I don't think it would be possible to write a series on inexpensive entertainment without mentioning pizza! If you are like most Americans you probably love having a pizza on Friday or Saturday night to celebrate the weekend! Our family is no exception to that rule, but instead of ordering a pizza we normally make our own to save some money!
Here are a few tips for you:
- Prepare your own crust to maximize savings. If you do not like to bake, it would still be cheaper to buy a pre-made crust at the store and then add the toppings yourself!
- An added bonus of making your own pizza is that it is much healthier for you. You control the amount of cheese and toppings. You can also try replacing some of the all purpose flour with whole wheat flour. I have tried replacing 1/3 of the flour with whole wheat with good results!
- Buy shredded mozzarella cheese in bulk and store it in the freezer until the day you plan on using it. It will thaw enough to use. Make sure you put it back in the freezer once you are through with topping your pizza!
- Try adding some freshly pressed garlic to the crust for an extra treat.
- Go easy on the sauce! I have found that a 8 oz. jar of tomato sauce is enough for 2 pizzas! I just use plain tomato sauce or sometimes tomato sauce with a few Italian spices mixed in.
- Find a recipe you love! The recipe I use most often use doesn't even need a rising time, which is great if you are short on time as I often am!
- Be creative with toppings! Though some of our favorites are just plain cheese or pepperoni I like to try something new once in awhile. Recently we tried barbecue chicken pizza! Next on my list is to make a taco pizza! Yum!
- You can use a simple pizza pan to bake the crust or invest in a nice pizza stone for really great results!
- My final tip is to always make more pizza then you think you need! It is a favorite leftover at our house!
Visit Biblical Womanhood for more inexpensive ideas!
8 comments:
We love having homemade pizzas! We actually made a white pizza last time and my kids loved it. Making alfredo sauce from scratch is super easy and we just added broccoli and chicken and cheese.
Oh that sounds delicious! I will add that one to my list to try! Thanks!
One look at your picture and my mouth instantly started watering! :)
Amy - I know! I have the same problem too! Luckily I had planned on making pizza again tonight so I'll be ok! :-)
We do pizza in our house every Friday and I have been working on streamlining the routine so that I can hang out with the family instead of spending it in the kitchen. I try to bag our dry ingredients ahead of time and I have made pizza kits for the freezer and portioned the pepperoni and cheese (that I buy in bulk) into the kits along with small containers of homemade sauce. The night before I just thaw the kits and throw the dry ingredients into the bread machine. It makes things go sooo much smoother!!
Wow Amy! You make me really want to invest in a bigger freezer! That would be so convenient! What a great idea for people who have freezer space!
I don't make homemade pizza because I don't like to wait for dough to rise. I'm glad you posted this. I checked out the recipe you use from Crystal's blog and am going to try it tonight. We always have pizza on Saturday. Can't wait to try this...what a money saver! We usually get the freezer pizza that the crust rises, but I'm excited to try this frual and probably yummier version.
And thanks for visiting my blog for frugal friday! :)
That post by Jen was me...I didn't sign in right! :)
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