The Super Bowl is coming up and one great holiday/party appetizer…or meal (depending on your serving size) I always keep in my back pocket is Veggie Pizza. I fell in love with it in high school at a family holiday get together but then no one ever made it again. So, I took up the tradition and make it for most holidays and take it occasionally to pot lucks and parties. Now, I’m not going to lie: the Veggie Pizza can be calorie heavy. But, what I’ve tried to do is cut the calories where I can. That means reduced fat crescent rolls and using less of them to reduce the size of crust. I also substituted regular cream cheese with the 1/3 less fat cream cheese. One year, I tried the fat free cream cheese and it didn’t work out. It was…disgusting. I also use reduced fat shredded cheese. These changes don’t make a huge difference but its makes this pizza just a little bit healthier. And, actually, this version gets much more praise.
Ingredients
2 cans of crescent rolls (I only use 1.5 cans)
12 ounces of 1/3 less fat neufchatel cheese (room temp)
1 packet of Hidden Valley dry ranch mix
1 TBS of skim or 1% milk
12 ounces of reduced fat shredded cheddar cheese (1 package)
2 carrots, grated
1/2 cucumber, chopped
1 cup broccoli, finely chopped
1 cup cauliflower, finely chopped
5 scallions, chopped
1 medium or large tomato
The How-To
Preheat the oven at 375 degrees. Spray your standard sized baking sheet with olive oil or Pam. Then take your crescent rolls and lay them out on the pan. You will need to spread the rolls out to cover the pan and pinch together the pieces to make sure you have one solid crust. Once you are finished doing that, you’ll bake the crust for 11-13 minutes or until golden brown. Remove it from the oven and set it aside to cool off.
While the crust is baking and cooling off, this is when you mix your “sauce” and chop your veggies. The pizza “sauce” is the cream cheese, milk, and dry ranch mix. You’ll place it in a bowl, which you can mix by hand or with your mixer. The reason you need the small amount of milk is to make the cream cheese a little bit more spreadable. Once the crust is completely cooled off, spread a light layer of the cream cheese mixture across the crust. I then add the carrots, cucumber and scallions first. Next, I add the broccoli and cauliflower, and then add the tomatoes. Lastly, I sprinkle the cheese on the pizza and lightly press down make sure all of the toppings are secure.
Use a pizza cutter to cut the pizza into 18-21 pieces.
You can serve it immediately or chill it first! Enjoy!
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