On this beautiful Sunday we made some pizzas to celebrate the end of a great summer. We came up with two completely different toppings. The first one being a ricotta, lemon, basil pizza, which was light but really flavorful. The second being a guanciale mozzarella pizza which was savory and rich. Both are delicious and both are easy to make.
We started out making the dough from scratch. Find our dough recipe here from our previous grilled pizza post.
Ricotta Lemon Basil Pizza
- 1 lemon
- 5 oz. buffalo ricotta cheese
- 1 cup pecorino cheese
- 1/2 cup basil
- 1 clove garlic
- olive oil for drizzling
Zest the lemon skin. Save the lemons for later.
Use freshly grated pecorino cheese for the ricotta pizza. This gives it a salty flavor that ties the lemon and ricotta together.
Use buffalo ricotta to get that creamy rich flavor. Mix in a half of a lemon's juice and the garlic into the ricotta. Save this for making the pizza.
Once the oven is preheated to 550 degrees, stretch out the dough into a 7 inch round shape. Layer on the ricotta mixture, lemon zest, and pecorino cheese. Drizzle olive oil over pizza and slide onto pizza stone. Cook in the oven for 8 minutes. Right when you take the pizza out add fresh basil and add more pecorino cheese.
The crust should bubble and brown when finished. This pizza was really simple but delicious. We highly recommend using the freshest ingredients when making this for the best outcome.
Guanciale Mozzarella Pizza
- 1/4 cup guanciale
- 1/2 cup Lucifora Cherry Tomato Sauce
- 1/2 cup mozzarella
- 1/4 cup basil
- olive oil for drizzling
Find the fresh buffalo mozzarella at your local Italian market. We obviously didn't use this whole ball but it was a great snack while we were making the pizza.
Guanciale for those of you who haven't tried it, is pig cheek and it is one of the best things the pig has to offer. If you like bacon this is a sweeter, saltier, more flavorful version of it. Guanciale is a great pizza topping. Cut this in cubes and fry up for 5 minutes. Like bacon this will cook in its own fat so don't use any oil. After it has gotten crispy save for the pizza. Well, snack on a few pieces then save for the pizza.
We are lucky enough to have a great Italian market around us that Mario Batali owns. Not as big as Eataly but the Tarry Market is a great source for finding delicious ingredients. This cherry tomato sauce was a great find at the Tarry Market. The tomatoes were perfectly sweet with no sugar added.
Prepare the dough ball into a circle spreading the cherry tomato sauce over the bottom and sprinkling the guanciale over the whole pizza. After slice some fresh mozzarella onto the pizza and cook for 8 minutes. Tear fresh basil on the pizza once it comes out of the oven and enjoy!
