Skip to main content
Epicurious
Cookbooks

Pesto–Heirloom Tomato Pizza

By Nava Atlas
Image may contain Food Dish Platter Meal Blade Weapon Knife and Weaponry
Photo by Hannah Kaminsky

Top a baked pizza crust with garlicky spinach pesto and raw sliced heirloom tomatoes for a wonderfully fresh summer dinner.

Recipe information

  • Yield

    Makes 2 (12–14-inch) pizzas

Ingredients

For the pesto sauce:

1 to 2 cloves garlic, crushed (optional)
1/2 to 1 cup firmly packed fresh basil leaves, or to taste
Juice of 1/2 lemon or 2 tablespoons bottled lemon juice, or more to taste
1/2 cup walnut halves or shelled unsalted pistachios or 1/4 cup pine nuts (omit nuts if you’d like a less caloric pesto)
6 ounces baby spinach, arugula, watercress, or a combination
Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

For the pizza:

Whole-Wheat Pizza Crust
Heirloom tomatoes, sliced, to taste (preferably a mix of yellow and red varieties)
Basil leaves, thinly sliced, for topping
Vegan Parmesan-style cheese and fresh oregano for topping (optional)

Preparation

  1. Make the pesto:

    Step 1

    Combine the first five ingredients in a food processor and pulse until the mixture is evenly combined yet still coarse in texture. You may need to add the spinach in batches if your processor has a small or medium-size container.

    Step 2

    Stop the machine and season the mixture gently with salt and pepper; taste to see if you'd like to add more lemon juice, then pulse a few times to mix.

  2. Make the pizza:

    Step 3

    Bake pizza dough rounds in a preheated 425°F oven for 15 minutes, until crust is golden.

    Step 4

    Spread pizza crust with pesto, then load up with sliced heirloom tomatoes. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and top with plenty of thinly sliced basil leaves. Some Vegan Parmesan-style cheese and fresh oregano leaves would add a nice touch, too. This can be served at room temperature.

Image may contain: Plant, Food, Produce, and Vegetable
From Plant Power © 2014 by Nava Atlas. Reprinted with permission by HarperOne, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Buy the full book from HarperCollins or from Amazon.
TagsPizzaHeirloom TomatoTomatoVegetableBasilHerbs & SpicesMainDinnerDairy FreeVegetarianVeganOven BakeFood ProcessorCookbooksHarper Collins
Read More
Smothered Italian Sausage
This is what I call a fridge-eater recipe. The key here is getting a nice sear on the sausage and cooking the tomato down until it coats the sausage and vegetables well.
Feta and Sun-Dried Tomato Dip
Creamy and bright with just a subtle bit of heat, this five-ingredient, make-ahead dip is ready for company—just add crudités.
Spicy Carrot Rigatoni
Hailee Catalano transforms humble carrots into a beautifully creamy pasta sauce.
Pasta Alla Mezcal
This marinara sauce is great tossed with any pasta for a quick and easy weeknight dinner that will leave you thinking, “Why didn’t anyone try this sooner?”
Crispy Oyster Mushroom Skewers With Bok Choy Salad
Oyster mushrooms are a strong all-rounder in the kitchen, seeming to straddle both plant and meat worlds in what they look and taste like when cooked. Here they’re coated in a marinade my mother used to use when cooking Chinese food at home—honey, soy, garlic and ginger—and roasted until golden, crisp, and juicy.
Eggplant Roasted in Satay Sauce
Among the top tier of sauces is Indonesian satay sauce, because it is the embodiment of joy and life. In fact, this sauce is also trustworthy and highly respectful of whatever it comes into contact with—perhaps it is, in fact, the perfect friend?
Sofrito Bolognese
An ex-boyfriend’s mom—who emigrated from Colombia—made the best meat sauce—she would fry sofrito for the base and simply add cooked ground beef, sazón, and jarred tomato sauce. My version is a bit more bougie—it calls for caramelized tomato paste and white wine—but the result is just as good.
Fattoush Salad With Lemon-Sumac Dressing
Every salad should have pita chips.