Sweet Potato & Caramelized Onion BBQ Cheddar Pizza

If you’ve been on Facebook or Instagram this morning, you’ve likely seen lots of pictures of snow – it seems like quite a few cities in both the US and Canada have experienced their first snowfall this week!  I usually split my time between two cities in Southern Ontario, and fortunately the one I’m in right now got less snow than the other one – just enough to coat all the leaves on the ground but not enough to stay on the sidewalks.  Even with only a light layer of snow though, it’s still been freezing cold outside this week so it seems that winter has officially arrived!

With the colder weather, I’ve been craving warm and comforting food a lot more lately, and this pizza fit the bill perfectly!  It’s full of hearty, savoury flavours including roasted sweet potatoes, caramelized onions, and a bold barbeque sauce in place of tomato sauce.  It might sound like a kind of strange combination, especially with the cheddar cheese, but trust me that it all works so well together! 

When I brought up the idea for dinner a while ago to Ryan, he rejected it then because the idea of sweet potatoes on pizza was a little too out there for him, but I couldn’t get the idea out of my head so I went ahead and made it the other day and even he admitted “it was really good”.  I would add one extra "really" on to that myself!

I know I’ve been making a lot of naan pizzas lately, and I swear I had intended to make this one a real pizza instead, but the store I went grocery shopping at didn’t have any pizza dough (except for those pre-made circles of cardboard) and I didn’t have time to make my own dough, so I grabbed some whole wheat naan.  But naan is cheaper than pizza dough (at least at my grocery stores) and allows you to make the perfect individual sized pizzas whenever you want, so I really love them!  

If you're cooking for more than a couple people though (or don't like naan bread for some crazy reason), feel free to use regular pizza dough with the same toppings - the recipe I provide is more of a guide anyway so you can adapt it to whatever type of base you like!

Sweet Potato & Caramelized Onion BBQ Cheddar Pizza

This is just a rough guide for a large pizza or 4 naan pizzas – all ingredients are estimates and can be adjusted as you see fit.

Ingredients:

1-2 tablespoons olive oil

2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped into about ½-inch pieces

Salt and pepper

2 large sweet onions, peeled and sliced into half moons

1/2 teaspoon sugar

1 ball of pizza dough or 4 pieces of whole wheat naan bread

Your favourite BBQ sauce (I used a bold bbq sauce – try to use a thicker one with flavour)

Shredded cheddar cheese

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375°F.  Toss sweet potatoes with a couple teaspoons of olive oil or enough to coat them, and season with salt and pepper. Spread in an even layer on a foil-lined baking sheet and roast in preheated oven for about 25-30 minutes, or until tender.

Meanwhile, heat another tablespoon of oil in a large skillet over medium heat.  Add onions, stir to coat with oil, and season with salt and pepper.  Spread onions out evenly across the pan and let cook, stirring only occasionally, until softened, about 15-20 minutes.  Add sugar (this is to help them caramelize; I don’t always do this step), stir to coat, and let cook for an additional 10-15 minutes, stirring only occasionally.  Once they are caramelized to your liking, remove from pan and set aside.

Preheat oven to desired temperature for cooking your pizza – this depends on what type of dough you’re using: a recipe for pizza dough will give cooking instructions, a storebought ball of pizza dough also will, and if you’re making naan pizzas, I cook mine at 425°F for about 10-12 minutes.  Prepare pizzas by spreading a thin layer of bbq sauce as the base of the pizza, top with a thin layer of cheddar cheese (or desired amount of cheese), followed by the cooked sweet potatoes and onions.  Season lightly with salt and pepper if desired, and bake.  Serve warm.

Caramelized Onion, Apple, and Blue Cheese Naan Pizzas

I think naan pizzas might be my new favourite thing; I've already expressed my love for breakfast naan pizzas with an egg on top, but I can confirm that dinner pizzas are just as good! Especially when you're cooking dinner for one (like I am the majority of the time) - Just take a piece of naan out of the package (and whole wheat works great for a healthier option!), top it with desired toppings, bake for about 10 minutes, and you have a delicious light thin-crust pizza for one!

While you can pretty much top them with anything you like, if you like blue cheese, you have to try this combination of apples, blue cheese, and caramelized onions first - this was seriously one of my favourite things I've eaten in a while!

I already knew that blue cheese and apples go well together because they're some of my favourite salad ingredients, but adding caramelized onions and a sprinkle of thyme made for an amazing combination of flavours.  I even found a caramelized onion flavoured naan bread to use as my pizza base, which went perfectly, but if you can't find them, just use regular or whole wheat naan and these will still be delicious.

