Knee deep in summer and I have tomatoes, oh boy do I have tomatoes. Sometimes supper is later in the summer, just due to the schedule changes and being outside more than in. On days when supper needs to be simple, it doesn’t need to mean drive through. I love sitting down to a supper (or who are we kidding, standing at the counter in the kitchen) and knowing what I made was better, and healthier. This is one of those recipes. Summer tomatoes over fresh ricotta on a crispy crust. Swoon.
Fresh Tomato Garlic and Ricotta Pizza
This pizza is as complicated as you make it. I used pre-purchased pizza dough, and you could even purchase a pre-baked pizza shell for this. I did not make my own ricotta. I grew the tomatoes and the basil, but there is the farm stand for that and let’s support our local farmers.
The hardest part of this pizza is the roasted garlic. If you don’t have a garlic roaster, you can roast the garlic head whole, wrapped in foil. I cut off the top portion of the garlic bulb, drizzle with olive oil and salt, wrap the whole head in foil, and bake in a 350* oven. If I am roasting garlic, it’s worth it to roast a bunch. The roasted garlic will keep in the refrigerator, but once you spread a little of that goodness on bread, put in soup or a crock pot meal, you won’t have it long enough on hand to worry about it spoiling.
If you don’t want to go through the trouble of roasting garlic, you can bypass this step.For the pizza pictures in this post, I used Roasted Garlic Spread from Stonewall Kitchen. You can purchase roasted garlic spread. Not garlic bread spread with butter, just jarred roasted garlic. (Hey, I said this meal was simple)!
To make this recipe, drizzle dough with olive oil, spread the roasted garlic over the dough. Then, I spread spoonfuls of ricotta (have I mentioned my love of ricotta? It’s a serious condition). evenly over the dough. Think happy little spoonfuls.
Slice a variety of tomatoes and place over the ricotta and roasted garlic.
If you want to add fresh mozzarella at this point I say go for it. I didn’t add much, just a little here and there to add another layer of flavor.
A sprinkle of fresh basil (I chiffonade my basil – stack the leaves, roll tightly, and slice into thin strips) and bake at 375*
I baked this until it was bubbly, the crust was brown, and I couldn’t stand on the other side of the oven door any longer. Don’t judge. I worked in the yard all day.
This summer combination of fresh tomatoes and ricotta, roasted garlic, and basil was supper perfection. It will make a repeat performance, I promise.
I hope you enjoyed this recipe, and as always, thank you for coming to the table!
Chrissy
Printable Recipe
Fresh Tomato, Roasted Garlic, Ricotta Pizza
Fresh Tomato, Roasted Garlic, and Ricotta Pizza
Ingredients:
One pizza dough (purchased, or made from scratch)
Olive oil
One small container ricotta – whole milk
Several tomatoes – sliced
Roasted garlic spread (or one roasted garlic head)
Basil (4-6 leaves)
Fresh mozzarella (sliced or torn)
Salt/pepper
Directions:
Preheat oven to 375* (or as pizza dough directions call for)
Place pizza dough on pizza stone or prepared baking sheet
Drizzle with olive oil
Arrange roasted garlic or garlic spread over dough
Spoon spoonfuls of ricotta over dough
Arrange sliced tomatoes over ricotta and garlic
Top with additional fresh mozzarella, basil, salt, pepper, any other herbs of choice and if you want, drizzle olive oil over top.
Bake for 30 minutes or until tomatoes are cooked, cheese is bubbly, crust is done.
SO GOOD! Enjoy