It’s not delivery. And there’s no way it’s DiGiorno’s. (Did I even spell that right?)
But sometimes (ummm- a lot of times!), us food allergy families want an easy dinner.
We occasionally enjoy Daiya “cheese” pizza, but at almost $10 for a small frozen pizza, it’s quite spendy. It’s worth it, though, for the sake of ease and convenience.
A friend of mine blogs over at Ally’s Sweet and Savory Eats. She wrote about a way to freeze homemade pizza. I pinned it and finally gave it a go.
Ally’s recipe needed a few changes to adapt it to our diet.
Here’s how I made dairy, egg, and beef free pizzas for our freezer.
Homemade Pizzas for the Freezer:
(Freezer instructions come from this recipe. Thanks Ally!)
Ingredients:
- 1 full recipe of homemade pizza dough
- 2 cups of homemade pizza sauce
- 2 bags of Daiya mozzarella shreds
- Toppings of your choice
Directions:
- Click on the homemade pizza dough recipe above. I don’t follow their instructions. I put it all in my bread machine and press the “dough” button. In an hour and a half, I have gorgeous homemade pizza dough!
- Click on the homemade pizza sauce recipe above. Double the recipe.
- Prepare your toppings. I like to use chopped onion, chopped green bell peppers, and olives.
- Once the pizza dough is ready, preheat oven to 425 degrees.
- Flour large surface. Separate pizza dough into 4 equal parts (Or 8 if you want smaller pizzas). Flour your rolling pin. Roll each portion of dough into a round circle. Use a fork to prick the raw dough. Place onto a round pizza pan or pizza stone. (I use $3.99 pizza pans with holes in them. They work great.) Bake for 6 minutes. Repeat with each pizza dough. (I always have a few pizza dough bubbles and prick them again with the fork.) Let the partially baked pizza crusts rest on a cookie rack while you pre-bake them all.
- Spread pizza sauce on each pizza. I didn’t measure it. I just eyeballed it. If you like really saucy pizza, you might have to make more pizza sauce.
- Spread cheese on the pizzas. I generally use 1/2 bag per pizza.
- Add toppings.
- Flash freeze in the freezer for 45 minutes. (The tricky part is finding space to flash freeze them. You flash freeze the pizzas unwrapped. I put the pizzas on a cookie sheet in the freezer.)
- Wrap the pizza in plastic wrap several times and label and date with reheating instructions.
- Ally’s reheating instructions are to bake at 400 degrees for 20-25 minutes.
Random Notes:
I almost ran out of vegan cheese because I did this on a whim and wasn’t quite as prepared as I should have been. I will add a bit more cheese to the cheese pizzas when I bake them.
Also, I decided to make 2 of the 4 cheese pizzas. I can add toppings later if I want or leave them as just cheese.
I made two normal size round pizzas and four smaller ones. The smaller ones are above in the photos.
The Daiya “cheese” is $4.99 a bag, but even at that price, these pizzas still come out cheaper than the store bought Daiya frozen pizzas ($9.59 at my HyVee.) The cost of the other toppings are minimal and are always in my pantry or fridge as staples, so I don’t really count that towards the final price of cost savings. (One onion, one bell pepper & a jar of olives maybe cost $3.00. Add the two bags of “cheese” and the cost for all of the pizzas are maybe $12.98. This is my best quick estimate. I’m not figuring in the pizza dough or pizza sauce.) By this rough estimate, each pizza costs about $3.25!
I’m so EXCITED to have 4, that’s right 4, homemade and SAFE pizzas in my freezer right now. I almost don’t want to use them because then I’ll have three… I know, that doesn’t make sense. I wish I would’ve made more!
Right now, I’m one happy mama!
I’d love to know: What are your favorite pizza toppings?
I love this post!! Sharing how you can still enjoy a favorite without sacrificing your dietary needs! And i bet it was tastier than its freezer aisle counterparts! Thanks so much for sharing our pizza sauce recipe!
Thank you! The pizza was tastier. 🙂 I made another pizza for the freezer today and I love your pizza sauce recipe so much, I had to lick the spoon! (After I was done with the sauce, of course!) 😉
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