Italian Pesto Pizza
 
Prep time
Cook time
Total time
 
Author:
Recipe type: Pizza
Cuisine: Italian
Serves: 4 People
Ingredients
Making Pizza Dough, 1 large crust
  • All purpose flour- 2 cups + ⅙ cup
  • Dry active yeast- 1⅛ tsp
  • Brown sugar or white sugar- ¼ tsp
  • Warm water- ¾ cup
  • Salt- ½ tsp
  • Olive oil- 1 tbsp
For cooking chicken
  • Chicken breasts, diced- 2 breasts
  • Ground pepper- ½ tsp
  • Salt- to taste
  • Pesto- 2 tbsp
For topping
  • Pesto- to generously spread on pizza base
  • Mushrooms, sliced- ½ cup
  • Sun dried tomatoes, soaked in hot water for 2 minutes- 6 slices (optional)
  • Black olives- ¼ cup
  • Green pepper, chopped thin- 1 or add red pepper
  • Mozzarella cheese- to spread on pizza
Instructions
Making homemade pizza Crust:
  1. In a small bowl, combine yeast, warm water and sugar, let stand for 10 minutes.
  2. After 10 minutes, add the salt and oil to the yeast solution.
  3. In a large bowl, pour the yeast solution, slowly add the flour and knead.
  4. It will be sticky in the beginning, after you add the entire flour you’ll find it easy to knead.
  5. Knead the dough well, it should be soft and smooth, don’t add too much flour and make it a hard dough.
  6. Place the dough on a bowl greased with oil and cover the dough with a damp towel keep aside for in a warm place for 1 hour.
  7. For better fermentation: Turn on the oven at low temperature for a few minutes. When it gets slightly warm, turn it off and place the dough in the oven for an hour.
  8. Do not cover the dough with wet kitchen paper towels, after an hour it will be stuck to the dough and will be very hard to peel if off.
  9. After an hour, the dough would have doubled in size.
  10. Combine the dough once again and let it sit for a minute.
Cooking chicken:
  1. Place the chicken along with ground pepper and salt in a pan and cook covered till it has cooked well.
  2. Add 2 tbsp pesto and stir fry for a few minutes, Keep aside the cooked chicken.
Assembling Pizza
  1. Preheat oven to 425 F or 218 C.
  2. Spray a large round pizza pan with non-stick cooking spray.
  3. Place the dough on the pan and using your hands spread it to a round shape, 1 inch thick.
  4. Spread pesto generously over the dough.
  5. Top with cooked chicken.
  6. Top with sun dried tomatoes, olives, mushrooms, green pepper or red pepper and finally spread cheese all over the pizza.
  7. Place the pan on the lower rack and bake for 20 minutes.
  8. After 20 minutes, you could broil the pizza at low heat for a minute. Don't broil for more than a minute, the cheese will burn and the crust will turn crispy.
  9. Remove from the oven, let cool down a bit, slice using a pizza cutter.
  10. Indulge in this delicious pizza.
Notes
To make gluten free version: Use gluten free all purpose flour, 1 tsp Xanthan gum and follow the preparation method.
To make vegetarian version: Ignore the chicken.
Recipe by Cooking with Thas - Wholesome Homemade Recipes at https://thasneen.com/cooking/italian-pesto-pizza/