Summer Eats, Staples, Dinner, What's in SeasonStephanie DeMarrTomatoes, Basil, Pizza, Fresh

Pizza Margherita

Summer Eats, Staples, Dinner, What's in SeasonStephanie DeMarrTomatoes, Basil, Pizza, Fresh
Pizza Margherita

Pizza could almost be considered a food group in my home. My son would eat it all day, every day if I let him. He proved this to me when I didn't check the school lunch calendar and pizza was on the menu for both lunch and dinner.

To keep up with this pizza monster, it was important for me to know how to make a good pizza. For my son all I had to do was master a dough ,add sauce and cheese and boom! Pizza heaven! But for my fiancé and I, we wanted something a little more topping rich. We have made Pizza Friday a bit of tradition around our house and after a few weeks we had run though the standard toppings (sausage, peppers, pepperoni, chicken, onions) and craved something new and different.

We absolutely LOVE the flavor powerhouse that is tomato, basil and mozzarella (if you don’t believe me check out our Tomato, Mozzarella and Basil Bread. It was only natual to take these ingredients and see how we could make them into a pizza we would crave.

Pizza can be a bit tricky overall, but this particular pizza has its' own challenges as I detailed in a past Friday Fail. But once you get the methods down, you are only minutes away from a super fresh, tasty pizza that screams summertime and good health. I mean c'mon it's veggies! If you make this during peak summer, it will be all the more tasty as almost all of the main ingredients can be either plucked from a home garden or purchased hours after picking from your local farmers market.

I recommend you use our Pizza Dough for a fast and wonderful crust that take this simple beauty to another level. But if life gets in th way, a premade crust or dough from your local store will work just fine.

Pizza Margherita

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Total Time: 30 minutes | Serves: 3-4

Ingredients

  • 1 pizza dough, rolled out and placed on pizza pan covered in cornmeal
  • 1 ball fresh mozzarella cheese, thinly sliced or shredded
  • 4 medium tomatoes, thinly sliced into rounds
  • 20-30 basil leaves, finely chopped
  • Extra Virgin olive oil
  • Cornmeal and vegetable shortening, for the pizza pans

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees (if using pre-made crust, follow baking instructions on package). Grease the pizza pans and follow up with a generous sprinkle of cornmeal over the whole pan.
  2. While oven is preheating, thinly slice tomatoes into rounds and gently sprinkle with salt. Allow to sit for at least 15 minutes to release some of the juice.
  3. Dice basil into thin strips and set aside.
  4. Gently brush olive oil over the pizza dough, right to the edges of the crust.
  5. Place tomatoes over dough, making sure to fully cover the whole pizza. Try not to layer the tomatoes. If you have small bare spots, feel free to cut the tomatoes to fit in your small gaps. Lots of tomatoes make this baby shine!
  6. Gently place or sprinkle mozzarella over the tomatoes, ensuring you cover the whole pie.
  7. Bake pizza for 11 minutes, remove from oven and carefully sprinkle fresh basil over the whole pie. Bake for 1-4 minutes more or until cheese is really bubbly and basil is just starting to wilt.
  8. Remove to cutting board to slice and enjoy!

Tips

  • It's very important that you slice up the tomoates and lightly salt them before adding them to the pizza. Juicy, fresh tomatoes are amazing overall, but they are partly what made this pizza hard for me to master. Not giving the tomatoes a chance to release some of their juiciness was causing the crust to become soggy and made the pizza stick to the pan. Plus the small hit of salt gives it a bit more of a flavor kick!
  • In the original version of this post (yes I"ve updated it!) I put the basil on the pizza at the beginning of the cook time. This works out ok, but I have found that if I add the basil toward the end and only cook it for a few minutes, it keeps more of that basil flavor. Basil is a very delicate herb and too much heat for too long makes it lose some of its' flavor and leaves it bland. When you are making a dish like this where there are few ingredients, the flavor of each one becomes a bit more important. Take my advice and add it at the end.
  • I cannot stress how important it is to properly grease and cornmeal up your pizza pans. So many of my sticking failures have been directly linked with being in a rush and not properly coating my pan with grease then a dusting of cornmeal. Don't let sticking pizza ruin your pizza night!

Can you smell that juicy goodness in your kitchen? I hope you can and I hope you love this pizza as much as we do!