Pesto, pecan, mozzarella, basil and goat cheese pizza is the most universally LOVED pizza to ever come out of my pizza oven. I know. I was surprised too. Here's how to make this delicious pesto pizza.
I am a pizza purist. Tomato sauce, pepperoni and cheese. I do not want cauliflower, broccoli or cantaloupe on my pizza. Not that there's anything wrong with those things but let's face it - there is.
Pizza isn't just any food that you can do whatever you want to in order to make it cooler or trendy.
PIZZA IS AN INSTITUTION.
It should be treated with reverence and respect.
Sun-ripened plum tomatoes, basil leaves plucked from their stems, shimmering with morning dew, dots of melty, browning cheese. This is pizza.
Sure you can add things other than tomato sauce and cheese. Of course you can. You can even have pineapple and ham on it if you want - but you're making yourself look kind of suspicious when you do that. God knows what you do to your other foods. Eat cereal with water? Stir soup with your toes? I mean who knows what kind of lunacy you're up to.
Having made my point clear - I respect and revere classic pizza - I can now add the exception to my "weird pizza is unnecessary" rule.
Just having pesto on pizza isn't necessarily unconventional. But the combination of ingredients on this pesto pizza isn't something you would have seen on Jughead's slice of pizza for example.
Table of Contents
The toppings
- Pesto
- Goat Cheese
- Mozzarella
- Pecans
- Basil
- HONEY
To make it, just press out your dough like I show you in my Perfect Pizza at Home post. And yes. You can use a store bought pizza crust as long as it's actual pizza dough that you form yourself. Not one of those precooked rounds. That is where I draw the line.
O.K. fine you can use a precooked and shaped crust.
Slap on a layer of homemade or store-bought pesto. (I use my garlic scape pesto.)
With the pesto you get flavours of basil, olive oil, garlic, parmesan and pine nuts.
Top the pesto with some blobs of goat cheese. And yes the goat cheese is important because of the tang it has.
Of course if the thought of goat cheese makes you green, then just skip it. Again, though, you're acting suspicious.
Add one handful of mozzarella cheese and the all-important PECANS. They toast while the pizza is cooking and add deep nuttiness to the pizza along with some unexpected crunch that's deeply satisfying.
The basil and honey get added after the pizza is cooked.
Cook your pizza either in a pizza oven or (more realistically) in your regular oven using the directions and steps I give in my Perfect Pizza at Home post.
At this point, you might decide you're jealous of my pizza oven. You're maybe even a bit angry at me for having one when you, on the other hand, do not have one. That's O.K. and understandable.
I made my pizza oven 5 years ago. By myself. And you can make one too. Here's how to build a cob pizza oven.
As soon as you slide your pizza out of the oven, sprinkle the top with pieces of torn or cut basil.
Then - and THIS is what MAKES THIS PIZZA IRRESISTIBLE - drizzle it with honey.
Make sure you twirl that honey all around, letting it seep into the nooks and crannies of your crust.
So how did this wondrous pizza combination come about?
I was having a pizza party a couple of years ago and told everyone that there wouldn't be a pesto pizza on the menu for the night. I made this decision based on the fact that whenever I made pesto pizza everyone seemed to avoid it, choosing the rich tomato sauced pizzas instead.
I mean, I thought I was being smart. If these assheads weren't going to eat my delicious homemade pesto, I wasn't going to waste it on them.
This announcement was met with resistance. If I'm being honest, it was more of a rebellion with fists smashing on tables and people spontaneously snarling like dogs.
So I went inside, took out a few containers of my homemade pesto (recipe for that pesto here) and let my friend Andrea's daughter make a pesto pizza. Her daughter Sage is a grown woman. And a chef. So I wasn't really taking a lot of chances on handing the task over to her.
I can't remember who came up with the combination of pecans, honey and fresh basil but I suspect it was her. Since that night I've called this pizza The Sage in honour of her, which confuses people to no end, what with the pizza containing no Sage whatsoever.
