This sausage and kale pizza is a super easy dinner with a healthyish twist, it’s made with whole wheat pizza crust (but these pizza toppings are so so good on any pizza or flatbread crust!) This easy dinner is a recipe kids can help you make and is such a good sausage pizza with kale.
I started this pizza by making my fail proof whole wheat pizza dough. We use this dough anytime we’re making pizza in our house. I love using it because it’s whole wheat, but you can, of course, use a store bought dough as well (I’ve also made this sausage and kale pizza and used the toppings and put them on naan flatbreads – if you use a store bought crust, this becomes a 5-ingredient recipe!!)
After the dough is made, I pressed it into a sheet pan and par baked it for 10 minutes. If you’re not sure what par bake means, it just means to simply pre-cook the dough a bit, before putting any toppings on it (that way it crisps up a little).
While the dough is par-baking, you can prepare the sausage and kale in a skillet. After ten minutes in the oven, simply take the dough out and add the toppings. Throw the pizza back in the oven and bake for 5 more minutes. It’s as easy as that!
If you don’t have diced tomatoes on hand, you can simply substitute with your favorite pizza sauce.
Using kale as a pizza topping is a great way to sneak in a super food that I bet even your kids would eat. I’m a big fan of seasoning and crisping up kale. It really helps to take that bitter, strong taste of raw kale away.
I adapted this recipe from one I found in Eating Well magazine, but I made a few changes to make it much easier. The original recipe called for this to be a skillet pizza. It sounded so delicious, but the steps were more complicated than I had time for (you can see me reference this pizza before in a Catching Up With The Kelnhofers post.) The recipe called for first heating the skillet in the oven, making the dough, then putting it on the skillet to par-bake, add toppings etc. It just seemed like a lot of in and out of the oven!
This recipe is perfect for cooking with kids – see Ben (my 2 year old toddler) helping make the dough and enjoying this healthy pizza. Letting kids help make the food is one of the tips on how to get kids to eat what you’re eating.
You can get creative and put any number of toppings on this pizza. What are your favorite pizza toppings? Let me know in the comments below!
Sausage and Kale Pizza
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 lb. whole wheat pizza dough*
- 6 oz. Italian sausage casings removed (about 2 links)
- 2 cups kale torn/cut into small pieces
- 6 Tbs. fire-roasted diced tomatoes drained
- 1-2 cups mozzarella cheese
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 450 degrees
- Prepare pizza dough. I use this recipe for whole wheat pizza dough, but store bought works as well. Stretch dough into bottom of 9x13 baking dish or onto a round pizza pan.
- Par-bake pizza dough for 10 minutes.
- Remove sausage from casings (if you purchased links). Brown sausage in skillet over high heat. 3-5 minutes, breaking up as it cooks.
- Cup kale and add into skillet to brown. Remove sausage and kale from pan and set aside.
- When dough is done par-baking, remove from oven.
- Add fire roasted tomatoes, sausage, kale and cheese.
- Place back in oven for 5 minutes or until the cheese has melted. Cut, serve and enjoy
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