Recipe: White Pizza with Pesto Ricotta Spinach and Tomato

I really like White Pizza … you can make it so many different ways… I decided to try making it with basil pesto, ricotta cheese, fresh baby spinach and tomato…. The result?... fabulous!

It really was the perfect blend of flavors .. all topped off with a generous amount of mozzarella cheese.

TIPS

After your done layering all the toppings.. do a quick spray of olive oil cooking oil spray … it will help the cheese melt perfectly.

If you use my recipe for pizza dough… make the dough .. let it rise… punch it down… roll it in a ball .. using a sharp knife, cut off 2/3 of the dough if you want to make one large 16 inch pizza. The leftover dough can be used to make a smaller 12 inch pizza or even calzones.

You can also store the dough in a Zip Loc storage bag in the refrigerator for use at another time. Spray the inside of the bag lightly with cooking oil spray. You can store it up to 5 days in the refrigerator. The bag may puff up, just let the air out.

I served this with a large antipasto salad… a perfect combination!







Recipe: White Pizza with Pesto Ricotta Spinach and Tomato

All you need:

Pizza Dough (homemade or store bought)
¼ cup basil pesto (homemade or store bought)
½ cup part-skim ricotta cheese
Fresh Baby Spinach, stems removed
Sliced tomato
Garlic powder
Grated Parmesan cheese
Shredded mozzarella cheese
Olive oil cooking spray

All you need to do:

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.

Lightly spray a pizza pan with olive oil cooking spray.



Roll out the pizza dough to fit into the pizza pan with about ¾ of an inch over hang. Roll the over hang over to form the crust.

Using a fork generously prick the pizza dough.





Spread the basil pesto over the pizza dough.








Spread the ricotta over the basil pesto.








Lay the spinach leaves scattered over the ricotta.









Lay tomato slices over the spinach leaves.








Sprinkle with grated Parmesan.

Sprinkle with garlic powder.






Generously sprinkle with shredded mozzarella.

Spray lightly with olive oil cooking spray.




Bake at 450 degrees F for about 20 minutes or until crust is light brown and cheese has melted and is slightly brown also.