Bell Pepper Pizza: Kid-Friendly Veggies

Bell pepper pizza is a yummy, kid-friendly veggie meal or snack!

In my opinion, any veggies you can turn into pizza are pretty kid-friendly (and dad-friendly too ;-)).

Not just put them on a pizza. Make the veggies into THE PIZZA.

I know, you’re skeptical. So were they:

We had dozens of bell peppers to use up from our local food rescue, and we’d already eaten A LOT of fajitas. I said in my most convincingly excited voice: “We’re making bell pepper pizzas!”, and that’s the look I got!

But here’s where this idea really takes the cake (is it messed up to reference cake when we’re supposed to be talking veggies?):

IT IS SO EASY!

Bell Pepper Pizzas are Kid Friendly Veggies

What kind of pizza does your kid usually like? Cheese and pepperoni are two kid friendly faves so that was our launching point.

I didn’t want to use giant pepperonis on our cute little mini pizzas so I opened up the fridge, stared blankly for awhile, remembered why I opened the fridge, and then I saw it:

The bag of Duke’s meat sticks. BINGO!

What You Need to Make A Bell Pepper Pizza

If you’re ready to take the plunge into the world of veggies becoming kid friendly by pretending to be pizza, grab a few things:

Some bell peppers
A little spaghetti sauce (we used about 1/3 cup leftover sauce)
Toppings: our included shredded cheese, Duke’s meat sticks sliced into pepperoni rounds, and a couple of sliced mushrooms.

How to Make A Bell Pepper Pizza

To reduce the suspicion from your kids, invite them to be a part of the cooking process. Kids are capable chefs, usually very eager to help, AND they are more willing to try new food if they handle the ingredients before it shows up on their meal time plate.

Start by rinsing and drying bell peppers, then slice them into halves (or smaller if your kids are especially suspicious of this kid friendly veggie idea). Kids of all ages can help with the rinsing and older kids can slice. All ages can pick out seeds and membrane.

Rub each piece of bell pepper with a small amount of cooking oil (we use the Mediterranean Blend from Costco) and place skin side down on a cookie sheet. All kids can help with this step too!

Provide the toppings, and let kids go at it! We assigned each person a number of bell pepper pizzas (2) and didn’t have any rules about what needed to be on them or how much.

My six year old was suspicious of sauce (even though he eats it on spaghetti all the time..?) so he only put it on one of his pizzas and ate one sans sauce. I chose to put sauce, cheese, pepperoni, and mushrooms on mine. It was tasty!

Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 mins – a piece of parchment paper underneath will help reduce the mess (I forgot and had to scrub some melted cheese off my pan).

Word to the wise: I don’t call these “pizzas,” I call them “bell pepper pizzas” because my kids know what pizza is and it would be a huge disappointment to have to eat these when you’re expecting an actual pizza!

So yeah, they’re not as delicious as an actual pizza – but they sure are a fun and tasty way to eat bell peppers! The best part? Everyone ate it all. Mom win!

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