Artichoke Arugula Pizza with Prosciutto: A Healthy Take
Give your pizza a healthy Mediterranean diet makeover.

The many styles of pizza can fall almost anywhere on the health spectrum. Depending on the style, a slice can be indulgently rich and greasy or incredibly fresh and wholesome. In this episode of To Eat With Love, our Mediterranean diet cooking show will demonstrate a healthy Artichoke Arugula Pizza recipe inspired by Northern Italy that falls on the (much) healthier side of this spectrum.
What makes this pizza lighter and more nutritious than the typical American slice? Like many Mediterranean diet recipes, this healthy pizza uses fresh veggies, has healthy fats, and gets bold flavor from herbs and vegetables instead of loads of mozzarella cheese.
To make this Artichoke Arugula Pizza with Prosciutto recipe, nutritionist Fiorella DiCarlo, RD, CDN, spreads whole-wheat pizza dough on a sheet pan. Like traditional Italian pizza, this healthy pizza crust is thin, which results in great crunch and a lighter slice. (You can make it even lighter or gluten free with this unique cauliflower crust!) For a unique burst of flavor, Fiorella adds pesto sauce instead of the typical marinara. Pesto has bold, bright, basil flavor and healthy fats from pine nuts and extra virgin olive oil.
For a bit of richness while limiting unhealthy fats, this healthy pizza uses a modest sprinkle of part-skim mozzarella cheese. You only need a little—in fact, you can even skip the cheese completely and enjoy your healthy pizza cheeseless. Once the pizza comes out of the oven, you have two toppings to add: artichokes (a classic Mediterranean diet ingredient that will load the pizza with fiber) and a bit of Parmesan Reggiano. This is a flavorful cheese, so just a little goes a long way.
For this Mediterranean pizza, you’ll add the fresh arugula and prosciutto last because these two toppings are best raw. Healthy tip: Fiorella tosses her arugula with fresh lemon juice before adding to the pizza to increase the absorption of iron in the arugula. For a vegetarian or lower-cholesterol pizza, you could swap the prosciutto with other veggies like sliced eggplant or mushrooms.
Ingredients
- Cooking spray
- 1/4 cup of cornmeal
- 1 (13.8-ounce) can refrigerated pizza crust dough
- 2 tablespoons commercial pesto
- 1/2 cup (2 ounces) low sodium mozzarella cheese
- 1 (9-ounce) package frozen artichoke hearts, thawed and drained [1 1/2 cup]
- 2 tablespoons shredded low sodium Parmesan cheese
- 1 ounce thinly sliced prosciutto
- 1 1/2 cups arugula leaves
- 1 1/2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
Instructions
1. Position oven rack to lowest setting. Preheat oven to 500º 2. Coat a baking sheet with cooking spray; sprinkle with cornmeal. Unroll dough onto prepared baking sheet, and pat into a 14 x 10-inch rectangle. 3. Spread the pesto evenly over dough, leaving a 1/2-inch border. Sprinkle mozzarella cheese over pesto. 4. Place baking sheet on the bottom oven rack; bake at 500º for 5 minutes. Remove pizza from oven. 5. Coarsely chop artichokes. Arrange artichokes on pizza. Sprinkle with Parmesan. 6. Return pizza to the bottom oven rack; bake an additional 6 minutes or until crust is browned. 7. Top with sliced prosciutto. 8. Place arugula in a bowl. Drizzle juice over arugula; toss gently. Top the pizza with arugula mixture. 9. Cut the pizza into 4 (7 x 5-inch) rectangles; cut each rectangle diagonally into 2 wedges.Nutrition Information
Nutrition Information Based on a Single Serving
*Percent Daily Value are based on a 2000 calorie diet. Your daily value may be higher or lower depending on your calorie needs.
Dietary Needs


Cholesterol

Fiorella DiCarlo is a registered dietitian in New York City.
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The Italians make the best
pizza in the world.
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And today, I'm gonna show you
how to make it even healthier.
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The Artichoke and
Arugula Pizza with Prosciutto.
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[MUSIC]
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I'm from Naples, and
it's the birthplace of pizza.
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But today, we're going to make
a healthy pizza northern Italian style.
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We're gonna start with our dough.
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This is a store-bought dough.
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But if you are a person with diabetes,
you can go ahead and
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either make your own dough or
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buy store-bought dough that is made with
whole wheat flour or whole grain flour.
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So we're gonna start by spraying our
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sheet pan with our extra virgin
olive oil cooking spray.
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And that's just so
that the dough does not stick.
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And then we're going to
take our cornmeal and
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just spread it through our
sheet pan as well, and
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this is going to give our dough a nice
little crispy crust on the bottom.
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And then finally we're gonna take our
dough, and we're gonna put it right in
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the middle of the sheet here and
we're going to spread it out.
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Okay, now we're gonna just make
sure this crust is all the way
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at the edge of the sheet pan here.
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So what we're going to do is put our first
layer on, which is our amazing pesto.
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This pesto sauce originates from
Genoa which is in northern Italy, and
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it's filled with pine nuts, and basil,
and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese.
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So we're gonna spread it over
the crust as evenly as we can.
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This is super heart healthy because
it's filled with pine nuts.
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You can also substitute,
if you make your own pesto.
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You can substitute the pine
nuts with almonds or
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walnuts which are even more heart healthy.
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Also, this pesto is made with extra virgin
olive oil which is the hallmark fat of
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the Mediterranean diet.
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It has anti-inflammatory properties.
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And monounsaturated fats,
which are amazing for
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beating high cholesterol and
lowering blood pressure.
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Next we're gonna take our
part-skim mozzarella cheese.
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We wanna do part-skim to keep
the fat content low in this recipe.
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Plus, it still gives it that meltability
that we're looking for in this cheese, for
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this pizza.
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So we're gonna go ahead and
sprinkle it right on.
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And just make sure that it's even, so
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every piece has some
delicious mozzarella cheese.
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And now, what we're going to do is
put this in a 500 degree oven for
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about five minutes.
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The idea of pizza was
first noted in ancient
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times in these types of flat bread.
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It wasn't until the Neapolitans put their
hands in dough that we came up with this
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amazing pizza.
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I'm from Naples and
the pizza there is famous.
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Okay, now we're gonna assemble our
Northern Italian ingredients and
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we're gonna start with
these wonderful artichokes.
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And Rome is famous for
working their artichokes because they have
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a festival dedicated in April
just to the artichoke harvest.
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And what's so special about an artichoke
is that it's filled with this impeccable
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fiber called inulin.
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Which is super strong fiber and great in
aiding the lowering of cholesterol and
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lowering of blood glucose levels for
those who have diabetes.
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So we're gonna go ahead and put these
chunky artichokes all over our pizza.
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It's gorgeous like that, it's beautiful.
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And this is just gonna increase the fiber
content of this pizza overall, which of
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course is going to help regulate the blood
sugar levels because of the pizza crust.
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Also, we have our Parmigiano-Reggiano,
also a northern cheese.
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And it is slightly sharp, a little salty.
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If you do have blood pressure issues,
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you wanna use this a little
bit more sparingly, okay?
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But otherwise, you can go ahead and
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just put this Parmigiano-Reggiano
on this beautiful pizza.
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There we are, perfect.
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Now, we're gonna hit it in the oven one
more time just to kinda get these all
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marinated together, back into 500
degrees for about five more minutes.
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The other important thing about pizza,
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it is that really it is
part of street culture.
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In Naples there are tons of these types
items on the streets that you can buy for
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a snack.
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Okay, our next ingredient is this
wonderfully peppery arugula.
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This is a leafy green and
it contains a lot of iron and folate,
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which is great for your immune system and
for lowering cholesterol.
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Now what we're going to do is going
to add some lemon juice to this, and
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just a little food nerd tip,
is that by using this acidic acid here,
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which is the citrus from the lemon juice.
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It actually enhances the iron that is
in the arugula, so that's a great tip.
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Particularly for vegetarians who
lack a little iron in their diet,
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they can do this to their leafy greens.
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So, we're gonna go ahead and
mix that together.
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And this is great and peppery,
a little addition to this recipe.
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So, we're gonna put that aside here,
and we're gonna go run back and
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get our pizza which is perfect
at this point, there we go.
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The artichokes, and the cheese,
and the pesto smell amazing.
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All right, so now we're going to add the
rest of the ingredients raw on this pizza,
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because they are at their peak nutritional
value when they're not cooked.
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So first we're going to
add our beautiful arugula.
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I'm gonna go ahead and
put it by hand over our pizza.
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And this again,
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is increasing the antioxidant content
of this recipe, as well as the fiber.
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Which is great for
stabilizing blood sugar levels, so
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that you don't get those spikes.
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There we are.
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And now we have our beautiful Prosciutto
di Parma, also from northern Italy.
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This is a wonderful, delicious,
cured salumi from Italy.
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Now, if you have high blood pressure or
are looking for a more low sodium diet.
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You might wanna swap this out with maybe
another vegetable like eggplant, or
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even maybe shrimp if you're looking for
another alternative protein.
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Otherwise, we're going to go ahead and
rip this apart.
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And this looks beautiful, because the
colors of the red, and the arugula, and
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the crust is like the Italian flag so
this is beautiful.
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And here's our rustic
northern style Italian pizza.
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I'm Parella, thank you for
joining us and see you next time.
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[MUSIC]