Rainbow Naan Veggie Pizza
July 11, 2017 by Nicole Collins
Vegetables are pretty!
Especially rainbow veggies on a pizza!
I've told you this before, but this is my favorite time of year to eat. Produce is in it's prime right now, in my opinion. There are so many options that are fresh and in season, meaning it'll taste the best it'll taste all year. The colors, the smells, the varieties. My fav...
I LOVE vegetables, but only raw. I know. Weird, right? There are only a few veggies that I'll eat cooked. And if I do eat them cooked, it needs to be a “just barely” kind of thing. I'm all about that crunch.
But, there is one vegetable that is my arch nemesis. The carrot. YUCK! I don't like anything orange (fruit, vegetable, color, smell), but carrots are the absolute WORST if you ask me. Bleh...
When I was growing up, cooked carrots used to be my punishment. I was a pretty good kid; but when I wasn't, my mom was very creative in how she stuck it to me. I remember hours and hours spent sitting at the dining room table, alone, with nothing but cooked carrots to stare back at me. My tail couldn't leave the seat til the carrots were gone. Carrots in general are icky, but I'd really rather starve or take up permanent residence at the dining room table than eat cooked carrots. Ugh...
I would do anything to make those carrots disappear. I'm not proud of this, but I'd dip the cooked carrots in ketchup, ranch dressing, barbecue sauce...pretty much anything I could find to hide the taste. I'd swallow them whole sometimes. Desperate times man...
The only way a carrot has any chance of getting anywhere near my mouth is if it's raw. That's its least offensive state to me. I'm not sure what got in to me when I made this recipe, but I actually voluntarily put carrots on this pizza. This might be the first time Baltimore sees snow in July...
Today, we're making Rainbow Veggie Pizzas. I'm not even mad about the carrots on this pizza, because there's so much other good stuff happening on it! I knew I wanted to taste the rainbow, but I didn't want to have a whole pizza of bell peppers (which I totally could've easily done!) So, I bit the bullet, allowed the carrots to participate, shredded the carrots so my mouth to carrot ratio would be small, and made a very thin orange section on my pizza.
Not even carrots could ruin this pizza for me. (This is me putting on my big girl pants!) This pizza also has a couple of my absolute favorite ingredients: naan bread and feta.
I'm seriously obsessed with both. I eat naan bread and feta (sometimes together, sometimes separately) pretty much every week. To make our pizzas even more precious than they already are, I used mini naan. That way, I can have a whole personal rainbow all to myself! If you can't find mini naan, you could totally make this on a fullsize naan, and just cut it up to portion it out.
On top of the naan bread, we make a feta spread to act as the glue for our pizza. Feta, greek yogurt, salt, pepper, paprika, and a pinch of garlic powder. That's it! It's a salty spread, but we're not seasoning our veggies, so we need the extra salt to keep everything balanced.
For the rest of the rainbow, we're using juicy grape tomatoes, sweet yellow bell peppers, adorable sliced mini cucumbers, and thinly sliced sharp red onion.
One of the cool things about this pizza is that you can eat it as a lite lunch, or you can slice it up real pretty and serve it as an appetizer at a party! The recipe is easily doubled, and it's certainly pretty enough to earn some party time. It's also an easy make ahead dish. Just cut up the veggies, store them in the fridge, and assemble when you're ready to serve!
And even better, this would be a great recipe for the little ones. What better way to get kids to eat their veggies than to make a colorful pizza! They'll be so mesmerized by the colors, they'll forget they're eating veggies. Just like I forgot I was eating carrots!
So, let's have some fun with our food and allow the foods we don't like to cross enemy lines. Enjoy, and let's eat!
Rainbow Naan Veggie Pizza Serves: 4 Print
Ingredients:
4 mini naan flatbreads
2 oz crumbled feta, at room temperature
¼ cup plain greek yogurt
¼ tsp salt
¼ tsp pepper
¼ tsp paprika
1/8 tsp garlic powder
½ cup grape tomatoes, quartered
½ of a carrot, shredded
½ of a yellow bell pepper, diced
1-2 mini cucumbers, sliced
1/8 of a red onion, thinly sliced
Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Using a pastry brush, brush both sides of the naan bread with water. Place on a sheet pan lined with foil, if desired. Toast in oven for 5-6 mins. Set aside to cool.
Soak the onions: Place the sliced red onion in a small bowl. Fill bowl with cold water. Let onions sit for 10 minutes. Remove onions from water, and dry completely on a paper towel.
Make the spread: In a small food processor, mix feta, yogurt, salt, pepper, paprika, and garlic powder. Process until smooth and creamy.
Assemble the pizzas: With the flat side up, spread about a tablespoon of the feta spread on top of the naan bread. Divide vegetables evenly between 4 breads, and place veggies on top of the feta spread horizontally in a rainbow pattern. Cut and serve.
Recipe notes:
*This recipe is great as a lite lunch or as a fun party appetizer. When I have this for lunch, I usually serve some lunchmeat rolls (salami and provolone for me!) along side. To serve as an appetizer, the recipe is easily doubled, and you can cut the pizzas in cute triangular or rectangular slices.
*The feta spread is salty, but we're not seasoning the veggies, so it's ok! We need the extra salt.
*I don't like carrots, so my orange layer is pretty thin. But feel free to use more or less of any color depending on what you like!
*Soaking the red onion in cold water helps to take some of the sting away. You could skip this step, but the onion will have much more of a bite.
*If you don't need to make all of the pizzas at once, just bag up your chopped veggies, keep them and the feta spread in the fridge, and toast your naan and assemble when you're ready to eat!
*If you can't find mini naan, you can use a regular size naan. Just cut it to portion it.
