These naan bread pizzas are so quick and easy to make in the air fryer with your favorite ingredients, or whatever you have to hand! Use plain naan with classic pizza toppings, or create a fusion pizza with peshwari naan. Naan pizzas are cheap, filling and customisable to each family member to ensure that nothing is wasted – every family needs this recipe for their next busy weeknight!

If you have an air fryer and you aren’t already making pizzas in it regularly, you are missing out on one of its greatest gifts! A legitimately easy, customisable dinner that everyone likes.

I’ve already shared an air fryer pizza recipe with premade pizza crusts, but today’s recipe is for pizza using naan bread as a base.

Why use this Indian bread to make pizza? Two reasons:

  1. It’s delicious! Naan bread makes an excellent pizza base if you like somewhat thick and doughy pizzas. The crust gets nice and crispy while the middle stays a little softer and chewier.
  2. I realised that naan bread is about half the price of the “proper” premade pizza crusts, so this is a pretty great hack to be fair. Not only is the price per pizza less, but it makes life easier when we’re filling the pantry with multi-purpose ingredients.

Prices will of course vary by region and my experience is just in the UK where I live! Would anyone in other countries like to tell me if this holds up for you as well?

Constructing Your Naan Pizza

Naan: What Type of Naan Works Best for Pizza?

For this recipe I am working with the partially baked naan that is sold as a pantry / cupboard item, not the fresh packs from the refrigerated section. The refrigerated ones tend to have a lower cook time so you’d want to cut the preheating time down to just 1 minute or so if you use those.

  • If you want your pizza to taste like a classic Italian style pizza, then find a plain naan bread – there may be some black onion seeds hanging around in the bread but I don’t feel like that compromises its ability to taste pizza-like. You can proceed with the usual pizza sauce / cheese combo. If you can find a garlic naan (not garlic and coriander – just garlic on it’s own) this will work great too. I never see garlic without the coriander though.
  • If, however, you want to have some fun and make a more Indian fusion style pizza, I recommend a peshwari naan paired with tikka masala sauce.

Pizza Sauce

I use a ready made pizza sauce, or tikka masala sauce, for maximum ease. Don’t hesitate to try pesto, or make a white pizza using bechamel or mascarpone, or if you’re happy with a super simple sauce just a little swirl of passata with some dried herbs can do nicely.

Cheese

I am using pre-shredded mozzarella for my pizzas. You can use fresh, soft mozzarella instead but note the cook time will be a few minutes longer because it takes more time to melt.

More toppings

It’s a great idea to add some veggies into the mix, but because of the short cook time they won’t get very cooked if you add them to the pizza raw. I personally think sliced onions, peppers and mushrooms will be fine but it depends on your tastes. Alternatively, you can precook some veggies in the air fryer before you start on the pizzas.

Tips For Making Naan Pizza in the Air Fryer:

  • It’s worth precooking the naan, just for a few minutes, before the sauce goes on. This ensures it doesn’t stay too soft and it gets a decent bite to it.
  • You should be able to make two naan pizzas in a large air fryer. Some of the new super huge ones could probably make four.
  • Your air fryer cook time may vary from mine. This was tested in an Instant Vortex and other models might behave a little differently so just keep an eye on things the first time you make it.
  • The cheese will affect the cook time – I touched on this before but it’s worth repeating. If you use dry, bagged grated mozzarella, it will cook fast. If you use fresh, moist mozzarella it will take 3-5 minutes longer. Either option is good though!
  • Don’t use a rack in your air fryer to cook these on multiple levels – the ones closest to the top will be too close to the fan and might have all the cheese blown off. Been there.

Air Fryer Naan Pizza

These naan bread pizzas are so quick and easy to make in the air fryer with your favorite ingredients, or whatever you have to hand! Use plain naan with classic pizza toppings, or create a fusion pizza with peshwari naan. Naan pizzas are cheap, filling and customisable to each family member to ensure that nothing is wasted – every family needs this recipe for their next busy weeknight!
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Ingredients

  • 2 prepared naan breads
  • 3-4 tbsp pizza sauce, or tikka masala sauce
  • 100 g (1 cups) shredded mozzarella cheese, or to taste

Instructions 

  • Heat the air fryer to 180C / 360F while you gather up your ingredients.
  • When the air fryer is heated, place the naan breads in and cook for 3 minutes.
  • Add sauce to the top of the naan breads – be fairly generous, it's a thick crust so you want it nice and saucy!
  • Add grated cheese to the top.
  • Return to the air fryer and cook for a further 3-4 minutes until the cheese is browned.
Calories: 530kcal, Carbohydrates: 61g, Protein: 21g, Fat: 21g, Saturated Fat: 9g, Polyunsaturated Fat: 0.4g, Monounsaturated Fat: 3g, Cholesterol: 49mg, Sodium: 1267mg, Potassium: 105mg, Fiber: 2g, Sugar: 5g, Vitamin A: 435IU, Vitamin C: 2mg, Calcium: 334mg, Iron: 0.4mg