Paleo Pizza Bites

This recipe is for all the Paleo kids out there (young + old alike). Growing up, whenever I’d have a spend-the-night or slumber party, my mom would make pizza dough and take us shopping for toppings. We’d spend the rest of the early evening stretching the dough and topping our pizzas. It was soooo fun…to me, anyway. Maybe it’s just because I’ve been obsessed with food since I was like, um…7. I was voted “Most Likely to be a Chef” in elementary school. But who knows what that really means–since I was also voted “Most Likely to be a Gymnast”, and at 5’9″ (I wasn’t that tall in elementary school, but I’ve always been considered tall.), I don’t have any idea where that came from. Still makes me laugh thinking about it…

Ingredients

  • 5-7 oz. (about 20-30 pieces) large pepperoni
  • pizza sauce
  • grated cheese, optional

For Supreme

  • black olives
  • bell peppers
  • mushrooms
  • green onions (preferred over red or yellow simply b/c they don’t need a lot of time to cook)

For Hawaiian

  • deli ham
  • fresh pineapple

Method

Get your oven to 400ºF. Lay the slices of pepperoni on a baking sheet and put them in the oven, on the middle rack, to get them crispy–about 8 minutes, flipping them over once. Start prepping your toppings while the peps are in the oven.

The pre-bake step of the pepperoni is super important if you want a crispy pepperoni “crust”. Once you top the pepperonis they just don’t crisp up much…

Once they come out of the oven, place a spoonful of pizza sauce on each pepperoni slice and top with your ingredients.

Place the baking sheet back in the oven and let the toppings get warm and melty, anywhere from 5-10 minutes.

NOTE: All the toppings should be sliced, chopped, and/or diced super, super small/thin. Since you’re making little petite pizzas and they’re only getting a few minutes of oven time, you want make sure they get enough heat to get them cooked through. You can get an idea of size from the pics.


Comments

36 responses to “Paleo Pizza Bites”

  1. i’m not sure i was ever voted likely to be anything. i guess that explains a lot.

  2. JQBancroft

    My adult best friend and I are planning to have a sleepover while we’re on spring break from graduate school and my husband is out of town. We’re already planning on building a fort and making chocolate-coconut ice cream (basically–reliving childhood slumber parties) and this may have to be made in honor of childhood favorite pizza bagels.

    1. hahahaha–how freakin’ fun does that sound!?

  3. Mmmm, these look delicious! We all love pizza and are always looking for more ways to get some into our diets!

    1. hahaha…can’t argue with that!

  4. I just made these– absolutely fantastic!!! Just what I needed to get my pizza fix 🙂

    Love your site!! Thanks so much!

    1. nice! thanks so much KO!

  5. Love the idea and the recipe. My wife made these this weekend

  6. We do these but a little different. We cut a green pepper in half, cut slits around the top edges so it lays flat and top it with our pizza fixings (no sauce needed). Cook it for a little while in the toaster oven and it is delicious. You can also use a large portabello mushroom for the base if you don’t like green peppers. Yum!

  7. I’m so ashamed I haven’t told you all how much I LOVE these!!! Seriously I make them almost every week, they are addictive. 🙂 I keep them very simple and just add pizza sauce, cheese (raw when I can find it here in Ireland) and a sprinkle of oregano. It is YUMMY, thank you!

  8. I’m sorry to post what could be a seemingly stupid question, but I’m new to Paleo and having a hard time with serving sizes. I LOVE this recipe, and just about EVERY recipe on your site, but I’m wondering how much/many to eat? Is a serving 2/4/20 pieces or is this recipe one serving? I want to make sure my hours of shopping, prep, portioning etc. are correct and i see the results I’m hoping for. Problem too is, I’m preparing food for myself (5′ tall, 110 lbs former gymnast) and my boyfriend (5’9″ tall, cross fit athlete). Spending too much time trying to figure out how much I should eat and how much he should eat when we’re having the same thing for b-fast/lunch/dinner/snack is making me question the choice to take on this diet. Help?!

    1. one of the advantages to this type of eating is that many feel when done properly…portion sizes take care of themselves. if you’re eating mainly unprocessed foods – animal products (protein and fat) and vegetables you naturally will trend toward a higher fat/ moderate protein/ moderate to low carb intake. which turns out to be a lot more characteristic of what we believe our body expects (based on paleo theory of what is in line with our genetic heritage and science of metabolism).

      this should be more satiating, level your blood sugar, and make meals seem like more of an option than an emergency.

      that’s not to say it would be a bad idea to eyeball your portions and see how long you stay full and if you feel energetic or terrible later and if it’s helping you reach the goals you have set and later reassess. but ultimately this is different for everyone and you may just have to “feel it out”.

      but don’t worry. i’d argue that getting the “what to eat” is much more important than the “how much” (see our about page and umbrella diagram).

      start with the “what” and play around with the “how much”.

      this would be one meal for megan and i split about 60-40.

