Chicken, Pesto & Sun-Dried Tomato Pizza

This recipe ought to look familiar. Its essentially the same as the Margherita Pizza, with the obvious changes with the toppings and the use of bread flour instead of all purpose flour. The flour change wasn't special to this pizza, I just happened to be out of flour and decided I'd give the bread flour a shot since its higher gluten content is supposed to create a chewier crust.

Chicken, Pesto, Sun-Dried Tomato Pizza:

  • 1/4 cup pesto + 1 clove minced garlic (or to taste)
  • 1-2 cups mozzarella cheese
  • 1 lb diced, cooked chicken
  • 1 pkg sun-dried tomatoes
  • Shredded parmesan (optional)
  • Feta cheese crumbles(optional)
You'll want to get the toppings ready before the dough, or at the very least while you're making the dough. So before you do anything else, do this:
  • Preheat the oven with your pizza stone/baking sheet inside to 500 degrees.
  • Cook your chicken. I typically dice it raw, marinate it in Italian dressing for 5 mins then saute it until cooked through (5 mins). If not that I'll use 1/4 - 1/2 cup chicken broth and poach the diced chicken and season it will salt & pepper. Either way make sure to strain or pat your chicken dry with paper towel before putting it on your pizza.
Thin Crust Pizza Dough:
  • .25 oz. pkt. active dry yeast
  • 1/4 tsp. granulated sugar
  • 3/4 cup warm (105-115 degrees) water, temperature measured with a thermometer
  • 1 3/4 cups bread flour (AP works too, but bread flour tastes better)
  • 1/2 tsp. salt
Dissolve yeast and sugar in water; let the yeast sit for 5-10 minutes or until frothy. Combine flour and salt in the bowl of your stand mixer (with the dough hook attachment). Pour yeast mixture into the flour mixture and turn the mixer on medium speed until your dough ball forms (2-3 minutes).

At this point you can either let the dough rise for 1-2 hours for a normal pizza crust or you can use it immediately for a thin crust pizza.

Turn dough onto a floured surface and knead by hand for 2 minutes. Stretch or roll your dough into a 12" or 14" circle on a flour, parchment or corn meal covered surface. Brush the top surface of the dough with olive oil.

Remove your preheated pizza stone or baking sheet from the oven.Transfer your dough to the baking sheet/pizza stone, and quickly spread your pesto. Add your 1-2 cups of mozzarella cheese and top with the chicken and sun-dried tomatoes.
  • Sprinkle feta and/or parmesan cheese (optional).
  • Bake at 500 for 8-10 minutes. Let cool 2-5 minutes. Enjoy.
This recipe (plus a little extra mozzarella) is enough to make two 12" pizzas. We will typically make both pizzas, eat one and save the other for lunch or leftovers.

While we were eating Lauren said "I could eat pizza 3-4 times a week if we made it like this and mixed up the toppings". Do you know how long I've been waiting to hear something like that? Right now we might eat pizza once a week and thats typically because we've got something going on after work and don't get a chance to think about dinner until after 8pm, at which point neither one of us wants to cook for 30 minutes or an hour.

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