Loaded Veggie Pizza

Any fans of Dominos pizza here? I like to call myself a SuperFan, particularly of their veg extravaganza pizza which is loaded with veggies, mushrooms and cheese and was pretty much a weekly order-in tradition. As much as I love a good basic margherita, I do have a weakness for pizzas that have a ton of toppings. More veggies = healthy therefore pizza = healthy. Right? Right. And I’ve realised now it’s possible to make it right at home! With a chewy, from-scratch, authentic pizza crust, lots of cheese and oh my god, I’m off to get another slice.

After the success with this pizza dough, I wanted to make it again during this lockdown for a fun pizza lunch. This is a mix-it-and-leave-it kind of dough. Make it the night before and by about mid-morning it’s done rising. Once you’ve mixed up the flour, water and yeast, forget about it for about 12 hours and it’ll turn into a sticky, slightly messy dough but I promise the end result is worth the drama. It bakes up into a chewy, crusty base, with lots of flavour just by itself. It’s not a crisp thin crust pizza, just so you know. It manages to be soft in the center without being bready and is just thick enough.

After many years of pizza making at home, I’ve learned a few things that I hope will be helpful to you. Minimal pizza sauce is everything (my favourite store-bought and homemade sauce is in the recipe notes), you need A TON of cheese to get restaurant style cheese pulls and if that scares you, using a more restrained amount like I prefer, does absolutely no harm, I promise. And speaking of cheese, it’s important to add it to the pizza only in the last five or so minutes of baking, otherwise it browns too much, to the point of almost burning and then loses all its glorious stretchy softness.

For the toppings, feel free to go with literally anything you like on your pizza. As I’ve said, I like to load mine up with stuff, but you may want to add or subtract. I used bell peppers, mushrooms, onions and broccoli. All of it roasts in the oven right on the pizza, there’s no pre-cooking of the veggies required. The veggies are soft but not mushy, with lots of roast-y flavour and a slight bite to go with the chewy crust. So perfect. This recipe makes enough dough and toppings for two roughly 10 inch pizzas, and I recommend making both, and then reheating one for your next meal, it works really well.

I added pizza seasoning just on the top of the pizza and along with the sauce, I found the flavour balance to be perfect. If you don’t have it, use salt and pepper instead, it’ll taste just as good! You really can’t go too wrong with pizza. I hope you’ll try this today!

Please read the recipe notes before beginning. 

Loaded Veggie Pizza

Chewy, slow-rise pizza dough with roasted mushrooms and veggies

Prep Time: 45 minutes mins

Cook Time: 30 minutes mins

Total Time: 1 hour hr 15 minutes mins

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Ingredients

  

For the pizza dough

• 3 cups all-purpose flour (360 gms)
• 1/4 tsp active dry yeast, slightly heaped
• 1 and 1/2 tsps salt
• 1 and 1/4 cups room temp water (310 ml) plus more if needed

For the pizza toppings

• 200 gms button mushrooms,sliced
• 1 medium red bell pepper, cut into 1 inch pieces
• 1 medium yellow bell pepper, cut into 1 inch pieces
• 1 medium onion, thickly sliced
• 1 cup chopped broccoli florets
• 1 cup pizza sauce, see notes
• 2 cups freshly shredded mozzarella cheese (225 gms)
• To finish Salt and pepper or pizza seasoning as needed.

Instructions

• To make the dough, simply mix all the pizza base ingredients in a large bowl, till you have a wet, shaggy dough. Add two more teaspoons of water if the dough feels a little dry. You do not need to form a ball of dough, or bother with making it smooth. Simply mix it up, making sure all the flour is moistened, cover with clingfilm and leave to rise at room temperature for 12 to 16 hours.
• After 12 to 16 hours, the dough should have doubled, look fermented and have bubbles on the base and smell slightly sour. It should also feel very soft and sticky and a little wet. In hot weather, it is best to put the bowl in the fridge if you're not ready to bake yet, to prevent the dough from getting over fermented once it has doubled, although make sure you don't postpone the baking beyond a couple of hours.
• About half an hour before you begin forming the dough into pizzas, preheat the oven to 250 C (usually its highest temp, as the oven needs to be hot hot hot) and lightly flour a non-stick baking pan. If you don't have one, line your baking tray wth a silicone mat as this dough tends to stick.
• While the oven is preheating, get your toppings ready.
• Now, cut the dough into two and scrape one half out onto the prepared pan using floured fingertips.
• Stretch and pull the dough to a roughly round shape, about 10 inches wide. It will be sticky and a little hard to work with, but it does work out in the end. You can also make a rectangular pizza, shape no bar! Don't stretch the dough too thin, because it needs to be able to hold the toppings.
• Spread half the pizza sauce on the base, leaving about half an inch of a border on the edge of the dough. Top with half of the mushrooms and veggies, scattering them in an even layer over the sauce. Turn the edges of the dough up to form a crust.
• Bake for 20 to 25 minutes until the crust has browned lightly and the veggies have roasted and blistered slightly. Rotate the tray as needed if one side is browning more than the other. Now top with half the cheese, and bake for 5 to 10 minutes until it is melted through, making sure you don't let it get too brown or it might lose its stretchiness. At this point the edges of the pizza will also brown further and become crispy. Slice and serve hot hot hot. Repeat with the remaining dough and toppings. Baked pizzas can be stored in the fridge for 2 days and reheated in the oven. They can also be frozen. Happy eating!

Notes

*For the pizza dough, it is particularly important to measure the flour correctly. Fluff up the flour with a spoon in the container itself, then use the spoon to lightly fill the measuring cup up to the top without shaking or tapping the cup, and using the back of a knife, scrape the top of the cup to remove any excess flour.

*I don't recommend wholewheat flour in this recipe. Try this one instead.

*You can use 1/2 tsp yeast if you want the dough to be ready in about 6 hours.

*I used store bought Barilla pasta sauce here which is convenient, I love it on pizzas and it has basil for extra flavour.

*To make your own sauce, a very easy and basic one goes this way: Roughly chop 6 to 7 ripe tomatoes and pass through a sieve so that the water drains out. To the drained tomatoes, add 3 to 4 minced garlic cloves, with dried oregano, salt and pepper. Mix well and use as sauce on the pizza. If you happen to have canned Italian tomatoes, those work great here. Keep in mind that a homemade sauce is likely to release more water as the pizza bakes.

*I recommend assembling the second pizza only after the first one is done, as tomato sauce tends to release a little water over the dough if spread too early.

*Avoid pre-shredded mozzarella cheese. It tends to contain additives to prevent the cheese from sticking in the bag, which leads to it browning too fast in the oven and not melting properly.

*Prep-time does not include rising time. Cook time is per pizza.

*Pizza dough from Smitten Kitchen.

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