      PS: if you really wanted to do some math. here is a decent rule of thumb for a base to start with.

      50-125 grams of carbohydrate a day (probably the lower end for fat loss – but minimize sugar) x 4
      +
      about 0.8-1 grams of protein per pound of lean body mass per day x 4
      +
      X grams of fat (see fats in umbrella diagram) x 9
      =
      total daily calories

      we feel calories are a little arbitrary (because of the difference in how your body treats different macronutrients etc) BUT….pick a number of calories you think sounds good and you want to use as a basis and solve for X to figure out your daily fat grams. now you have to try and figure out how to divide that up between your meals. ahhhhhhhhhhhhh! this is why this stinks…but i understand how someone would want to try it out just to get a feel for where they are at…tweak from there…and then eyeball it once they have the feel for it. this got long fast.

      hope it helps.

  9. I had to post a reply here just to say these pizza bites are awesome. The other day we thought we would splurge and fix a gluten free pizza crust to get a “real” pizza fix. It was horrible. Our kids wouldn’t eat it, and I think it’s the only time in my life I’ve only had the desire to eat one slice of pizza. We found ourselves wishing we had made your pizza bites instead. I think I can write off pizza crust for good now. Thank you very much!

    1. awwww, what a compliment. thank you so much andrew!

  10. Jennifer Prantl

    I’m on my second week of the Paleo challenge at my CrossFit gym and have been looking for something fun to make for the Broncos game tonight, so I’m really excited to have found this recipe. I haven’t made them yet but how could baked pepperoni and yummy veggies be anything but absolutely fabulous?

    Just wanted to say how much I’ve enjoyed looking through your recipes – can’t wait to try them all!

    Cheers, and Go Broncos!

    1. thank you so much jennifer. hope you enjoy this. it’s a great standby for us.

  11. Great way to have your pizza fix and not get the processed carb bloat! Yea! Can’t wait o try them!

    1. hope you like ’em pj.

  12. These look yummy. I can’t wait to try them. Quick question. What pizza sauce do you buy/make?

    Thanks!

    1. we buy (but should make, i know :() muir glen

  13. […] Paleo Pizza Bites – from Health-Bent […]

  14. Georgia Glekas

    THESE ARE DELICIOUS!!!
    Ordered pizza for the kids and I made these for ME. My 11 year old daughter was likeL “MOM these are sooooooo good”. Such a good snack and dinner with some salad.

  15. […] genius, I must give credit where credit is due. I was fiending for pizza one night and came across this post from […]

  16. […] in the book like: butternut squash lasagna (with a new method), guacamole stuffed pepper poppers, pizza bites, pad thai, pumpkin chili, and a few more; but the other 110+ recipes are brand spankin’ […]

  17. AustinGirl

    I made these from your cookbook (I’m 5 recipes in, and all are winners, btw. Yum!) and both my husband and I loved them. My husband called them “pizza nachos” and they’re going in heavy rotation in our house. I used to splurge with the occasional gf pizza from delivery places around town, but honestly these are better on all levels: health, cost and taste! Another great job, guys!!

    1. pizza nachos. that is genius. i love it!

  18. Christina H

    Just made these tonight! While mine were nothing to look at because they were made in a rush and I didn’t have any extra veggies besides black olives to put on…they were TASTY! Good work! Two thumbs up!

  19. […] Paleo Pizza BitesNo crust? No problem. These bite-sized snacks use preservative-free pepperoni or thin-cut sausage as their base. Top with tomato sauce, olives, […]

  20. These look delicious. However, they are not Paleo. Paleo means using non-processed meat and NO dairy.
    These are high protein, yes. Paleo, no.

    1. I thought the same thing – I didn’t think dairy was considered Paleo.

  21. Okay, just had to post. My husband and I just made these for dinner tonight, because we found your website only yesterday and started poring over the recipes! WHERE do I begin? These lovely pepperoni slices came out perfectly. We like the applegate farms deli stuff and it turned out they have a large pepperoni at our grocery store. Fantastic taste. Also used our fresh basil from the backyard and instead of shredded cheese, I got fresh mozzarella pearls–I sliced one little pearl thinly for each, big pepperoni. A dab of some organic jar marinara (no sugar) and they were amazing. I would have posted pics, but um. We ate the subjects too quickly to photograph them. Thank you for this wonderful and fun recipe!! Finley

  22. I am going to make these for this week’s snack. Do they store and microwave reheat well? My guess would be yes but just checking if you had done this.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.