Shrimp And Pesto Pizza Recipe

A garlicky pesto made of fresh spinach, pine nuts and cheese is the sauce for a savory homemade pizza topped with roasted shrimp.

The flavors of this pizza are healthy, yet supremely filling and satisfying. Don’t be intimidated by the number of ingredients or the steps in this pizza recipe. It’s really quite simple to prepare, and you can make both the pesto and the pizza dough in advance.

Feel free to use a store-bought pizza shell, such as a Boboli thin crust pizza shell, or make your own. If you have a bread machine, homemade pizza dough is really a snap. Just put the ingredients in, turn the machine on, and two hours later, you have perfect pizza dough.

Another neat alternative is to buy uncooked pizza dough from your favorite local pizzeria. Most will sell you a round of homemade dough if you just ask. Trader Joe’s also sells uncooked pizza dough from time to time. Last I checked, they had a special on uncooked pizza dough for 99 cents. Can’t beat that!

If you’re using any uncooked pizza dough, you will need a pizza peel or silicone mat to slide the dough from your work surface to the pizza stone or cookie sheet. This makes the crust taste the crispiest.

Shrimp and Spinach Pesto Pizza

1 14-inch store-bought pizza shell or homemade pizza dough
1 recipe for roasted shrimp (below)
1/4 cup spinach pesto (recipe below)
4 oz. goat cheese, crumbled

If you’re using a store-bought pizza shell, skip step 3. There’s no need to prebake the dough.

Step 1. Prepare the roasted shrimp (recipe below).

Step 2. Prepare the spinach pesto (recipe below).

Step 3. Prepare the pizza dough: If you’re using homemade pizza dough or uncooked pizza dough from a store, place a pizza stone, pizza pan or an empty rimless cookie sheet in the oven and preheat it to 475 degrees F. Allow the empty pizza stone, pizza pan or cookie sheet to stay in the oven a good 20-30 minutes while you’re preparing the dough. It is this preheating that makes the crust taste crispy on the outside, yet chewy on the inside, like pizza from a brick oven.

Roll the dough out onto a cutting board or silicone mat sprinkled with cornmeal. Press or roll the dough into a 14-inch round (or whatever shape you like — it doesn’t really matter). Brush the dough with 1 Tbsp. of olive oil. Using a pizza peel or silicone mat, slide the dough onto your preheated pizza stone, pizza pan or cookie sheet. Bake 8 minutes. Remove the dough from the oven.

Step 4. Spread the spinach pesto sauce evenly over the homemade pizza dough or pizza shell, leaving a 3/4-inch border around the edge. Sprinkle the roasted shrimp evenly over the pesto sauce, then top with the goat cheese. Return to the oven and bake 2 more minutes, just until the cheese melts. Do not overbake or the shrimp will become rubbery. Remove immediately and serve.

To make the Roasted Shrimp:

1 lb. large raw shrimp, peeled and deveiled
1 tsp. olive oil
kosher salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place shrimp on a jelly roll pan and sprinkle with olive oil, salt and pepper. Turn to make sure shrimp are well coated. Spread out in a single layer and roast exactly 5 minutes — no more! Set a timer. This will avoid overcooking the shrimp. Remove from the oven and set aside. Increase the oven temperature to 475 degrees F to cook the pizza.

To make the Spinach Pesto:

2 cups fresh spinach (tightly packed)
3 cloves garlic
2 oz. Parmesan cheese
2 Tbsp. toasted pine nuts
1/4 cup olive oil

Place the spinach, garlic, Parmesan cheese and pine nuts in a food processor fitted with a metal blade and pulse several times, until the mixture starts to become uniform. Drizzle in the olive oil and process until smooth.