Pesto Chicken Pizza with Pinenuts and Feta

My husband and I used to go to the Rusted Sun Pizzeria in downtown Salt Lake City. I LOVED their chicken & pine nut pizza. So I made up this recipe one day in a burst of inspiration... I think it comes pretty close! This is our ALL-TIME favorite pizza ever. It's so yummy.

It might seem complicated because of all the recipes that go into preparing this pizza. But it's really not difficult at all. The day before, make pesto and marinate the chicken. The day-of, cook chicken and make the pizza dough. Then assemble the pizza at dinner time. It's a snap.

 

Pesto Pizza with Pine Nuts and Feta
Submitted by Erin

 

 

Preheat Pizza Stone in 400° oven. Roll out prepared pizza dough and place on preheated pizza stone. Top pizza dough with the following ingredients in order: 

1) Pesto (LIBERALLY spread pesto over the pizza, so you can’t see the dough through it, and up on top the edges so the crusts will have pesto on them as well.)
2) Feta cheese (about 4 oz)
3) Red onion slivers (about 1/3 onion -I like lots of red onion and tomatoes)
4) Chicken pieces (about 1 1/2 Grilled Lemon marinated breasts, diced and cooked)
5) Tomato slices (1-2 tomatoes, bite-sized slices)
6) Mozzarella cheese (to your liking)
7) Pine nuts (sprinkle over top)

Bake in 400° oven for 18-20 minutes.

 

 

Pesto
This recipe is from the Barefoot Contessa – she is a professional chef who has great cookbooks. I make multiple batches of pesto during the summer with basil from my garden. I use it for lots of recipes, and then the remaining pesto I freeze to use later in the winter and spring. I freeze it in icecube trays and then empty the frozen pesto cubes into freezer bags.

I love this recipe. I think it has a tendency to be too oily, though, so I usually only add 1 1/4 c. olive oil. Test it out and see what you prefer.  

¼ c. walnuts
¼ c. pignolis
3 T. diced garlic (9 cloves)
5 c. fresh basil leaves, packed
1 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 ½ c. good olive oil
1 c. freshly grated parmesan cheese

Place the walnuts, pignolis, and garlic in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade. Process for 30 seconds. Add the basil leaves, salt, and pepper. With the processor running, slowly pour the olive oil into the bowl through the feed tube and process until the pesto is finely pureed. Add the parmesan and puree for a minute. Serve, or store the pesto in the refrigerator or freezer with a thin film of olive oil on top. Makes 4 cups.

 

White Pizza Dough
I've posted this pizza dough before, but I'll put it here again for convenience. This Pesto Chicken Pizza is much better on a white pizza crust than a whole wheat pizza crust. Save the whole wheat for a tomato based sauce; the flavors in this pizza are best complimented with a white dough.

 

1 c warm water, divided
1 tsp sugar
1/4 oz package active dry yeast
3 Tbsp oil (olive oil or vegetable)
2 ½ c flour
1 tsp salt 

Put warm water in bowl. Stir in sugar and yeast and let proof for 1o minutes. Stir in rest
of ingredients. Mix until a ball, knead 10 minutes. Put additional oil in bowl and let rise in oil bowl for 1 ½ hours.


Lemon Grilled Chicken
Melanie introduced me to this recipe. It's already been posted on this blog. It's very very versatile and DELICIOUS. Use it on pizza, in salads, or serve it straight from the grill.

Juice of one lemon (~3 Tb lemon juice)
3 Tb oil
1 tsp minced garlic (~ 2 medium-large cloves)
1 tsp salt
¼ tsp pepper
½ tsp oregano
1 lb chicken breasts

Marinate chicken overnight. If I'm using this for a pizza or salad, I dice the raw chicken and marinate it that way. If it's diced it has more surface area to marinate and then you can get away with only marinating it for 8 or so hours. You can grill this indoors or outdoors, or you may use a skillet.