If You're Not Making 5-Minute Healthy Pizza With Your Thanksgiving Leftovers, You're Getting It Wrong

There are a few keys to making a perfect healthy post-Thanksgiving pizza.

To make a healthy pizza, you obviously want a healthy crust. We love the grain-free mix from Simple Mills, which comes together quickly and easily and tastes like traditional pizza crust. The Cali'flour cauliflower-based crusts adds in another dose of veggies, and comes in vegan and cheesy versions. Keep in mind that some sauces need to be pre-cooked before adding toppings.

No, we don't mean a traditional red sauce, which would muddy the flavors of your Thanksgiving masterpiece. For the sauce on your leftovers pizza, you want to go for the most spreadable of your leftovers. Mashed potatoes work well, as does gravy (and you can definitely use both!). Even steamed sweet potatoes can work—simply mash them up with a fork before spreading on the pizza. The one sauce that shouldn't be reached for? Cranberry. While the sweetly acidic blend is delicious on Thanksgiving pizza, it should be dolloped on at the end rather than spread over the entire pizza, as its concentrated, strong flavor could upstage the other notes in the dish. If you don't have a spreadable sauce-like food, don't worry—simply drizzle on some olive oil and use the back of a spoon to spread it in an even layer on your crust before adding the rest of your toppings.

While Thanksgiving pizzas don't need cheese, they're not offended by it either. If you'd like to up your dairy ante, sprinkle on some shredded, pastured parmesan or gruyere for an extra dose of creamy richness.

Anything that needs to be warmed up—turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy—should be added to the pizza before it's popped in the oven. Bake at 350 degrees until all components are warmed through, around ten minutes. After you remove it from the oven, feel free to add any fresh elements (salad, cranberry sauce, even fresh thyme that wasn't used up the day before) for a zesty pop.