Speaking of pizza, I'm off to go enjoy a pizza lunch with my office - Hope you all have a great weekend!

Caramelized Onion, Apple, and Blue Cheese Naan Pizzas

Serves 4 (1 naan pizza each).  I recommend serving them with a side salad.

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 large sweet onions, peeled and sliced into half moons

Pinch of salt and pepper

1/2 teaspoon sugar

1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

4 caramelized onion flavoured naan breads (if you can’t find them, plain naan is fine)

1 Gala apple, thinly sliced right before using

4-5 oz blue cheese, crumbled (or about 1/2 cup crumbled)

1 teaspoon fresh thyme

Directions:

First, caramelize the onions (this can be done ahead of time, just keep them in the fridge).  Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat.  Add onions, stir to coat with oil, and season with salt and pepper.  Spread onions out evenly across the pan and let cook, stirring only occasionally, until softened, about 15-20 minutes.  Add sugar and balsamic vinegar, stir to coat, and let cook for an additional 10-15 minutes, stirring only occasionally.  Once they are caramelized to your liking, remove from pan and set aside.

Preheat oven to 400°F.  Prepare naan pizzas by dividing toppings evenly among each naan bread.  Top each first with a layer of caramelized onions, followed by sliced apples, crumbled blue cheese, and fresh thyme.  Bake in preheated oven for 10-12 minutes and serve.

Breakfast Naan Pizzas for Easter (or Anytime!)

This past weekend wasn't so successful for me in the kitchen.  First I attempted my first ever (vegetarian) cabbage rolls and they all completely fell apart on me, and didn't even taste that great either.  Then I decided to make whole wheat dinner rolls shaped like baby chicks and bunnies.  They were so adorable in my mind, and were pretty darn cute before they went in the oven, but then almost all my chicks came out headless (except for two whose heads sort of ended up growing out the sides of their bodies) and my bunnies turned out more like gremlins/Pikachus. At least these ones still tasted good, but now I have an awful lot of buns to eat by myself because I'm not going to give headless animals or gremlins to anyone else to eat!

Oh, and as a warning to others, if you've seen that picture floating around Pinterest of cute little bunny buns made with just two snips of kitchen shears, don't fall for it!  I found out later (thanks to Kelli's sleuthing) that the picture is a fake, and the original buns are actually a Japanese pastry, so save yourself the time and effort and just make regular buns (unless you're a big Pokemon fan, then they might actually work)!

Fortunately, there was one good - no, great! - thing that came out of my kitchen this weekend, and it's still very Easter appropriate!

These breakfast naan pizzas are ridiculously easy to make and surprisingly tasty!  I've never had an egg on a pizza before so I was a bit nervous about how it would turn out, but it cooked up beautifully in the oven and when you slice it open to reveal that runny yolk, it's pretty heavenly!

Because naans are kind of shaped like eggs and I was putting eggs on my pizza, it only made sense to decorate my naan pizzas like Easter eggs!  I used peppers and green onions to make decorative patterns on my pizzas, which also made a delicious topping paired with the cheese and eggs.

All you have to do to make these is take some storebought naan (I used whole wheat), top it with some cheese and peppers, crack an egg on top, then bake them for about 12 minutes.  So easy, and you could easily double the recipe to feed your family on Easter morning.  Try using different coloured peppers or other toppings like asparagus, tomatoes, or onions, to make each egg unique!

Even though they look pretty cute as Easter eggs, I know I'll be making these all year long!

(Easter Egg Shaped) Breakfast Naan Pizzas

Serves 2

Ingredients:

2 whole wheat naan breads

~1/2 cup mozzarella cheese (cheddar, pepper jack, or your favourite cheese would also work)

~2 tablespoons parmesan cheese (optional)

Bell pepper slices (red, yellow, orange, or green) – you will only need about 8 thin slices total, depending on the design you want to make

2 large eggs

Salt and pepper

1 green onion, thinly sliced

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400°F.  Spray a baking sheet with non-stick cooking spray and lay 2 naans on the baking sheet.  Cover each naan with mozzarella cheese, leaving a thin border around the edge (you may want to use more mozzarella, depending on the size of your naan – just use your best judgment).  Sprinkle with a bit of parmesan cheese.  Lay bell pepper slices in a decorative pattern to resemble an easter egg.  Crack one egg onto the center of each naan.  Season with salt and pepper.  Bake in preheated oven for around 12 minutes, until egg is set.  Sprinkle with green onion (also in a pattern, if desired) and serve immediately.

Note: Try mixing up the toppings and cheese for different flavour combinations!  You could also add a light sauce on the base if you like - I've tried them with barbeque sauce which I loved!