Friday nights in our house means pizza night. I love the feeling of pizza nights to wind down from the week. What I don’t love is feeling bloated and crappy after one too many slices.
I was on the hunt to find a solution. Something that would support me trying to watch my calorie intake and wouldn’t leave me feeling icky the rest of the night.
I finally found this cottage cheese pizza bowl that is my new Friday night dinner routine! It leaves me feeling full, but not overly and not bloated.
The only downfall of this recipe is depending on what toppings you choose, it can involve more prep time than just simply throwing a pizza in the oven. But honestly, it’s worth it.
The “toppings” I choose to add in mine are fresh mushrooms, green olives and turkey pepperoni. Instead of those you could do more supreme style with peppers, sausage, black olives and pepperoni. You could do meatlovers with ground beef, sausage, pepperonis, etc. Or you could do ham and pineapple if that’s your thing.
The possibilities are endless. That is another nice thing about this recipe is just like with pizza, if you get bored of one kind you can try another.
Here is the base of what you need no matter what kind you decide to go with:
- Cottage Cheese – I used small curd, low fat. It’s really up to you and your preference. I also like to look at the calorie difference between types of cottage cheese.
- Diced tomato – I dice my own fresh tomato, but canned could work too. I would recommend draining them if you do use canned.
- Italian seasoning
- Salt & pepper
- Shredded mozzarella cheese
Optional Toppings (that I used):
- Turkey pepperoni – obviously you can use regular pepperoni too, but I like going for the turkey pepperoni for lower fat content.
- Mushrooms – I buy fresh mushrooms and dice them up. If you’re looking at saving time on prep work you can go with canned mushrooms and drain them.
- Green olives – I slice these up. Another alternative for less prep would be buying already sliced black olives. I know they are two different tastes, but just a suggestion.
Kitchen Utensils You’ll Need:
- Small mixing bowl
- Glass, oven safe dish 8x6x2in or 1.5L OR smaller than this – mine was a Pyrex dish. It was the smallest I have that is oven safe, but you could go even smaller
Step By Step Instructions:
Preheat oven to 375.
Cut/prep any fresh produce you may be using – tomato, mushrooms, green olives, peppers, pineapple, etc.
In your small mixing bowl combine the cottage cheese, diced tomatoes, Italian seasoning, salt, pepper and any veggies, mushrooms or fruit you may be using.
Honestly, I eye ball how much of each topping I want in the mixture. I would say it’s close to 1/4 cup, but you can do more or less.
Spoon all of those ingredients together until it’s well combined.
Transfer the mixture to your oven safe dish and spread evenly.
Sprinkle a thin layer of shredded mozzarella cheese on top of the mixture. This isn’t required, but I personally like to layer my toppings with cheese, toppings and more cheese. You can skip this part though if you’re good with just toppings then cheese.
Place any additional toppings like your meats and/or olives all throughout the top of the layer of cheese (or just the mixture).
Sprinkle another layer of shredded mozzarella on top of your toppings. Honestly the cheese part could be as little or as much as you would like.
Place in the oven for about 15-20 minutes or until cheese is completely melted. Mine took 15 minutes, but if you use more cheese than pictured above then it might be closer to that 20-minute mark.
Ingredients:
- 1 cup cottage cheese
- 1/2 tomato, diced or 1/2 cup
- 1/4 cup diced mushrooms or alternative toppings
- 1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
- 1 tsp Italian seasoning
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Pepperoni’s or meat of choice to your desire/covers the top
Instructions:
- Preheat oven to 375.
- In a small mixing bowl, combine the cottage cheese, diced tomatoes, Italian seasoning, salt, pepper and mushrooms or alternative toppings.
- Transfer the mixture into an oven-safe dish, spreading it out evenly.
- Place 1/4 cup of shredded mozzarella cheese over. Then any meat and/or olive toppings. Then place the last 1/4 cup of shredded mozzarella cheese over the toppings.
- Bake in preheated oven for 15-20 minutes or until the cheese is melted.
Let me know if you tried this recipe out and what toppings you chose to try with it! I can’t wait to make it again with different toppings!
