Pizza Reinvented: 25 Creative Twists to Elevate Your Homemade Pie

Get some new ideas on how you can enjoy your favorite food from pizza bagels to grilled pizza to pancake pizzas! There are so many ways to enjoy cheese, sauce, and crust (whether it's bread or vegetable.

You make the dough. Roll it into a circle. Top it with cheese, tomato sauce, and toppings. That's a pizza! Or should I say that is just one single way to make a pizza.

Today we are going to have a little fun with the dough or what I call "the delivery system for toppings". I will show you some different ideas for your dough, even some that don't involve dough at all. So let's get creative with your next homemade pizza pie!

My Recipes

You are going to find a few different list of recipes here. The first ones, are ones that were created by yours truly. The rest of them are pizza recipes from other food bloggers. People have come up with lots of different ways and I want to celebrate that here. But first some self-promotion!

Here are my recipes:

A couple of these recipes are different in the way the pizza is cooked. I use the same type of dough when I make pizza in a cake pan. What I am trying to do is make a Detroit Style Pizza where the pizza is a square or rectangle shape. These types of pizzas are known for their thick crust and crispy corners. You can take any of your pizza recipes really and turn them into this style by just using a cake pan.

If you like your pizza on the thinner side, instead of baking it in a cake pan turn to another baking pan - the sheet pan. Check out this recipe for Sheet Pan Pizza

Pizza Grill Marks — Pizza dough on the grill

The other different way to cook a pizza is to cook it on the grill. This will make the most amazing tasty crust you have ever had. The grill flavor will permeate the crust. You can use any dough you want again, however this time you are going to cook the pizza right on the grates of your grill. Once the first side is down you flip it and work rabbit fast to get the sauce, cheese, and toppings on. Once your cheese is melted, then it's time to eat.

Sausage and Pepperoni Air Fryer Pizza Bagels

One of the easiest ways to make pizza is to just get some bagels, split them in half, and add in your toppings. Super simple. Use sesame or everything bagels for even more flavor. I love to do this in the air fryer so that I don't even have to turn the oven on. This actual has been the most common way my family has been making pizza lately, especially when in our camper.

Sometimes it's nice to turn the pizza inside out. What do I mean? To put the cheese and toppings on the inside and have the sauce as a dip. That is what I do with my deep fried wonton pizzas. Who doesn't love deep fried food? Wonton wrappers from the grocery store will save you time on making dough so that you can focus on frying these wontons to golden fried deliciousness.

Mozzarella isn't the only cheese you can use for pizza. Try using Wisconsin Mild Brick Cheese, Tuma cheese, or Muenster cheese (which is part of a blend Little Caesar's uses).

Puff Pastry Pizza. Photo courtesy of https://www.mapleandmango.com/

Bloggers Recipes

I asked a large group of bloggers for their favorite pizza recipes that were different. Here are the ones they submitted.

Let's start with changing up the crust just as I did with the bagels.

Puff pastry, rice paper, tortillas, pitas, and English muffins are all different types of bread you can use to make a pizza on. There is a choice for those that like thick or thin crusts on their pizza.

Hawaiian Roll Pizza Sliders. Photo courtesy of https://ramshacklepantry.com/

As I did with the pizza wontons, here are some recipes where the dough is on the outside or the pizza is dipping into the sauce. Or the goodness is in the middle like in the picture of the sliders above.

In some ways some of these recipes are different takes on calzones. Those are usually pretty large, so it's nice to have a more bite size option. Make a bunch and freeze for easy meals when you got a busy day ahead.

The pizza pancakes would be a fun way to bring the aesthetics of breakfast to the dinner table. The kids are sure to love that. I have put pizza dough in mini waffle makers before and that works really well and makes it seem like your are eating breakfast too.

I love the idea of using cake pop maker to make pizzas too, giving them more versatility than just making cake pops themselves. I believe in that everything in my kitchen should have multiple uses in order to be worthy of the space.

Zucchini Crust Pizza. Photo courtesy of https://www.asaucykitchen.com/

What if we change the crust from being a dough to using vegetables, pasta, or other grains:

Zucchini is so easy to come by in the summer time why not make pizza with it. And Spaghetti squash with it's texture like spaghetti is a good stand in for bread. It's mild flavor paired with a bold tomato sauce won't overwhelm, so it's great for someone to try that isn't that into squash.

Did you know you can sweeten homemade tomato sauce by adding pumpkin to it? Check out my recipe for Tomato Pumpkin Sauce. The pumpkin flavor will sweeten the sauce without having a big effect on the final flavor.

My Recipes

Bloggers Recipes

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply