MUFFIZZAS
It’s sort of a muffin, sort of a pizza, sort of a ridiculously named open topped toasted sandwich bun thing. I don’t care what you call it, it was my late night munchy snack after 12 hours of travelling today, and it occurred to me that it would be a fab lunchbox alternative to sandwiches, a quick snack, or great for fussy households or involving the kids in cooking because different people can add what they like to theirs. Radical, I know.
I used some of that pesky kale pesto that was rolling around in the freezer, but see below for other suggestions. Pesto of any kind is of course entirely optional, but utterly delicious.
Ingredients, makes 12:
6 white breakfast muffins, halved
400g chopped tomatoes or 140g tomato purée
2 balls of mozzarella
2 tbsp kale pesto (see this recipe here: http://agirlcalledjack.com/2013/10/11/nut-free-super-kale-pesto-15p/ ) – or substitute with finely chopped basil, whole basil leaves, or spinach. Just something green and leafy will do.
This one is easy peasy but a great quick snack, and can be frozen or left to cool and popped in lunch boxes, etc.
Halve the muffins, one muffins will make two muffizzas (ha ha ha, I can’t even type that with a straight face!) Spread a dollop of chopped tomatoes on top or a little tomato purée, right to the edges. Add slices of mozzarella and a dollop of pesto to cover, and toast under the grill for a few minutes or bake in the oven for 10 minutes at 180C. Voila.
Experiment with toppings, mine is loosely based on the classic Italian ‘tricolore’ because I always have some cubes of pesto rolling around in the freezer, cheese in the fridge door and chopped tomatoes in the cupboard… Leftover chilli would be immense on these with a layer of cheese on top, for example…
Jack Monroe. Twitter: @MsJackMonroe
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Categories: BREADS, Recipes & Food, SNACKS & TREATS, VEGETARIAN
Everybody loves a Muffizza! (impossible to type without a grin!)
I have made muffin pizzas for years (and yes they are yummy cold). They will be known as muffizzas in the future though!! Good sized “base” for little ones too, or perfect size to go with baked potato and some salad bits for an adult. They are great on as buffet, just do a mix of toppings
Inspired! And a brill way to use up left over baguette too, I suspect. I`ll call them bagizzas and throw them in the general direction of my teens and see what happens.
My parents used to make something similar, but on baguettes! we would hang out n the kitchen, rare for our family, and would stack halved baguettes with chopped tomato, chopped ham, garlic, cheese, and whatever ‘posh’ meat was reduced in the deli of the supermarket where my father worked. Top Recipe!
I do something very similar with French sticks when they are selling them off cheap at the end of the day, I’ve been known to get one for 10p 🙂
I simply split them in half lengthways and then slice into three shorter lengths and then put almost the same toppings on as you have used here and cooked the same.
One each to eat when they come out of the oven and the rest popped, well wrapped, into the freezer for next time we get the nibbles.
You’ll certainly capture a niche market with that name:)
The kids I look after love quick pizzas for lunch. I top value pitta breads with homemade hidden veggie sauce (tomatoes, chick peas, carrots, onions, garlic, stock and herbs – frozen in lots of small portions) then a little grated cheddar or Parmesan and pop under grill for 2 minutes. I add left over roast chicken, ham, tuna or sweet corn etc if have any. They are yummy and I can feed 4 children and myself for less than 50p 🙂 the babies I look after love spaghetti cooked in the sauce to make a healthy version of tin spaghetti x
I have been doing something similar for the kids for years – usually tomato puree, sweetcorn cheese and basil-going to try pesto though. They love them. 2 halves (mine are older now), bit of salad, some wedges makes for a quick tea. Good way of sneaking a few veg in to try too. It works really well on French bread too – good if you have a bit left over that’s a bit too stale to eat. Good old grated cheddar works well if you don’t have mozzarella, though not quite so authentic. Never thought of making a lot at once and freezing though. Chilli sounds lush too 🙂
I can’t believe i have just seen this! The 9 year old dyslexic boy that I tutor and I made up a recipe for just these last night! I am hoping to inspire him through ‘instructive writing’ tasks…what a weird coincidence! Pizzas are just about the only thing he likes to eat and i don’t have time to go through the bread making process in the 60 minutes i have him for!
Great minds think alike 🙂
Thank you , in need of variety for kids lunchboxes.
Jack, I’ve been making these for years, they were a regular request from my kids for birthday party teas, I use chopped up garlic sausage (really cheap on the deli counter) and ordinary cheese with oregano sprinkled on, and yes they are great cold the next day (loving your site and admire what you are achieving)
Grilled cheese makes everything taste better. We do a version of these in Northern Ireland that uses soda bread as the base. Toppings are always chopped tomato, cheese and onion; then whatever’s left over like chicken or ham. We call them Paddy’s Pizzas.
My mom used to make these for us all the time – I love them! We used to just call them pizza-muffins but your name is much better.
These take me back to my primary school days. Can wait to try them with my 2 later x
Good heavens! Here I am thinking “muffizza, muffizza… it sounds like an Arabic world… how come I’ve never heard of muffizza before?” Haha! This does look like an awesome evening snack or lunch option (wich a little side salad, yum). But as I’m not obsessed with making it an Arabic dish I might try eggplants, paneer, and za’atar. Ooh… and harissa!
Yes to that eggplant idea. Maybe with caramelized onions… mmm, now I have to go eat something.
I’m sorry for the way my mind works but muffizza sounds like some horrible genital disease 🙁
Ive made them for quite dome time adding basil to tomato paste for the base . a slice of salami topped with bull mozzarella combined with whatever cheese i have in the fridge . A sprinkling of basil before shoving under the grill- toast the muffins first
This is just jazzed up cheese on toast, really, isn’t it? Not that there’s anything wrong with that
Been making something similar using crumpets for a few years now (crumpizzas?). Yours sound great and I’ll give them a go! 🙂
We call them “hot bread snacks” at our house. We use panini if we have them, left over French stick, or just a slice of cheap sliced bread if that’s all we’ve got in. My preference is for home made tom purée made with roasted veg and mushrooms as its extra tasty. Olives, sweet corn, roasted peppers are our favourite topping plus dairy free “cheese”.
We call them piffins in our house and it means all the varied tastes in toppings can be catered for with minimal effort and still catering to everyone’s varied topping preferences…
Opps meant to say … and without tons of leftovers!
That’s what I get for posting while singing to entertain my 2 year old!
If you want to make them cheaper or with a different texture try using crumpets for the base. It was my Mum’s idea for a quick and easy lunch time snack and when we are on a tight budget and get fed up of eating the same things all the time we make these and my children love them.
How long will these keep in the fridge?
Do you need to toast the bottoms? Or no?