Recipe for Squash, Apple and Bacon Pizza

Hope you enjoyed a wonderful Christmas!


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!

Doesn't that look delicious?!

A little blurry. Here is the pizza as it was going in to the oven.  Homemade whole wheat pizza dough, spread with the squash puree, then topped with more of the roasted squash and apples, caramelized onions, and bacon.


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