Crockpot Pizza Casserole
This is a good basic recipe that you can change up by adding mushrooms, black olives, green peppers, Italian sausage, or whatever you like on pizza. I tried keeping it healthy by using fat-free mushroom soup and turkey pepperoni.
This is a good basic recipe that you can change up by adding mushrooms, black olives, green peppers, Italian sausage, or whatever you like on pizza. I tried keeping it healthy by using fat-free mushroom soup and turkey pepperoni.
- Carbohydrate 33.081975 g
- Cholesterol 147.102666666667 mg
- Fat 32.26183 g
- Fiber 1.7316666785876 g
- Protein 46.3843583333333 g
- Saturated Fat 15.5148156666667 g
- Serving Size 1 1 Serving (328g)
- Sodium 1483.71733333333 mg
- Sugar 31.3503083214124 g
- Trans Fat 3.41884083333334 g
- Calories 615 calories
Step-by-step
- Mix together in bowl or skillet that was used to brown the meat: Ground meat, Onion, Pizza or spaghetti sauce
- Layer in 3.5 quart crockpot: in the order given: Half of the meat mixture, Half of the cooked pasta, Half a can of the soup, 6 ounces of cheese, Half of the pepperoni slices, Top with any other ingredients you like such as mushrooms, olives, etc.
- Repeat layers.
- Cook on low heat for 4 hours and serve with your favorite bread and a salad.
Using a 3.5-quart slow cooker imposes a strict vertical capacity limit that prevents thermal cycling if overloaded. Par-cooking the rigatoni for exactly five minutes is mandatory; fully raw pasta absorbs too much moisture during the four-hour low heat cycle and disintegrates into starch, while fully boiled pasta over softens into mush. Browning the lean ground meat beforehand renders out excess water and fat, preventing the pizza sauce from pooling at the base of the stoneware vessel. Substituting regular pork pepperoni with turkey pepperoni alters the fat distribution significantly, reducing grease pooling but requiring careful monitoring so the protein does not toughen. Swapping the cream of mushroom soup for a dairy-free alternative will curdle if it lacks sufficient emulsifiers when exposed to sustained heat. Scaling this formulation up requires shifting to a six-quart slow cooker to maintain proper steam venting, whereas scaling down demands reducing the cooking duration by forty-five minutes to prevent scorching the edges.
