Tessa’s Recipe Rundown
Taste: Smokey, salty, meaty, cheesy, garlicky, and just plain mesmerizing.
Texture: Use my all time favorite no-knead pizza dough recipe which is crisp yet chewy. The sauce is thick and creamy, the cheese is melted, oozing, with little brown spots all over. You can’t beat chunks of chicken and crisp bacon on top of a pizza. Then there’s the sort of textural intrigue of the arugula. YUM.
Ease: There’s some prep work involved, cooking the bacon and chicken, shredding the cheese, making the pizza dough. This can all be done ahead of time. If I know I’m cooking chicken or bacon earlier in the week I’ll cook extra for pizza.
Appearance: Your family is going to think the dinner table was transported to a gourmet pizzeria.
Pros: The best white pizza, there’s nothing more to say!
Cons: Not the lightest of foods.
Would I make this again? Absolutely yes.
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The Best White Pizza has a mouthwatering Parmesan cream sauce, smoked mozzarella cheese, chicken, crisp bacon, and fresh arugula.
This recipe is inspired by one of my favorite restaurants in the town of Gilbert, Arizona, a suburb east of Phoenix, called Liberty Market. If you live in the east valley and you haven’t been to this restaurant, you need to go asap! If I’m at Liberty Market for lunch I almost always order the white pizza (and a salt river bar for dessert), which I’ve recreated here to share with you today! Unfortunately I don’t have a wood-burning pizza oven, so I can never exactly recreate the white pizza recipe. However, I do have a kickass pizza stone and if I crank my oven, I can get amazing pizza at home. Better than most places.
This white pizza is truly my favorite and I’m so happy I took the time to recreate the recipe at home. Just take a look at the ingredients. The sauce is a Parmesan cream sauce which is ultra rich and cheesy. Then the pizza is topped with more cheese, but since it’s smoked mozzarella cheese it adds another layer of flavor. The pizza is then sprinkled with chicken, bacon, pine nuts, and once it’s out of the oven, arugula. I know, the arugula sounded weird to me at first but just trust me, it’s delish. If you really don’t like arugula or the idea of greens on your pizza feel free to exclude it. That’s the best part of making pizza at home, you can make it exactly how you like it.
The Best White Pizza
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Ingredients
- 1 ball pizza dough
For the Parmesan cream sauce:
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 1 cup milk
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/2 teaspoon Italian seasoning
- Salt and pepper to taste
- 1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
For the cheese and toppings:
- Olive oil, for brushing
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- 6 ounces smoked mozzarella cheese, grated
- 1 cup diced grilled chicken
- 3 strips bacon, crisp cooked and crumbled
- 2 tablespoons pine nuts, toasted
- 1 cup arugula
Instructions
- Place a pizza stone on the bottom rack of the oven and preheat to 450°F.
For the dough:
- Stretch and roll out the pizza dough on a floured work surface until as thin as possible without tearing. The circle should be at least 14-inches large. If the pizza dough springs back, cover with a clean kitchen towel and let rest for 10 minutes before continuing to shape. Transfer the pizza dough to a parchment lined pizza peel or flat cookie sheet. Cover with a towel until ready to use.
For the sauce:
- In a medium saucepan over medium heat melt the butter. Add the flour and cook, stirring, until the mixture is thick and the raw flour taste is gone, about 1 minute. Slowly pour in the milk, whisking constantly. Add the garlic powder, Italian seasoning, and salt. Cook for 3 to 4 minutes, or until thickened. Stir in the Parmesan cheese.
To assemble:
- Brush the pizza dough with olive oil, concentrating on the edges. Season with salt and pepper. Top with the warm Parmesan cream sauce. Sprinkle with the mozzarella cheese. Sprinkle with the grilled chicken, bacon, and pine nuts.
- Bake for 10 minutes, or until the crust is golden and the cheese is bubbling. Top with arugula before serving.
I made this in a cast iron pan. I wasn’t a huge fan of the white sauce — it was a bit bland and congealed into a solid mass as soon as I took it off the heat — more like a thick pudding consistency — and stayed in clumps rather than spreading out nicely on the pizza dough base. The smoked mozzarella was a nice touch, and I did like the pine nuts and arugula on top. I’ll probably tweak the sauce and try this again — perhaps adding sautéed mushrooms and onions finely chopped to the sauce and using only 1.5 T of flour. Thanks for the inspiration.
Love white pizza! This one looks SO good! Funny (quick) story, my girlfriends (who don’t cook often) had NO idea you actually have to HEAT the pizza stone before you put the pizza on it, when I mentioned it briefly, they looked at me blankly like I was talking a foreign language. Minds were blown. Haha
Hahaha I love stories like that because it reminds me to be as clear and specific as possible in recipe directions – this stuff isn’t common knowledge to many people!!
White pizza happens to be one of my fav things on the planet and this seriously looks out of this world. Mmmmmm!!
I love white pizza! I need to make them more often!
This looks fantastic! I actually haven’t made a white pizza before, but if you say cheese (especially smoked!) and bacon, I am in! I also love the idea of the arugala on top…I can pretend I am eating a salad 😉 Love this!