Easy DIY Pizza Bar | An Allergy-Friendly ALDI Family Dinner

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Pizza is a meal that is almost always a hit with the family. But, it can be a little tricky when it comes to the actual pizzas. I mean we all like them, but we all like them our own way. So, when having pizza, it’s best if we can all make our own with everything we like (and nothing we don’t like). What better way to be the happiest with our own pizzas then to do a DIY pizza bar? (We’ve got gluten free, we’ve got dairy free, we’ve got no cheese liking, thin crust loving and sauce hoarders!)

Mr. Serious made an emergency trip out of town, so it was the girls and me flying solo for our pizza bar. I figured it was a good way for everybody to stay busy and entertained before dinner and for everybody to eat their dinner. It was definitely a win.

I partnered with ALDI to get all of the ingredients and get everything together for an awesome and easy DIY pizza bar. Earlier in the day, I went to ALDI and bought everything I needed for our feast. If I haven’t said it before, or you didn’t know, we already love ALDI (check out the 16 things you might not know about ALDI). We grocery shop there every week! Everything we bought for our pizza bar was under $20. That is $4 per person and we ended up with a ton of leftovers! (Did you know that pizza toppings make great additions to omelets?)

My kitchen-loving 7 year old helped prepare the toppings. From the produce section, we cut up tomatoes, mushrooms, bell peppers and spinach. We also bought some turkey pepperoni and real bacon bits. The tomato basil chicken sausage was also a huge hit from the ALDI Never Any! meats (no antibiotics, no hormones added, no animal by products, fed a vegetarian diet, no preservatives, no nitrates and no nitrites). We thought about adding shrimp, but decided to save it for another time!

All of the toppings went in a muffin tin for easy distribution and placing on pizzas.

Then we got out the crusts. Here’s where things get tricky. We used tortillas for super thin crust individual pizzas. We used the prepared thin crust pizzas (that come two to a pack with two packages of pizza sauce) for those that liked a little more, and I prepared the live Gfree gluten free pizza crust for myself. In hindsight, I should have grabbed some gluten free flatbreads or wraps for myself.

I charged the 7 year old with spreading the sauce on everybody’s pizza. She received some requests for a thin layer of sauce and some for thicker. I honestly can’t even keep straight who has what on their pizzas anymore.

Then it was time for the cheese. Again, some pizzas got cheese and others didn’t. At this point, it was every person for themselves.

This pizza? My meat girl. All pepperonis, very little cheese, thin sauce and thin crust. I think it’s just a vehicle for pepperoni.

The 4 year old wanted to do the “big” pizza and decided to do half with just cheese and half with mushrooms and tomatoes. Honestly, I was shocked she went with this, but ended up eating two pieces.

Mine was my favorite. I cooked the gluten free crust, put on the sauce and adding all of the veggie toppings. Some time after this picture and before cooking, I realized that I forgot the bacon. WHO DOES THAT?

All of the pizzas were cooked at 425F for 8 minutes and came out perfectly. I was worried we would have some burned, but they were all amazing.

The 7 year old made her pizza with the chicken sausage, bell peppers and tomatoes.

There is it. My delicious gluten-free, dairy-free pizza with the bacon I almost forgot. And look at all of those yummy vegetables from the produce section.

Here’s the funny part. My intention was to do a movie night in the living room, picnic-style with their personal pizza creations. I think they had so much fun creating their pizzas that they weren’t even interested. Everybody was waiting (not so) patiently at the table for their pizza to come out of the oven and enjoy.

Needless to say they were a big hit! Everybody got their pizza exactly how they wanted it, and since they had a hand in making it, I’m convinced they enjoyed it even more.

A DIY pizza bar is a great way to make pizza fun for everybody despite having allergies, intolerances or just plain dislikes!

After dinner, you can make a delicious gluten-free dairy-free apple dessert pizza. It was a hit with everybody, too!

Have you connected with ALDI on social media? If not, check them out: Facebook.com/ALDI.USA, Instagram.com/ALDIUSA and Twitter.com/ALDIUSA.

 

What is your favorite way to enjoy a pizza at home?