Vegetarian Pizza

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Pizza has its origins in Italy and now well known and loved all across the world, including India in recent years. Pizzas make a rich, tasty and mouth-watering meal or evening snack. The Vegetarian Pizza recipe I have provided here helps you to prepare Pizza any time at home without ordering one from Pizza Hut or Domino’s, provided you have the Pizza base ready with you (purchased or if you know how to prepare one with dough, it’s really great). If you are interested in putting some effort into preparing Pizza base on your own at home, see How to Make Perfect Pizza Dough or you can check my good friend Sonia’s Pizza dough instructions in Veggie Delight Pizza recipe in her blog Seven Spice.

Advantage of preparing Pizza at home is that you can choose toppings of your own choice, the cheese spread of your choice, vegetable masala spread which is just as spicy and yummy as you need. You do not need to pay a big price for those tiny toppings choice offered by Pizza giants. If you purchase Pizza base from the retail store, preparing Vegetarian Pizza is quick and easy as you can see below. It requires just about 20 minutes of your time, perhaps much less than the time it takes to drive to a Pizza Hut or Domino’s, order and then wait for order to be fulfilled.

For the Vegetarian Pizza described here, I have used Onions and Capsicum “toppings” only. Of course, nothing stops you from adding other soft vegetables like Tomatoes, Sweet Corn, Baby Corn, Olives and fruits like Pineapple pieces, milk products like Paneer or Tofu pieces. But I must admit that I really love to have Vegetarian Pizza from Pizza Hut and Papa Johns. For my pleasure, Pizza Hut has come out with numerous varieties of Vegetarian Pizzas here in India with tongue-catching names like Country Feast, Paneer EL Rancho, Exotica, Kadai Paneer, Spicy Veggie, Veggie Crunch etc. along with the popular Veggie Lovers Pizza. If you are one among those who frequent Pizza Hut or other Pizza outlets, do drop a comment letting me know your favorite choice for Vegetarian Pizza in their menu. Myself and perhaps other readers would love to try it.

Vegetarian Pizza With Ready Base
Vegetarian Pizza With Ready Base
Vegetarian Pizza Ingredients:

  • Pizza Base – 1
  • Butter – 1 Tbsp
  • Oil – 1/2 Tbsp
  • Onions – 1
  • Capsicum – 1 small sized
  • Ginger + Garlic Paste – 1 tsp
  • Oregano or Ajwain/Carom Seeds – 1/4 tsp
  • Dry Basil – 1/2 tsp (Optional)
  • Tandoori Color – pinch (Optional)
  • Tomato Puree – 3/4 cup
  • Tomato Sauce – 1/4 cup
  • Salt
  • Red Chilli Powder – 1/2 tsp
  • Pepper Powder – 1/2 tsp
  • Grated Mozzarella Cheese – 1/2 cup

Time to prepare: 20 min

How to make Vegetarian Pizza:

1. Chop the Onion and Capsicum into small pieces. Keep aside.

2. Take a readymade Pizza Base and smear with butter (spread butter) all over the base as shown below. Keep aside.

Spreading Butter on the Pizza Base
Spreading Butter on the Pizza Base

3. Heat Oil (1/2 Tbsp) + Butter (1 Tbsp) in a pan, add chopped Onions and fry for 2-3 minutes or until the Onions start to look transparent. Now add Ginger Garlic Paste (available in the store) and fry for a minute.

4. Now add Capsicum to the frying pan and cook the same for 5 minutes making sure that the Capsicum does not turn too soft (do not overcook Capsicum). Now add Tomato Puree and cook for 2-3 minutes or until the liquid content is mixed well with Capsicum and Onions.

5. Then add Oregano, Tandoori Color (optional) and Dry Basil (optional) and ensure that these mix well with the other ingredients in the pan.

6. Now add Salt, Pepper Powder, Red Chilli Powder and saute for 2 min. Finally add Tomato Sauce and cook for 5 minutes and mix everything well with other ingredients. Now the top layer for the Pizza, i.e., the vegetable spread is ready. As you can see in the image, the preparation looks rich and spicy.

Pizza Vegetable Mixture
Pizza Vegetable Mixture

7. Preheat the Microwave oven or Normal OTG for 5 min. In my case, I made the Pizza in a Microwave Oven by heating in grill mode.

Vegetable Spread and Cheese on the Pizza Base
Vegetable Spread and Cheese on the Pizza Base

8. Take the butter smeared Pizza Base from Step 2 above, spread the entire vegetable mixture/masala spread from Step 6 above.

9. Sprinkle grated Mozzarella Cheese and place this ready to cook Pizza on a crust plate for baking. Instead of using a crust plate, you can keep this Vegetarian Pizza base directly on a grill stand and grill it for 4-6 minutes or until the Cheese melts and spreads all over the Pizza base.

Vegetarian Pizza With Sauce and Coke
Vegetarian Pizza With Sauce and Coke

Now your very own Vegetarian Pizza is ready to serve. One can have the Vegetarian Pizza with Tomato Sauce and Coke/Pepsi.

44 COMMENTS

  1. Hemaaaaaa….howz you and ur life?
    I’m drooling over to your pizza here. Oh my! my mouth is watering now! Pizza looks just awesome and making me so tempt yaar! I remember I had tried this Indian version pizza at home when I was in India. Thanks a lot for reminding and recipe and I’m definitely going to make it soon. I just love your presentation here. 🙂
    btw, thanks dear for mentioning my pizza link. That another link is really helpful and informative. Bookmarked everything! 🙂

  2. Hi Hema
    Looks awesome! BTW may i know the microwave oven (make n model) you used for this.

    Am planning to buy one and also let me know if you ever tried making Naans using your microwave oven.

    Thanks, Ramya

    • Ramya
      I haven’t tried Naan in Microwave Oven and hence cannot help in this regard at this time. Your question makes me think I should try this out soon.

      I am using Samsung Trio Microwave bought at the local Ezone electronics store. The Model No is CE1031L (black color). See here and here for more information.

      I bought this Microwave Oven since has all the 3 options I wanted – Normal mode, Convection mode and Grill Mode. Normal mode helps cook vegetables and reheat food like normal lower-end microwave. Second option is Grill Mode in which you can grill the sandwiches, pizzas and Cutlets and this is exactly what I describe here in recipe for Vegetarian Pizza. The Oven comes with 2 grills. It also comes with a glass bowl for preparing Cakes and some steel sticks for piercing Paneer and some vegetables which you may wish to grill.

      The last option is Convection Mode, in which you can bake Cakes and Muffins. I did try baking Cookies too, but never got good texture and taste that you would normally obtain if you bake it in OTG. I felt this Microwave can be quite useful for non-vegetrarians too.

      Hope this is enough information for you. Do let me know if you need more information.

  3. Hi …Good impressive site that you have in here…I tried ur vegetarian pizza recipe today ..it came out well but the base dint get cooked fully ..I used the microwave but cooked it in MW/CONV mode and cooked for 10 min after preheating..I do have a grill mode too in my oven but the manual which came with the oven says to use MW/conv mode for pizza//Any suggestion?

    • Priya – Using Microwave/Convection mode is not a good option for baking Pizza or for that matter, cakes too. For cakes, I use Convection Mode (not Microwave + Convection) and for making Pizzas I use grill mode only. I have two grills in my Microwave one below the other and one closer to the coil for higher heat. And I ensure I use the grill on the top for my Vegetarian Pizza to achieve better heat.

      I am told that Microwave/Convection mode can generate too much heat and not suitable for baking. This mode results in the outer layer of the Pizza base to be cooked too quickly while the inner crust still remains unbaked and hence the problem you are describing. Do try out Veggie Pizza again with Grill mode and let me know if you still face issues with making it.

