Vegetable Pesto PizzaGone are the days when kids only used to scream for Ice-creams. These days my 4 year old screams for pizza more than for an ice-cream. Its popularity among kids and adults is unparalleled. I tried to love the pizza served in restaurants and at pizza places but never really could. The thick soft crust topped with few vegetables and loads of cheese was never really my cup of tea. Switching over to thin crust didn’t help either. It was too hard. So I avoided eating it for  a long time. Then one day the unthinkable happened. My son after watching a cartoon ran over to me and said “Mom, I want to eat pizza.” 😯 I should have known that this day was coming.

I did the next best thing to not eating pizza; I learnt to make a pizza. How about that? My family loves this vegetable pesto pizza better than anything out there. It’s crispy, crunchy and is incredibly light and airy. It’s loaded with vegetables and I don’t feel guilty that my son is missing out on his daily dose of veggies. The recipe for the pizza dough has been adapted from Laura Vitale’s homemade pizza although I don’t follow her exact method. She is a fabulous cook and I love her recipes.. Ok, enough talking…Let’s eat pizza. What??Crunch, Crunch…I can’t hear you.

Vegetable Pesto Pizza

Prep Time: 2 hours, 30 minutes

Cook Time: 20 minutes

Yield: 1 large pizza

Ingredients

    For the Dough:
  • 1 3/4 cups All Purpose Flour
  • 1 tsp Salt
  • 1 tsp Sugar
  • 1 Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
  • 2/3 cups plus 3 tsp Warm Water
  • 1 1/4 tsp yeast
    • For the sauce
  • 1/2 cup Fresh pesto sauce (store bought or homemade)
    • If store bought,it should be from the refrigerated isle
    For the toppings
  • 1 bell peppers ( I took a combination of yellow, orange, red and green)
  • 1/2 red onion
  • 2-3 roma tomatoes
  • Mozzarella cheese (as per your liking)
  • Sprinkling of oregano, basil. salt and red chilli flakes

Instructions

  1. Add yeast, sugar to warm water and let it rise. The temperature of the water should not be too hot or cold else yeast will not rise. After about 10-15 minutes, water should turn foamy.
  2. In a stand mixer, add all the ingredients and the yeast solution and make dough. If you don't have a stand mixer, knead the dough with hand for not less than 5 min.
  3. Apply oil to a bowl and to the dough, cover it with a wet paper towel and keep it in a warm place to rise. (I kept it in my oven with oven light turned on)
  4. After about an hour, roll the dough to make a pizza. I rolled the pizza directly on the pizza stone.
  5. Apply oil on top of it generously and let it rise again for an hour.
  6. Preheat the oven at 550F. When the oven is preheated, place the pizza in the oven for about 5 minutes in the center rack. This way the bottom gets crunchy without burning the vegetables.
  7. It might take little less or more depending upon your oven. Keep an eye on it. You will start to see little color on the edges. After 5 minutes, Apply the pesto sauce over the pizza generously, add all the vegetables and sprinkle all the spices on it.
  8. Put it back in the oven for 10-15 minutes or until you see even golden brown color all over.
  9. Sprinkle freshly grated mozzarella cheese on top, cut it in slices and serve hot.

Notes

Although you can make pizza without pizza stone, I can't stress enough on buying one if you are going to make pizza frequently. It retains and distributes heat evenly which is what makes the pizza crisp and crunchy. Pizzas are baked at high temperatures. My oven had highest setting of 550F and so I baked it at that. If you feel your top is browning faster than your bottom, cover the top with aluminum foil. This will prevent it from burning while the bottom is getting baked. If you feel your bottom is burning faster than the top, change the oven to broiler mode. But keep an eye because broiler mode is a very high temperature setting which can burn everything within seconds.

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10 Comments

  2. Nidhi, this looks delicious. We are currently in the middle of moving and packing. Will try this out once we settle in to the new place. Pizza is a hot favorite with Dhruv too. 🙂

  4. I can totally relate Nidhi and have ended up with a similar version. I can never eat the pizza from outside. Thanks for sharing. Looks great.

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