Smoked Salmon Pizza

When you order smoked salmon pizza in a restaurant, it usually has a tomato sauce as the base.  I personally find that the cooked tomato flavor of the sauce overpowers the smoked salmon, and so does my mom, so she decided to create a creamy dill sauce for the base of our smoked salmon pizza.

Now this sauce needs to be introduced very carefully.  Before I tell you what's in it, let me tell you that if I had tasted it not knowing what the ingredients were, I would have thought it was a béchamel sauce. But this sauce is much healthier than a regular cream sauce; it's made out of potatoes and cauliflower!  This is my new go-to cream sauce for everything from pizza to pasta, just leave out the dill and you can pretty much use it on anything.

Pizza
8 oz. mushrooms, sliced
1 summer squash, quartered then sliced
2 cups sliced mini bell peppers
1 ½ cups spinach and 1 bunch dill, thinly sliced and mixed
1 can sliced olives from Trader Joe's
½ red onion, thinly sliced into half rings
1 ½ cups halved cherry tomatoes
1 can artichoke hearts from Trader Joe's, roughly chopped
½ log Fresh & Creamy Goat Cheese from Trader Joe's, frozen then crumbled
2 cups shredded Mozzarella cheese
½ cup capers, drained
Smoked salmon
1 recipe of your favorite pizza dough (try my Pizza Dough recipe)

Creamy 'Béchamel' Sauce
1 peeled russet potato, boiled and thoroughly drained
1 cauliflower, boiled and thoroughly drained
½ log Fresh & Creamy Goat Cheese from Trader Joe's
¼ cup olive oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 TBSP white wine
1 lemon, juiced
2 TBSP heavy cream
1 TBSP sugar
Chicken stock
Salt & pepper to taste
1 bunch dill, finely minced

For the sauce:

Put the potato, cauliflower, goat cheese, olive oil, garlic, white wine, lemon juice, heavy cream, and sugar in a blender and thoroughly blend, adding chicken stock as needed to achieve a creamy yet not too thick consistency.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

Thoroughly stir in the dill.  If you are using this sauce for something other than this pizza, you can leave out the dill for a more generic cream sauce.

For the pizza:

Prepare all of your ingredients, then arrange them in a large container for easy access while you are topping your pizza.

Roll out your pizza dough, then fold over the edges and brush them with olive oil.  You can leave your edges flat, but I find that you get a nice crust if you fold them over.

Use a ladle to swirl a thin layer of the dill sauce across the pizza crust, making sure to go all the way to the edges for maximum flavor.

Top the sauce with a generous layer of mushrooms, squash, bell peppers, olives, onions, tomatoes, artichoke hearts, capers, and smoked salmon.  Be generous with the capers and smoked salmon!

Sprinkle with a thin layer of crumbled Goat cheese and shredded Mozzarella cheese.

Cook in an oven or barbecue until the pizza is bubbling and slightly crispy, but not quite finished.  Sprinkle with some spinach and dill, then finish cooking the pizza until it is just the way you like it.  If you want, you can drizzle the pizzas with Balsamic Glaze from Trader Joe's right when you take them off of the heat for some added flavor.

Repeat this process with all of your ingredients, or until you run out of pizza dough.  For me, this recipe makes six delicious pizzas with a few onions and bell peppers left over, which is just enough to feed a hungry family of four for two meals!

Any fan of smoked salmon or locks is sure to love this pizza, so although it may be a little unusual, give it a try.  It certainly gets an A+ from me!

To see more of my pictures, you can find me on Instagram at @audreygracephotography.