Roasted Veggie Pizza
on Sep 11, 2023
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It’s easy to roast an entire sheet pan of vegetables, and this roasted veggie pizza is the perfect way to put them to use. With store-bought dough and sauce, you can make this simple pizza recipe that’s topped with zucchini, yellow squash, eggplant and tomatoes along with red onions, olives and mozzarella cheese. Serve it with a side salad, and you have a veggie-packed meal.
Table of Contents
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
Don’t make the mistake of putting raw vegetables on a pizza. The point of baking a pizza is to cook the crust and melt the cheese. It’s not enough time to actually cook the toppings, especially when they are layered with sauce and cheese.
If you’re looking for a veggie pizza recipe that goes big on vegetables, this one delivers. When I order a vegetable pizza, I want it to be covered with so may veggies that they are overlapping each other. There shouldn’t be any gaps with just cheese and sauce. The sliced eggplant, zucchini and squash do that with roasted tomatoes nestled in between.
Refrigerated store-bought pizza dough is very convenient for making your own pizza at home. This is one of the best things you can buy at the grocery. I love making homemade pizza dough, but since my schedule can be all over the place, I can’t always fit in the required rising time for the yeast.
The Ingredients
This is what you need:
- Pizza dough: Take advantage of store-bought pizza dough. You can use any variety you want that includes plain, whole wheat or herb depending what you find at the grocery. The most important thing is that you let the dough sit out so you are working with room temperature dough. Then you will be able to stretch it out without it shrinking.
- Vegetables: As the recipe is written, I include sliced eggplant, zucchini and yellow squash and halved cherry tomatoes. They all roast in the same amount of time in a 400-degree F oven. You know you will have enough vegetables for the pizza if you start with a very full pan. Most of the veggies should be in a single layer, but some overlap is fine. As they roast, they will become smaller.
- Red onions: Thinly sliced, onions add sharpness here and there on the pizza. They do mellow somewhat as they bake with the rest of the toppings.
- Olives: Sliced black olives or Kalamata olives give the vegetables, sauce, cheese and crust salty bites.
- Pizza sauce: To keep things easy, you can use jarred sauce. This is where it can be handy to have homemade tomato sauce stashed away in your freezer. Bonus points if it’s my 5-Ingredient Cherry Tomato Sauce.
- Cheese: To maximize melting potential, the recipe calls for shredded mozzarella cheese. I don’t go overboard on cheese because I want the veggies to be the focus of the pizza.
- Olive oil: For the best flavor, use extra-virgin olive oil for roasting the vegetables.
- Basil: As a finishing touch, I like to top my pizza with fresh basil leaves, but it is optional. You could also drizzle it with pesto.
Optional Pizza Toppings
Besides basil (or pesto), you can think of these as other ways to garnish your pizza:
- Finely grated Parmesan cheese
- Red pepper flakes
How To Make This Veggie Pizza Recipe
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
1. Toss the vegetables with olive oil, salt and pepper. You can do this right on the sheet pan and then spread out the zucchini, squash, eggplant and tomatoes to use the entire pan, end to end.
2. Roast the veggies until they are tender and just starting to brown. Give them 20 minutes because they will cook more on the pizza.
Increase the oven temperature to 500 degrees F.
3. Stretch the dough into the pan. You can use a 12-inch diameter pizza pan, a 10-inch x 15-inch jelly roll pan or a pizza stone. Before you put in the dough grease the pan with olive oil and sprinkle it with cornmeal. This will prevent the pizza from sticking. (For a pizza stone, you can just dust it with cornmeal and you might need to roll out the dough rather than just stretching it).
4. Spread the sauce on the pizza leaving a half-inch border and then add the cheese. I like to layer the cheese and vegetables, so I save a quarter cup of cheese for topping the pizza.
5. Arrange the roasted vegetables on the pizza along with the red onions and olives. It should be completely covered except for the crust border.
6. Bake the pizza until the cheese is fully melted and nicely browned and the crust is cooked through. This will take about 15-20 minutes, but keep an eye on your pizza to make sure it isn’t browning too quickly. If the crust needs more time, you can put a piece of foil loosely on top.