I'd consider adding a few slices of Sage if she ever told me she liked pineapple and ham on her pizza.
Cooking pizza in your oven
If you don't know how to cook a REALLY good pizza in your home oven you need to read this post about how to cook pizza in your oven. I scoffed at this method for a while but tried it out, perfected it a bit and now I can say it rivals my wood oven cooked pizza. It doesn't involve a pizza stone or a baking sheet. Just a cast iron pan.
Cooking in a pizza oven
If you have a pizza oven, chances are you know how to cook pizza in it but for those who are just considering building their own wood fired pizza oven this is how it works.
- Start your fire in the middle of your pizza oven about 3 hours before you'd like to serve the pizza.
- Keep the fire hot and big, feeding it every half hour or as needed.
- After the oven is up to temperature (around 900F) push all the ash and coals to the back or side of the oven.
- Wipe the bottom of the oven floor with a wet rag tied to a pole. This cleans the floor and also adds some steam to the oven.
- Build your pizza right on a pizza peel just before putting it into the oven. I use a piece of parchment paper under my pizza dough on the peel. This prevents sticking. The parchment can be pulled out from under the pizza once it's been in the oven for a minute or so.
- Slide your pizza (and parchment paper if using) into the middle of the oven and rotate it as it cooks so all sides get licked by the fire. Your parchment will probably go up in flames around the edge. That's O.K.
- Before pulling the pizza out, using your pizza peel, lift it up to near the dome of the oven. This will help get any toppings nice and crispy and brown and bubble the cheese a bit.
Pesto Pizza
Ingredients
- 250 grams pizza dough
- ⅓ cup pesto store bought or homemade
- 2 oz goat cheese
- 1 oz mozzarella cheese shredded
- 2 tablespoon pecan pieces more or less as desired
- 6 basil leaves torn or cut
- 1 tablespoon honey
Instructions
- Pull your 250 gram ball of dough into a disk and top with pesto.
- Scatter blobs of goat cheese around pizza.
- Sprinkle with shredded mozzarella.
- Scatter pecan pieces across the top of the pizza.
- Bake until done.
- Remove the pizza from the oven and then immediately top with fresh torn basil and a good drizzle of honey across the entire pizza.
Notes
Nutrition
Your pizza night will never be the same.
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This looks absolutely amazing. I don't have room for a pizza oven like yours but I bought this ooni 3 that cooks with food grade wood pellets, the pizza cooks in less than a minute and tastes amazing. Will have this pizza on our next pizza day, thank you for the recipe! I have no connection to ooni but I love there options for a wood fired pizza.
I've been making a similar pizza since the early 90s, when I tried one at a little restaurant in PEI. I use walnuts, not pecans - and have never tried it with honey. Bet your version is magnifico. Now I'm hungry. Hmmm. Breakfast pizza!
Dear Ms Karen., Do you cover your pizza oven in the winter to keep it from getting wet, then freeing and possibly cracking? You crack me up, but I wouldn’t want my pizza oven to crack up. I live in the land of the Frozen Chosen (just a little bit north of you)... Sudbury.
"Not that there’s anything wrong with those things but let’s face it – there is."
Hahahaha... Best laugh I have ever had at 5am, bar none!
If you ever invited me for pizza, I wouldn't say no... (Just saying....)
I can only imagine, it’s the best!
I generally eat pizza but when I do, it’s a pesto and crab. I bet you’d like it unless you don’t like crab
Just looks and sounds absolutely amazing. Gonna give this one a try the grill, since, you know, I don't have a pizza oven in my backyard, hehe.
I’m salivating ! Wish I had a pizza oven like you. Looks incredible. You are so cool!
I'm one of those "suspicious" people who intensely dislike goat's cheese ( I don't care if you talk about me behind my back, really I don't) Taste's like licking a barn floor.
