Savory Strawberry Pizza

Strawberries are in season as you know! And I picked up 2 extra gallons yesterday from Flat Top Mountain Farm. As much as we just love to eat strawberries plain or have them in dessert, I knew there had to be some savory recipes out there. I found this one and as usual adjusted it for what I had available in my kitchen.  I added cream cheese as the base instead of doing the strawberry jam because I let the chicken marinate and soak up all the balsamic strawberry sauce. I also had fresh mint in my herb garden so I used that instead of cilantro. Strawberries on pizza sounds pretty strange but it was really delicious and I will definitely make this Savory Strawberry Pizza recipe again! 

I sliced the sweet onion very thinly on my mandoline. I have one similar to this one with various attachments. And if you make a lot of pizza, learning to use a pizza peel and cooking it on stoneware can make all the difference in the world! Click here to see what a pizza peel looks like. I always flour my pizza dough ball while I’m rolling it out but before I start topping my pizza, I lift up the pie and sprinkle generously with cornmeal. Try it. After you put the pizza pie back on the peel, you can play with it and it will slide back and forth across the peel. This will help you to gently slide it onto your stoneware without a mess. But make sure your oven is hot and ready to go. If you left he dough sit on the peel, it will start sticking to the peel. To unstick it, gently use a spatula to lift up the edge of the pizza all the way around and then slide it onto your stone.

This meal was quick to throw together because earlier this week, I made pizza and had an extra dough ball that I kept in the fridge. I also had shredded chicken and bacon already precooked in the fridge.  Here’s the recipe! Bon appetite!

Ingredients

1. 1/2 cup strawberry jam
2. 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
3. 1 teaspoon Sriracha Sauce
4. 1 ball pizza dough
5. 4 oz of cream cheese, room temperature for easy spreading
6. 1 cup diced or shredded pastured chicken
7. 1/2 cup pastured bacon, cooked and cut into small chunks
8. 1/4 cup thinly sliced sweet onion
9. 1/2 cup of your favorite cheese (I used gouda)
10. 1/4 cup fresh spearmint, finely chopped (or cilantro or basil)
11. 1/4 cup fresh strawberries, sliced

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees and put pizza stone in oven.
2. Place balsamic vinegar in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil, then reduce and simmer until reduced to half of the original volume. Mixture is look like syrup. Add strawberry jam and Sriracha. Mix and let cool.
3. Roll out pizza dough on a lightly floured surface. Once it's rolled out a bit, I like to sprinkle cornmeal on my pizza peel which helps the pizza slide off onto the stoneware.
4. Combine chicken with the balsamic-strawberry mixture and mix to coat all chicken with sauce.
5. Spread cream cheese onto pizza. If you need to plop big patches of it, that's okay too. Try to flatten it out as much as possible.
6. If you have any sauce left, pour it onto pizza dough and spread to cover.
7. Scatter chicken, bacon, onion and strawberries evenly.
8. Sprinkle cheese on top.
9. Gently slide pizza on top onto stone (or cookie sheet).
10. Bake for approximately 10-13 minutes or crust is golden brown.
11. Remove from oven and let cool slightly.
12. Sprinkle with chopped mint.