Pesto, Caramelized Onion, Mushroom & Tomato Pizza with Mozzarella Stuffed Crust

It all started when I asked Brian what he wanted for dinner. 

“Pesto pizza,” was his immediate reply. It’s his favorite thing in my dinner-making repertoire. 

After returning from Trader Joe’s with a few necessary ingredients, I popped my head into the living room where he was enjoying yet another Dr. Who marathon and proposed a deviation from the plan.  

“So what do you think about adding caramelized onions and sautéed mushrooms to the pizza?” 

He enthusiastically agreed and then offered another modification. “What if you used some of the string cheese in the fridge to make it a stuffed crust pizza?”

I was sold. Immediately. 

And the result? Possibly the most delicious pizza yet.

Ingredients

For the pesto:

1 cup loosely packed fresh basil
2 cloves garlic
1 tbsp pine nuts (sometimes I throw in some walnuts too)
2 tbsp grated parmesan
1 tsp salt 
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

For the pizza:

1 ball homemade or store-bought pizza dough (I love Trader Joe’s)
3-4 pieces of string cheese
Pesto 
1 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
1 yellow onion, sliced
1 pint cremini mushrooms 
1 cup (or so) shredded mozzarella
1 tomato, sliced 

Place a pizza stone on the bottom rack of the oven. Preheat the oven to 550 degrees or the hottest temperature your oven will go up to. Yes, sweating will be involved later.

Next up? The pesto. It’s so easy to make at home and tastes a million times better than store-bought. Though I will confess to enjoying the Bartoli variety on more than one occasion. Just throw a handful of basil, some pine nuts and even a few walnuts, two cloves of garlic, grated parmigiano reggiano, and a generous drizzle of olive oil into a food processor and pulse to combine until emulsified and deeeelicious.

Then start caramelizing the onions in a bit of olive oil. I used one medium-sized yellow onion. The key to good caramelization is cooking the onion on a low temperature for a long time. You could even slice the onion into thinner pieces using a mandoline if you wanted to speed things up a bit. 

When done, remove the onions from the heat, scoop into a bowl and set aside. Next up? Mushrooms. I looooove sautéed mushrooms. 

Add another drizzle of olive oil into the same pan. Add one pint of sliced mushrooms and cook until they look a little something like this:

(Confession: the photo above was borrowed from this pasta post. Whoops.)

Now comes the tricky part. Also the part I failed to photograph. Roll out and stretch the pizza dough as thin as you can on a pizza peel (or a piece of foil - easy because you can just throw the whole thing in the oven). Take 3-4 pieces of string cheese and split them down the middle, placing them around the edge of the dough and rolling the dough over so the cheese is covered. 

Slide the dough onto the pizza stone and cook for about 3 minutes. This allows for a crispier crust and is much easier to manage when adding toppings. 

Remove the par-baked crust from the oven and start adding toppings. First a generous layer of pesto followed by the caramelized onions. mushrooms, cheese and tomatoes. 

Bake for another 7-10 minutes until the cheese is bubbly and golden brown. 

Slice and enjoy!