Recipes: Pizza For Breakfast

Have I ever mentioned how much I love pizza? It's the perfect food: completely versatile and easily adaptable to practically any ingredient you can throw at it. There are sweet pizzas and savory pizzas, carnivore pizzas and veggie pizzas. And the thing about pizza is that even bad pizza isn't usually all that bad. It might not be your favorite pizza and you'll never order it again, but, hey, it's pizza!

I woke up crazy early this Sunday morning, so I decided I'd make a cold basil-spinach pasta salad to serve as quick lunches this week, since I know I'll be busy with classes starting tomorrow afternoon. The recipe called for bacon, so I decided to throw the rest of the package in the oven and use the extra for breakfast. There wasn't really enough bacon to make omelets or anything so I looked in the fridge to see what else could work for breakfast. I had a pizza crust, and since I love cold pizza for breakfast, why not hot?

I found a Breakfast Pizza recipe on Apartment Therapy's The Kitchn. I had everything I needed on hand, but I knew I wanted to add some pesto, since I have tons of it on hand! Here's how I made my delicious breakfast pizza.

You'll need:

1 pre-made pizza crust

2 T. basil pesto

4 T. spaghetti sauce

handful fresh spinach

handful fresh basil

8 oz. fat-free ricotta cheese

4 slices bacon, cooked, chopped

4 eggs

Preheat the oven to 500 degrees. If you have a pizza stone, place in on the lowest oven rack while the oven preheats. No pizza stone? No worries, just use a pizza tray or cookie sheet.

Spread the pesto on the crust. Add the sauce. Layer the spinach and basil around the crust until it's covered. Keep the spinach / basil in a single layer. Add small dollops around ricotta cheese on top of the spinach / basil layer. Sprinkle the bacon on top of the cheese.  Put the pizza in the oven, then crack the eggs carefully on top of the crust, staying away from the very edge, but keeping them evenly distributed around the pizza. Cook until the egg yolks are just set, about 7 minutes.

Sprinkle with smoked salt and black pepper to serve. You could add parmesan cheese, too, if you wanted. Enjoy!