Pizza Casserole

Hi All,

I just made this for the first time, and I liked it.  Below is the recipe.  I used ground beef, and I cooked the veggies and ground meat separately and then tossed them together with the pizza sauce. 

I mostly liked the cheese and pepperoni topping!  And there were enough veggies and protein to make it healthy!

enjoy!

Carol

Pizza Casserole

Ingredients:

• 2 c. whatever veggies you like, diced (I used onions, bell peppers, and zucchini)

• 1 clove garlic, minced (or 1 tsp. already minced garlic)

• 1 lb. Italian-style ground meat

• Salt and pepper, to taste

• 1.5 c. your favorite pizza or spaghetti sauce

• 1.5 c. shredded pizza blend cheese or mozzarella

• Toppings: I pepperoni  and sliced black olives, but add anything you like on top of pizza!

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

2. Set a skillet over medium-high heat and let it get hot (2-3 minutes) before adding nonstick cooking spray (or 1 tbsp. of oil if you like that better). Add veggies and saute for 2-3 minutes until soft. Add garlic and saute an additional minute or so.

3. Add the ground meat, breaking it up with a spatula and mixing in the vegetables. Coo****il meat is done through. Drain meat of any excess fluid with a colander.

4. Turn stove heat to medium-low and add sauce, stirring to fully combine. Simmer about 5-7 minutes or until sauce turns a deeper shade of red. Your mixture should be saucy but not soupy. Ultimately the veggies will continue releasing water as they cook so you don't want your sauce to have too much liquid. If there seems to be a lot, drain some of it off before doing the next step.

5. Transfer mixture to a casserole dish (8 x 8) and spread evenly. Add toppings. like pepperoni and black olives, etc. along with the shredded cheese.

6. Bake about 20 minutes, long enough for the cheese to melt, brown just a bit and for the pepperonis to become slightly crispy.

nice maybe will try it out !

I have tried this recipe and my family devoured it. I substituted the 1 lb. Italian-style ground meat for sweet Italian sausage ( DE skinned prior to frying ). I also added some mushrooms to this .

I do not do hamburger meat since my surgery so that is why i used the sausage. Will try it again but with chicken next time. 

Good recipe if you are looking for that pizza taste. 

I bet the Italian sausage was excellent in this.  I'm going to try that next time.  Chicken would be even healthier.

I'm glad you liked it.

Carol

I'm going to try this. My husband loves pizza but after one slice, he starts eating just the toppings off the pizza slices and leaves the crust anyway. And I avoid it because I like the crust too much. Thanks for the idea.