Forget processed frozen pizza bites and instead, create these tasty homemade pizza bites with nutritious sweet potatoes, healthy pecan pesto, and wholesome toppings like orange bell peppers and fresh mozzarella cheese. The sweet and salty combination comes together nicely and would be a great side dish paired with chicken, salmon, tofu, beef, and more.
I admit my love for pizza is strong. It somehow ends up in our weekly meal plan – usually on movie night with the kids. As we all know, pizza ordered from pizza delivery restaurants are far from healthy. I needed to create a healthy option and it all started with sweet potatoes.
Trying to finalize the recipes, I was going back and forth between making a pesto sauce or tomato sauce. I remembered a recipe I’ve made countless times and have been told by Whisk in Wellness readers that they love it – so I ended up going with my Super Simple Vegan Pecan Spinach Pesto, which is free of gluten, processed ingredients, and dairy. Technically, these pizza bites can be vegan if you use vegan cheese
The pesto has hints of sweetness from the basil, pecans, and white balsamic vinegar and salty elements from the nutritional yeast, salt, and olive oil. It’s flavorful and tasted delicious with the sweet potatoes that are sweetened with a hint of coconut sugar.
The wonderful thing about these pizza bites is that they’re completely customizable. Choose whatever toppings you like. I used mozzarella cheese, peso, chopped pecan, chopped basil, orange peppers, and pepper. Other toppings I would find tasty are mushrooms, black olives, spinach, red pepper flakes, goat cheese, and tomatoes.
Roasted Sweet Potato Pesto Pizza Bites
Ingredients
- 3 medium sweet potatoes - washed & scrubbed clean
- ¼ cup avocado oil
- 3 T coconut sugar
- 2 cups unsalted pecans
- 2 ½ cups fresh basil
- 2 cups fresh spinach
- ½ cup nutritional yeast
- 5 cloves garlic
- 1 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 2 tablespoons white balsamic vinegar
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- 1 ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon pepper
- Orange Bell Pepper - sliced
- Fresh Mozzarella Cheese - sliced
- Pesto
- Fresh Basil - chopped
- Unsalted Pecans - chopped
- Black Pepper
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375F.
- Slice sweet potatoes into ¼ inch circles and place on a sheet pan.
- Coat both sides of all sweet potato slices with avocado oil.
- Lightly sprinkle coconut sugar on each sweet potato slice.
- Bake in the oven for 20 minutes.
- As sweet potatoes are roasting, combine all of the pesto ingredients in a food processor (or a heavy-duty blender).
- Blend until completely smooth. Stop and scrape the sides of the bowl a few times during this step. Set aside.
- Top each sweet potato slice with desired toppings. Top each one differently to see what you like best and discover new flavor combos.
- Place pizza bites back in the oven and roast an additional 8-10 minutes, or until cheese is melted.
- Serve immediately and enjoy!
Notes
- Omit the cheese or substitute with vegan cheese for a vegan version of this recipe. The pesto makes 24 servings (about 3 cups). You will not use all of this for the pizza bites. It can be stored in the fridge for up to 5 days and in the freezer for up to 3 months.
- It’s also excellent on pasta, with chicken, or in sandwiches. It would go great alongside these Tuscan Herb & Feta Meatballs!
- Other suitable toppings include olives, red bell peppers, onions, mushrooms, tomatoes, and other kinds of cheese. The pesto is my Super Simple Vegan Spinach Pecan Pesto – try it out! You won’t be disappointed.
