Oven Roasted Vegetable Pizza & Pizza Salad

Ok, ok, so you’ve probably figured out by now that Friday’s are generally pizza night in our house.  I don’t know what it is – but there’s just something about relaxing at home after a long week with a pizza or pizza salad and a nice glass of red wine

All that to say, I’ve been making my regular Plant Based Pizza for some time now and even though I make different topping all the time, I  decided to shake things up a bit more and try something a little different

For us I always make both a Pizza and a Pizza salad.  I’m minimizing wheat/grains so I love the pizza salad  If you don’t make pizza salad you can just use all the veggies on the pizza or better yet, save any leftovers to enjoy the salad or a salad wrap the next day.

Ingredients:
(makes one 12-14″ pizza + 1 dinner size pizza salad)

• 1 batch of pizza dough
• drizzle olive oil
• 1/4 cup tomato or pizza sauce
• 1 box cherry tomatoes
• 12-ish mushrooms, quartered
• 1/2 bunch asparagus, quartered
• 1 sweet pepper (orange, yellow or red or a blend if you prefer)
• 1 red onion, chopped
• 2 red chili peppers, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, sliced
• 1-2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp pistou sauce (optional, I had leftovers from Butternut Squash w/Pistou Sauce – Pesto Sauce would also be a great option or just add a little extra olive oil and chopped basil)
• 1/2 cup grated Daiya Cheese
• 2 tbsp nutritional yeast
• 1/4 c cilantro, chopped
• 1 small box spinach (146g/5oz)

Preheat oven to 400F.  Adjust the oven shelves so that you can fit the pizza pan on one shelf and the vegetable roasting pan on another, i.e. both in the oven at the same time.  If your oven can’t accommodate that, just cook pizza dough first (the 1st round) and then roast the veggies.

Prepare Topping:  In a large bowl add tomatoes, mushrooms, asparagus, sweet peppers, onion, chili peppers and garlic.  Add olive oil and pistou (or pesto) sauce.  Toss well together to ensure well coated.  Move to roasting pan and lay as flat as possible to ensure single later of veggies.  Bake in oven for 30-40 minutes.  (Add pizza crust during last 10 minutes, see Prepare Crust below)

Prepare Topping

Prepare Crust:  Roll out pizza dough into round circle and place on lightly greased pizza pan.  Drizzle olive oil on top and rub all over crust including edges.  Bake for only 10 minutes (put in oven during last 10 minutes of baking vegetables – or if you don’t have room for both at the same time then bake the pizza dough first).   Remove from oven and spread tomato sauce over top. We’ll cook for the last 10 minutes a little later.

Prepare Crust

Prepare Cheese Topping:  In a bowl add the Daiya Cheese (or other vegan cheese of choice), the nutritional yeast and the chopped cilantro.  Toss to mix well.

Prepare Cheese

Prepare Pizza:   Spread roasted vegetables (save some veggies for your salad) over pizza dough.  Sprinkle the cheese mixture over top the pizza (save some for your pizza salad if you like).  Bake in oven for 10 minutes. Remove from oven, slice and serve.

Prepare Salad:   In a large bowl add spinach and top with veggies and a little of the cheese mixture.  Toss and serve!

Pizza Salad