      BTW, I moved your comment to Vegetarian Pizza post so that others can see this information and benefit from it. Thanks for asking.

  4. It was nice to have a very nice and simple recipe of pizza and also shows how it looks when doing one by one step. so i am very thankful to you……
    I will suddenly make the pizza so that everyone loves this……
    Thank you so much And take care , Bye

  5. I tried ur procedure as you have mentioned, but in my case the pizza base, remained raw and soft, I used a grill stand and i used the grill mode but still the pizza base remained soft. Please guide me, or email me at ajs_868@yahoo.com

    • Akshay – I am not fully certain what could be the exact issue here. With my Microwave Convection Oven, it generally takes about 6 minutes of heating (after initial pre-heating) in grill mode to have the Pizza baked. And I use high rack grill which is closer to the upper coil of the oven which really helps to bake faster.

      Be aware that the time taken to bake can vary widely across microwave ovens. I noticed that a few non-convection mode Ovens take the double amount of time to bake the Pizza base. I would try out multiple settings of the oven with small amounts of pizza base before attempting to prepare the complete Vegetarian Pizza. Hope this helps you, else please post more details.

  6. I loved to learn and make pizza by this recipe. First time I found something really easy only not to eat but even to make. I loved making a pizza for the first time and i hope you love it too.

  7. My problem is that when I made pizza in OTG it is not as soft as in the pizza corner.The lower side of pizza base is getting hard as toast. So my question is that is it not possible to make pizza as soft as the pizza corner in home?

  8. I’ve got to say this recipe was really good, I didn’t use all the ingredients, and I added a few of my own, but it came out really good, and attractive,. Thank you!

  9. Ya it looks so delicious.Today I am going to make pizza for my daughter. She likes it so much. Though I am the regular reader of your blog I saw pizza recipe for the first time. Thanks.

  10. I have done pizza with your recipe many times. Its a fabulous recipe. My family just love my pizza more than domino’s and pizza hut…thank you so much..

  11. Could you please explain me what you mean by Dry Basil and
    Tandoori Color. Where do we get tandoori color? I want to try your recipe vegetable pizza at home. Please advise.

  12. Hello your pizza recipe is really yummy. Everybody enjoyed eating but I prepared on gas as its not prepared properly in microwave. I have the same microwave which you are using but problem is how much time to keep for pre-heat.

  13. Hi Hema,
    I tried this recipe today in my IFB Microwave cum Grill ( 20PG3S model). I used Combi/Grill mode and it turned out great!
    I twisted this recipe a little by adding button mushrooms while preparing the vegetable spread and I also placed some sliced green olives on the top of the pizza, along with the cheese. The end result was delicious!
    One tip for those using the Microwave grill models like mine. It is better to turn the metal stand after 4-5 minutes of grilling for an evenly grilled pizza. Otherwise the pizza tends to get cooked from only one side.

  14. Thanks a lot Hema.I am a kid and I am taking this recipe for mom to make because I want to eat. Make eat and then I will post the further comment.

  15. Hi hema… I am so glad I found your site! tried out home made pizza first time today AND it came out GREAT!!! Thanks to you and your easy step by step explanation. My daughter and me made it together and enjoyed the experience.
    i used red, green and yellow capsicum, some green peas and paneer (small cubes) & sweet corn too.. It was colorful and yummmmmmm…..
    I was planning to click pics but the look of it made me for get and just indulge.
    Thanks a ton again Hema!!!

  16. I am not a great cook,but the pizza I made by taking help from this recipe was great.i would like to thanks Hema for this delicious recipe and it is suitable for me as I ma vegetarian.:)

  17. I searched many sites but this recipe seems more easy n taste. going to try it tommorow…hope it comes out as good as I am expecting… thanks a lot hema…do also publish the degrees at which we can cook, because some of my friends hav OTG and older models… thnks again 😀

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