Trader Joe's Treats (Garlic Naan Pizza)

Those of you in the Omaha area know that Trader Joe's recently opened a store at One Pacific Place, 105th and Pacific. I've heard a lot about TJ's from friends around the country, so I was very anxious to check it out, but didn't get around to it until a couple of weeks ago. What got me to finally get down there? A recipe for Garlic Naan Pizza that I saw on Trader Joe's Facebook page. This is just one of the recipes using their products in a book called The Unofficial Guide To Trader Joe's. This one looked so good I couldn't wait to try it.. and I was not disappointed. The original recipe came from a "demo lady" in one of their stores.

Naan is a leavened, oven baked flatbread, and is one of the more popular breads in Indian and Pakistani restaurants. I had never tried it before, but now that I have I can see why it is so popular, because it is amazingly good!

This is what it looks like:



The Trader Joe's version is frozen, and comes in garlic flavor and plain. I think what makes this so good is the garlic. It even smells delicious when you open the frozen package! Of course, if you don't like garlic you could always use the plain naan. One package contains 4 pieces of naan, and the package is resealable, so you can just take out what you need and put the rest back in the freezer.

The original recipe uses Trader Joe's fresh Bruschetta for the sauce, but when I was there the bruschetta was sold out, so I improvised and used pizza sauce. Pizza sauce for a pizza... what a concept! They have a fresh pizza sauce in the refrigerated section that is one of the best I have ever tasted. I might never use anything else again - and it's reasonable priced at around $2.99 for a 10 oz tub. This was enough to make 5 of the naan pizzas.

Here is what you will need to buy:

1 package Trader Joe's frozen Garlic Naan (1 pkg has 4 pieces)



1 10-oz tub Trader Joe's fresh Pizza Sauce

1 pkg Trader Joe's Quattro Formaggio Cheese



Garlic Naan Pizza (1 serving)

1 piece frozen garlic naan (use it frozen, don't thaw it out)
2 Tablespoons pizza sauce
1/2 cup cheese

Spread the sauce over the naan, then top with cheese and bake at 400 degrees F. until bread is crispy and cheese is melted. I baked mine for 20 minutes, and next time I will cut a few minutes off that because it was a little more brown than I like, although it was still quite yummy. Just shoot for somewhere between 15 and 20 minutes, and watch it closely the first time.



I made this for my husband and topped it with some pepperoni. He's not one for trying new things, but he loved it. If you use pepperoni, put a little more cheese on top of the pepperoni - I used the "sandwich style" pepperoni and the one I didn't add more cheese to curled up and got extremely crispy. It tasted good but just didn't look very nice. I did use a bit more sauce and cheese than the recipe calls for.. actually I didn't measure anything, and I still got 5 pizzas from that tub of sauce.

It's been quite awhile since I have found something so good that is also so easy to make!