Healthilicious: Chicken & Broccoli Pizza

I've always been "the healthy one" and that has never seemed to change in my 25+experience years. You didn't think I was going to reveal my real age, did you?

Anyway... in college I frequented the local Hideaway pizza and always ordered a chicken & broccoli pizza. I always got the same reaction- a laugh, a snicker, or a comment like, "really?". I'm not sure what the big deal was- chicken? GOOD. Broccoli? GOOD. Chicken & broccoli pizza? GOOOOOOD. Joey from friends would say this about my pizza choice. Remember the episode when Rachel tried to make dessert? Ok, off track once again, but I couldn't help but reference Friends because I was replaying part of that episode in my head when I was writing about the pizza. Which we should get back to.

When I moved back home to Minnesota and then on to California, there weren't any pizza places offering broccoli as a topping, so I set out to make my own. Years ago I would just use a store bought pizza crust, but these days I make my own. It's a little bit more work, but I feel better about what I'm feeding to my family, so it's worth it.

I'm also going to apologize in advance for this recipe. I don't use measurements- I just put everything on the pizza until it looks covered. Some days I'll put more broccoli, other days I'll put less chicken... it just depends how I'm feeling that day. So, while I'll do my best to give you measurements, know that they are just estimates. Use more or less of something if you need to. Also, the pizza crust recipe comes from a great blogger I found recently. It's a quick dough without yeast, so you could easily do this on a weeknight.

Chicken & Broccoli Pizza

1 homemade whole wheat pizza crust
2 grilled or oven baked chicken breasts
1 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
1-2 tsp. garlic sea salt
3/4 cup shredded parmesan cheese

2 cups shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese

1-2 cups chopped organic broccoli florets

1/2 cup chopped red onion

Grill or bake chicken breasts, set aside. 

Make pizza crust as directed, and brush on extra virgin olive oil (add more if needed). Sprinkle 1-2 tsp. of garlic salt and 1/4 c. parmesan onto crust. Side note: We have added sauce to this a couple times by A's request, and you could do that, too. I started using marinara as a dipper for him because I prefer it without sauce. 

Add 1 c. mozzarella cheese, sliced chicken breast, broccoli, and red onion. Sprinkle remaining parmesan and mozzarella cheese over the top. Sometimes I add a little garlic sea salt and pepper on top as well. 

Bake at 400 degrees 8-10 minutes, or until cheese is melted and pizza is warmed through. 

Enjoy!




This post is linked up to "Real Food Wednesdays". Check out other awesome posts about real food!