One of my girlfriends says it tastes the way dirty gym socks smell, and don’t try to talk her out of that! I personally love it, and found the worlds easiest appetizer that everyone loves, using goat cheese and honey. Pour honey on a serving plate, place the goat cheese log on top, cover with more honey, then sprinkle generously with chopped pistachios and serve with your favorite choice of crackers. So yummy!
Sorry but as a goat cheese hater. I think people need to smother it with honey because alone, IT STINKS!
Elizabeth, YES!! you're ABSOLUTELY CORRECT!! I think of it as goat poop/hair!! ( not that I've ever actually eaten that!)
"Of course if the thought of goat cheese makes you green"
I don't know who these people are, but they should not be invited back. Nobody needs this kind of negativity in their life.
lol
I view it differently. That just means more goat cheese for you and me. OK, OK, and KAREN.
Thank you. I do think I deserve more goat cheese. ~ karen!
Aww Dan! Opinions are like A holes.. Everyone has one! It's nothing personal, unless you're A GOAT😁
My mouth is watering...
I'm not a chef (not even a great cook) but with the goat cheese and honey, it sounds like a "pizza cheesecake with herbs....and pecans." Hmmm--would be willing to try though.
Thank you for the nutritional information for half of a pizza, which is way more realistic! Usually it's 1/3 of a pizza (I can't do that math, lol).
Looks and sounds delicious, Karen.
***drool***
Pesto, Feta, Kalamata Olives, Sundried Tomatoes, Artichoke Hearts, and maybe thin sliced Red Onion.....
Yum!
Container question...... I searched your pesto recipe but didn’t come up with the source for those cute little containers you are using for your pesto. Reusable hopefully?
Hi Glenda! They are reuseable, and I have NO idea where to get them. One of my sisters gave them to me for Christmas one year. They're actually for pesto! I've searched for them so I could link to them but wasn't able to find them. That was a year ago though so maybe I should try again. ~ karen!
Or ask your sista? 😏
Thanks Karen for the reply. Just for pesto? They do resemble ice cube trays with snap over lids. But adorable!
I had the same question about the containers. Not sure they are the same ones, but Baby Cubes available on Amazon are similar.
Years ago, I found some tiny containers that look very much like those, at Big Lots, which is sort of like a dollar store, here in Tucson. They do not bounce well after freezing pesto, so you might want to get something a tiny bit sturdier! Good luck.
Blech....goat cheese tastes like something scraped off of the barn floor. So gross.
This sounds like a delicious pizza to me. All ingredients that I love and pecans and honey on top put it over the top. Why hasn't this been a thing for years? I love balsamic drizzle with pecans, pecans and strawberries, pecans with anything is just better. Toasted on top of a pizza? YES but not if it was a tomato based sauce - that would be crazy.
Completely crazy. ~ karen!
I always use pesto when making homemade pizza. I prefer it over tomato sauce.
Pesto, chopped fresh tomatoes and buffalo mozzarella with fresh basil is my version of a basic pizza. Pesto is also good under slices of zucchini or thin slices of potato (like the ones I had in Rome).
If I really want to go crazy and far outside the “real pizza” lane - pesto, crumbled goat cheese (it HAS to be goat cheese, mozzarella is waaay too mild) and *gasp* smoked oysters (lightly chopped so they don’t sit in big lumps) with an extra drizzle of the oil from the can. Amazing.
I always make pesto pizza when making my own pizza, too. I sometimes add small chunks of sheep feta because goat cheese (which I loooove) sometimes does not live long enough in my house to make it onto the pizza.
The smoked oysters are a great suggestion, I will try it on the weekend. It will cool enough to turn the oven on; I can't wait!
Thanks for the suggestion, Carswell!
Waaah! I'm reading this at 4:30 AM because I can't sleep, and now I REALLY can't sleep! I want basil pizza with honey!
Ok, making this immediately.