Valerie Bertinelli’s Goat Cheese Pizza Is a Meatless Monday Treat
A delicious departure from regular pizza recipes, Food Network star Valerie Bertinelli’s Butternut Squash and Goat Cheese Pizza is a flavorful and hearty alternative to takeout. And it’s much easier to make than it seems.
Bertinelli’s pizza calls for a 2-pound butternut squash
For the Food Network host’s homemade pizza recipe, you’ll need for the dough: bread flour, fresh rosemary leaves, active dry yeast, sugar, salt, and extra-virgin olive oil. Cornmeal is an optional ingredient, Bertinelli says, for sprinkling on the pizza pan.
Ingredients needed for the topping include a two-pound butternut squash, olive oil, fresh sage leaves and rosemary, crushed red pepper flakes, minced garlic, shredded mozzarella cheese, crumbled goat cheese, baby arugula, lemon zest and lemon juice.
‘There is nothing like a homemade pizza,’ Valerie Bertinelli says
In the Food Network video for this recipe, Bertinelli notes that making your own pizza is a distinctly different — and more enjoyable — experience from store-bought.
She adds, “I love making my pizza dough in a food processor because it does all the work for me.”
The flour, salt, and yeast are combined in the processor, as well as the sugar (“That is what my yeast is going to feed on and get nice and active”).
Warm water, olive oil, and rosemary leaves are added to the mixture. Bertinelli notes just a tablespoon of the herb is needed, and chopped at that: “I don’t want big chunks of rosemary; I just want that aroma.” The dough is removed from the processor and given time to rise in a greased bowl for “about an hour and a half.”
The beauty of this dough, she says, is that “You don’t have to roll [it] out; this is one of those super, super, super easy pizza doughs.”
The squash, in the meantime, is roasted in the oven. She noted not to cook it for too long: “For just about 10 minutes, until they’re tender; you don’t want to overcook them because they’re going to cook on the pizza.”
Since this is a white pizza without tomato sauce, Bertinelli makes an infused oil. It features warm olive oil, sage, garlic, and chili flakes.
With the two kinds of cheese, infused oil, squash, and arugula salad, Bertinelli’s pizza has wonderful sweet and savory flavors.
Find the full recipe, video, and reviews on Food Network’s site.
Reviewers praised Bertinelli’s pizza recipe
Home cooks on Food Network’s site were impressed with the vibrant flavor of the pizza recipe. Reviews said, “The best pizza ever,” “It was all so delicious,” “I will be making it this way from now on,” and “You are a food goddess, Miss Valerie! Quite possibly the best pizza I’ve made. Thank you!”
One shortcut some cooks took was to use store-bought dough.
“My sister made this with store-bought pizza dough and it was YUMAZING!!,’ one reviewer reported.
Another added, “I cheated and bought the pizza dough and sprinkled the chopped rosemary on the top and bottom.”
