Nothing indicates the arrival of spring better than gorgeous green spears of asparagus. Since I was eagerly awaiting the arrival of spring, I was especially excited to see some of these spears in our CSA box a few weeks ago. I was also excited to see a recipe for asparagus pizza in the box as well. Always looking for new and different ways to use veggies, I decided to give the recipe a try—but gave it a few twists of my own.
Instead of baking the pizza in the oven, I grilled several smaller pizzas using this recipe for the crust and our grill pan. Because we love the flavor of roasted asparagus, I also roasted the shaved spears in our toaster oven until they were golden. If you make the pizza in the oven, the extra roasting step may not be necessary.
The resulting pizzas had a thick and chewy crust with a hint of charred grill flavor. The sweet and creamy mozzarella, salty pecorino and tender caramelized asparagus made for a wonderful combination of pizza toppings. Hurray for spring vegetables!
Grilled Asparagus Pizza
Adapted from Farm Fresh to You
- 1 bunch of fresh asparagus
- Olive oil
- Salt and pepper
- 16 oz of prepared pizza dough or dough from this recipe
- 1 ball of fresh mozzarella (8 oz), sliced into thin rounds
- 3 oz Pecorino cheese, shaved with a vegetable peeler
Shave each of the asparagus spears into long thin slices using a vegetable peeler (I found it worked best to lay the spears flat on the cutting board and run the peeler over the top of the spears). Drizzle the shaved asparagus with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Roast the asparagus at 450° for 20-30 minutes or until the veggies are tender and turn golden brown in places.
Form the dough into small pies and place them on a baking sheet sprinkled with corn meal. Heat the grill and spray with cooking spray. Place pizza dough (cornmeal side up) on the hot grill pan. Grill for roughly 4 minutes and turn over the dough. Top the crust with the mozzarella, pecorino, and roasted shaved asparagus. Continue to grill for 5-7 minutes or until cooked through and cheese is melted.
Tasty Easy Healthy Green Recipe Ratings:
| Recipe Report Card | Notes About Recipe Ratings |
|
Tasty Rating Five Chefs (Gourmet Fare!) |
Love the crust and love the toppings—this was one great pizza! |
|
Easy Rating
Three Easy Chairs (Average Difficulty) |
If you use store-prepared pizza dough, this recipe is a breeze. If you use the recipe I suggest above, it requires some planning because the pizza dough must be assembled and then refrigerated for 24 hours. Nevertheless, I highly recommend this recipe. |
|
Healthy Rating
Two Apples (Surgeon General’s Warning!) |
This pizza has quite a bit of cheese, so it doesn’t score super-high on the healthy scale. A whole wheat crust would improve the health factor of these pizzas a little though. |
|
Green Rating
Three Leaves (Average Environmental Friendliness) |
The asparagus was organic and local and the most of the ingredients I used in the crust were also organic. The cheeses were neither organic nor local. |
I love that you shaved the asparagus. I do that a lot on salads.
Hooray for spring vegetables, indeed! Haven’t yet had my first spear this year, but I think my mom is serving some for first night seder tonight. I can hardly wait for absolute spring deliciousness.
You asparagus pizza looks yummie and love how you shaved it, my first thought was “this is dangerous” because they are so thin…like the instructions as well. Have a great week Sally
wow what a gorgeous pizza! I love asparagus on pizza but have never shaved it like that!
Um Yum!! Asparagus on pizza, super awesome idea, looks so yummy!!
Grilled pizza sounds great. It must get nice a crispy on the outside. Yum! Fun way to use up stuff from the CSA box, too!
I really love the look of this, so simple but delicious when the produce is perfect.
This is a perfectly made light pizza Sally with beautiful veggies!
[...] tagliato a tocchetti, e si aggiusta con sale, pepe e timo fresco. Cottura in forno fino a doratura. Focaccia grigliata agli asparagi: si pelano gli asparagi e si tagliano sottilmente con la mandolina, e li si cuoce in padella con [...]
Sally, this is a light and lovely looking pizza. I imagine it tastes as good as it looks. I hope you have a great day and enjoy the coming holiday. Blessings…Mary
I love grilled pizza! These look fantastic and the combination of the mozzarella and pecorino cheeses sounds amazing. I have never seen asparagus shaved like this before, but I love it!
I like the idea of having asparagus as a topping for pizza. This is such a light and delicious way to have asparagus!
this really lets the asparagus shine! and such a pretty pizza.