Here is a pizza with an amazing combination of flavors. I could (and did) literally eat the sauce of pureed squash/apples/onions, sour cream and bacon with a spoon. That combination will be featured soon as a stand alone casserole!
I got the inspiration from a recipe for a squash and apple galette from Cheryl and Adam over at Picture Perfect Meals. I enjoy their blog-they are recipe developers and food photographers. I thought the combination would be great for a different twist on pizza.
Pizza needs some sort of sauce (or that is a belief held in our household). I originally thought about a thin layer of sour cream but decided it needed more than that. I started with pureed squash and just started throwing stuff in the food processor. The sauce ended up being divine, and as I mentioned, it could stand alone as a squash casserole.
The caramelized onions look carbonized in the photos. They tasted fine but next time, I would add them on for the last few minutes of cooking time.
Yield: 3 servings (depends on the size of your pizza crust)
Time: 45 minutes
Ingredients:
- Your favorite pizza dough (I used the whole wheat one from Hertzberg and Francois' Artisan Pizza and Flatbread in Five Minutes a Day)
- 2 cups cubed butternut squash
- 1 cup cubed Granny Smith apple
- 1 cup thinly sliced onions
- 3 TBSP plus 1 tsp olive oil, divided
- 3/4 tsp dried sage
- 1/8 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
- 1 TBSP pure maple syrup
- Salt and pepper
- 1 TBSP butter
- 6 slices bacon
- 1/3 cup low fat sour cream
Method:
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
- Mix squash and apple with 2 TBSP olive oil, sage, nutmeg, syrup and generous sprinkle of salt and pepper.
- Spread squash/apple mixture on a parchment lined baking sheet and roast for 20 minutes.
- While veggies are roasting melt butter in 1 TBSP olive oil over medium low heat and cook onions until soft and lightly caramelized.
- Also, cook, drain and chop bacon.
- Adjust oven for pizza crust (for me, 500 degrees).
- Add 1/2 of squash mixture, 1/2 of onions, and the sour cream to food processor and puree until smooth.
- Stir in 1/2 of bacon.
- Prepare pizza dough (spread/roll on a cornmeal dusted parchment on a pizza peel).
- Spread about 1/2 of puree over dough (or more if making a large pizza; save any leftovers!).
- Top with enough of the reserved squash/apple mixture to sparsely cover (you don't want to "over top" it).
- Sprinkle with remaining bacon and onions (or reserve onions and drop on for the last few minutes of cooking time).
- Brush rim of crust with 1 tsp of olive oil.
- Bake for 5 minutes on the parchment on a pizza stone then carefully remove parchment with the help of a large spatula and continue cooking for a total of 12-15 minutes.
We really enjoyed this pizza and I can't wait to make the casserole as a side dish. How can you go wrong with bacon and caramelized onions after all?
Printable recipe
