste. Finish with the Parmesan.
As you can see, my finished tray is filled on the right with the ingredients that are light for me and the rest with less light ingredients for my boys, namely mozzarella and hot dog, cheese, anchovies, olives and capers.
Bake again at 428°F for about another 10 minutes then increase the temperature to 482°F for the last 5 minutes or until you reach the desired degree of doneness.
And here is the cherry tomato, arugula and goat cheese pizza just out of the oven, smells wonderful.
All that’s left is to add arugula to taste.
Cut your own slice of pizza into several pieces so you can serve yourself more than once.
Add a salad to the pizza and here is a complete, filling and very tasty meal. Let me know if you liked it.
Enjoy your meal!
by Giovanna Buono
Tips
If, like me, you need to top the pizza in different ways to satisfy everyone at home, to be precise just use skewers as dividers to distribute the toppings well.
Given how tasty it is, pizza is a food that’s hard to resist. If you really can’t manage to eat only half, my advice is to avoid it in the initial period of the diet and wait a couple of months.
After a while on the diet your stomach will tend to shrink and so both half a pizza at a restaurant and a third of a baking tray as described in this recipe will be truly satisfying.
Be clever: with this diet and a few tricks you can really eat everything!
