Transform Your Leftover Roasted Veggies Into A Tasty Pizza Topping

There are so many ways to use up leftover vegetables. From your Sunday morning breakfast omelet to your Tuesday evening tacos, all of your vegetables can be put to good use throughout the week (including these 10 creative uses for leftover veg). One of the best ways to reduce your waste and make sure you're getting your daily fix, however, is to transform those leftovers into a tasty pizza topping. 

Veggie pizzas are not anything new or revolutionary. In fact, peppers, onions, olives, and, yes, even pineapples, are often listed as toppings at pizzerias. But, using the vegetables in your fridge at home has the potential to inspire all of the ingredients you opt for at large. For instance, if your veggie fajitas from taco Tuesday are still sitting in the fridge come Friday, you could use them to make a homemade, Taco Bell-inspired Mexican pizza. Same thing goes for your leftover Greek potatoes, Indian okra, or Korean bibimbap. There are no rules when you are cooking at home, and while pizza is very much Italian, it can be infused with whatever variety of vegetables you have sitting in your fridge. While traditional Italian and Mediterranean flavors will naturally mix with your usual toppings, other fares can inspire something entirely different — perhaps naan instead of your basic crust, dried nori instead of basil, or black beans instead of sauce. Again, there are no rules.

Whether your base is a pizza crust, a potato pancake, pita, or a piece of paratha bread, adding your leftover vegetables to your pizza is as simple as adding any other topping. While you would usually want to cook some of your vegetables prior to adding them to your pizza — specifically in the case of onions, mushrooms, eggplant, and any hearty greens or root vegetables — the fact that you are using your leftovers should mean that they have already been cooked at some point. Knowing that, they can be scattered on top of your crust of choice and thrown into the oven just like any other topping. Or, bake the crust first and turn you entire leftover salad into a pizza, as we like to do when we make a Caesar salad pizza. 

Obviously, you could play around with adding any other non-vegetable leftovers you might have on hand to your pizza, too. However, if you are going meatless but still want a bit of meat-like texture, opt for leftovers that include mushrooms, artichokes, or eggplants. All of these pair well with all sorts of toppings, but especially the traditional sauce and cheese, while providing a familiar mouthfeel to your usual pizza proteins. Seasoning is also key, so be sure to keep that in mind when you are pairing your leftovers with the other ingredients on your pizza. Your leftover Chinese broccoli might call for something slightly different, but your pizza could end up tasting tall the better for it.