Serving
My favorite side dish for pizza night is a big leafy green salad. Try this Arugula Salad with Lemon Vinaigrette or Italian Chopped Salad. You can also slice the pizza into smaller pieces, squares or wedges, and serve it an appetizer. It’s good for game day.
Leftovers, Storage & Freezing
You can store leftover pizza in the refrigerator up to 5 days. Wrap it or put it in an airtight container. You can eat it cold or warm it on a baking sheet in 400-degree F oven for 7-9 minutes.
If you wrap the pizza tightly, you can freeze it up to 1 month. I recommend slicing it before you put it in the freezer because then it is easy to reheat a specific number of pieces per meal. Warm it for 13-15 minutes at 400 degrees F. You do not need to thaw it before putting it in the oven.
Recipe Tips
Make sure the pizza dough is at room temperature. This is very important. If your dough is cold it will make it hard to stretch out into the pan. If you do find that the dough keeps shrinking back, give it 10 minutes to rest and try again.
If you don’t want to bother with refrigerated pizza dough, you can use store-bought crust. Just follow the instructions on the package for recommended bake time and oven temperature.
You can use a metal pan or a pizza stone to bake the pizza. If you do make it with a pizza stone, put the stone on another rack in the oven while the vegetables roast, so you can properly preheat it.
It is up to you if you use a rolling pin on a counter dusted with flour to roll out the dough. To reduce clean-up, l like to stretch it with my hands. When you hold the dough and let it hang as you turn it, it’s own weight and gravity will cause it to stretch.
Never warm pizza leftovers in the microwave or they will be soggy. The dry heat of the oven will crisp up the crust again.
Recipe FAQs
Yes. This pizza is a great if you have leftover roasted veggies. Broccoli, red bell peppers, cauliflower and even butternut squash would be tasty on pizza. Or you can use antipasti from the olive bar like marinated artichokes and sun-dried tomatoes.
If you like a very cheesy pizza, you can increase the amount of cheese you top the pizza with after you put on the roasted vegetables from 1/4 cup to 1/2-2/3 cup.
Either leave out the cheese or use a plant-based mozzarella cheese.
More Roasted Vegetable Recipes
Mediterranean Roasted Vegetables and Halloumi
Roasted Vegetable Couscous
Roasted Veggie Naan Flatbread
Sheet Pan Vegetable Gnocchi
More Vegetarian Pizza Recipes
Cauliflower Pizza Crust
Arugula Pizza with Sun-Dried Tomatoes
Mushroom Corn Pizza
Roasted Veggie Pizza
Ingredients
For vegetables
- For pizza
- 1 medium zucchini sliced 1/4-inch-thick
- 1 medium yellow squash sliced 1/4-inch-thick
- 1 baby eggplant sliced 1/4-inch-thick (halved if slices are very wide)
- 1 pint cherry tomatoes or grape tomatoes halved
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
For pizza
- Olive oil for pan
- Cornmeal for pan
- 1 pound refrigerated pizza dough at room temperature
- 1 cup pizza sauce
- 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
- 1/4 small red onion sliced thinly
- 1/4 cup sliced pitted black olives or Kalamata olives
- Fresh basil leaves for serving
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
- Toss the zucchini, squash, eggplant and tomatoes with olive oil, salt and pepper on a sheet pan. Roast for 20 minutes until the zucchini, squash and eggplant are just starting to brown and the tomatoes are wrinkled but still juicy.
- Increase the oven temperature to 500 degrees F.
- Grease a 12-inch pizza pan or 10-inch by 15-inch jelly roll pan with olive oil and sprinkle with cornmeal.
- Stretch and press the dough to fit the pan.
- Spread the pizza sauce across the dough leaving a 1/2-inch border at the edges.
- Top with 3/4 cup cheese.
- Arrange the roasted vegetables, onions and olives on the pizza.
- Top with the remaining cheese.
- Bake for 15-20 minutes until the cheese has melted and the pizza is well browned and the crust is crisp and cooked though.
- Top with basil leaves before serving.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
What a great way to celebrate the last of summer’s fresh vegetables. This looks fantastic!