Pizza Quesadillas

In my quest to constantly find food that will satisfy not only my ladybug, but also the rest of my family, I try to search for recipes that are really versatile - I am NOT big on cooking multiple meals for my family - no one gets catered to like that in our house!

But, if I can come up with or find a recipe that is versatile enough so that the end result is that everyone has a version of the same thing, everyone wins!

One of my favorite foods is pizza - I keep trying to make everyone else in the house love it as much as I do, but I fear I may have actually done the opposite. Every once in a while they want it, but most of the time they just tolerate it...

Quesadillas are a go to in my house - they are easy, don't really require much effort or prep, can be ready in no time, are inexpensive, and (my favorite word) versatile!

I've seen the idea around for awhile to make pizza quesadillas, and truth be told, I've made them before...but never made them sound as good as "pizza quesadillas". When I've made them, it's always been more like "well, I have some tortillas and cheese so we can have quesadillas...but we need protein...well, I have some pepperoni too, so....that'll do".

These are about as easy as anything - and like I said, each person can have whatever they want - like a personal pizza!

We made just pepperoni and cheese quesadillas, but you could add any pizza toppings your family likes. Bell peppers, onions, mushrooms, olives, sausage...the list goes on and on! It would even be fun to make a "fancy" version - like barbecue chicken, canadian bacon and pineapple, margherita, even breakfast pizza quesadillas!

What variation would your family like??

Ingredients for 4 servings:

8 flour tortillas

1 bag shredded cheese (we used colby jack)

about 20 pieces of pepperoni

any additional pizza toppings you like

1 cup pizza sauce

1. Spray a non-stick pan with cooking spray; turn on to medium heat.

2. I like to sprinkle the pan with a little salt and pepper and then lay the first tortilla down - you could use butter on the outside of the tortilla instead, but I like to cut just a little fat this way...

3. Sprinkle about a quarter cup of cheese onto the tortilla.

4. Place about 5 slices of pepperoni on top of the cheese (add any extra ingredients at this point too).

5. Sprinkle 1-2 Tbsp. of cheese on top (this allows the whole thing to melt and stick together).

6. Place second tortilla on top of cheese, spray with cooking spray, and sprinkle salt and pepper. 

7. After about 3 minutes, flip quesadilla over and allow bottom side to cook for 2-3 minutes, until lightly golden.

8. Remove quesadilla from pan and allow to cool.

9. While cooling, pour pizza sauce into a microwave safe bowl and heat about 30 seconds or so until warm. Or, place sauce in a small saucepan over low heat while quesadillas are cooking until heated through.

10. Slice quesadillas into quarters, dip in pizza sauce and enjoy! :)

NOTES - you could cut down the nutritional stats in this by using whole wheat or corn tortillas instead of flour, turkey pepperoni and reduced-fat cheese. Also, keep in mind that the more you bulk up the veggies you put in this, the less cheese you need - you can easily cut back and just add enough to make it all stick together.      *disclaimer - based on these notes, I'm adding the label "healthy" to this post. ;-)

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