Homemade Bagel Bites

Tonight we made our own version of Bagel Bites. They're not really bite-size, but still, you get the idea. They actually turned out pretty well! We're on a tight budget this week, so Fiance decided to get creative with what we already had. He's so awesome :). He was even the one who suggested I blog about it! How sweet.

So all we did was use Thomas' Bagel Thins, about 1/4 of a jar of pasta sauce, leftover mozzarella cheese from something we had for dinner last week, and leftover chicken from last night's dinner (for Fiance's, I don't like chicken on my pizza).

The bagels had been in the freezer, but since they're thin they were fine. I might suggest for next time baking the bagels with sauce for a few minutes before adding the cheese.

This was our second batch, as you can see. That's the cooked one on the right. Yes, Fiance can be quite messy, sorry about the crumbs!

So here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

- 1/4 to 1/2 a jar of your favorite pasta sauce (depending on how much you like)

- 2 cups mozzarella cheese (or 4 if you're using a whole package of bagels)

- 1/2 package Thomas' Bagel Thins (your choice of flavor - they do make a whole wheat version!)

- Toppings of your choice (chicken, pepperoni, sausage, veggies - just make sure to cook any meat products however you like them beforehand)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven (or toaster oven) to 350°

2. Assemble pizzas by separating the bagels, adding the sauce, and sprinkling the cheese and toppings on top.

3. Place on baking sheet or toaster oven pan (we fit three halves on the toaster oven pan, so we cooked three batches)

4. Bake for about 15 minutes - if your meat is already cooked, it's just a reheating process.

5. Check often, and adjust the bake time according to how you like your pizza cooked.

What I think is so great about this is that you can control every element of the pizza to keep it as healthy or not as you'd like. It's also much less intimidating than buying/making pizza dough and cooking a whole big pizza. Plus, everyone gets to customize their toppings without fear of cross-contamination from icky anchovies, mushrooms, or the like.

This would be fun to do with kids, too!