Over the past year my family has adopted a Friday night pizza tradition. The kids lovingly refer to this as "double-pizza day." It's a double pizza day for them because they get pizza for lunch at school AND pizza for dinner that night. Even though pizza Fridays stay the same, we change up what pizza we have from week to week. We rotate between ordering out from a restaurant, making homemade from scratch, grabbing a frozen pizza from the freezer or making a combination of homemade and premade by using a premade crust.
This Friday we are making a combination of homemade pizza and premade pizza by using Stonefire brand naan for the crust. This is one of my favorite ways to make a quick and easy pizza. I am all about making homemade meals convenient so I usually do not make my naan bread from scratch, but if you want to, go for it! Naan bread is a traditional flatbread from India that has a soft, pillowy texture and a mild, buttery flavor.
My children never want a fancy pizza combination. They are typical kids and just want plain cheese pizza or pepperoni pizza. I always purchase the naan rounds for them. The rounds look very similar to any other kind of pizza crust. My husband and I prefer a more sophisticated combination of flavors so I love to get creative when making our pizzas!
When I make my Ricotta and Spinach Pizza with Garlic Basil Sauce for my husband and myself, I use the Stonefire Original Mini Naan bread. The measurements and recipe instructions are for the mini naan pieces. The entire recipe can be easily adapted to any size of naan bread though. Once you have made the garlic basil cheese sauce and purchased the rest of the ingredients, you will have more than enough to make any size pizza that you prefer.
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Ricotta & Spinach Pizza with Garlic Basil Sauce
If you have a craving for garlic and cheese, this pizza recipe will definitely satisfy you!
- Total Time: 25 minutes
- Yield: 4 1x
Ingredients
For the Garlic Basil White Sauce:
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 2 tablespoons all purpose flour
- 1 cup whole milk
- 1 cup grated parmesan cheese
- 2 tablespoons minced fresh garlic
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- pinch of ground pepper
- 1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh basil
For the pizzas:
- Stonefire Mini Original Naan (4 per package)
- 4 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil
- garlic powder
- ½ cup Garlic Basil White Sauce (see recipe above)
- 1 cup frozen spinach (thawed, drained and extra moisture squeezed out)
- 4 tablespoons ricotta cheese
- 1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
- dried oregano
Instructions
Garlic Basil White Sauce:
- The Garlic Basil White Sauce starts with a roux.* To make the roux, first melt the 2 tablespoons of butter in a small sauce pan on low heat. Once the butter is melted, whisk in the 2 tablespoons of all purpose flour. Whisk the flour and butter until a paste is formed. The paste will be smooth, have no clumps of flour and be light brown in color. Immediately after the paste is formed, add the 1 cup of whole milk to the sauce pan, increase the heat to medium-low and rapidly whisk the mixture. Continue rapidly whisking until the butter, flour and milk have thickened. You will know when the sauce has adequately thickened when it looks like it would completely coat the back of a spoon.
- After the sauce has thickened add in the parmesan cheese. Stir in the cheese until melted. The sauce will now be very thick.
- Next add in the fresh garlic, salt, pepper and fresh basil. Mix until combined and remove from heat.
Mini Naan Pizzas:
- Preheat your oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit. While the oven is preheating, line a baking sheet with parchment paper and place the 4 pieces of naan bread on the baking sheet.
- Once the oven is preheated, bake the naan on the baking sheet for 8 minutes.
- After the naan is baked, remove it from the oven and begin assembling your pizzas.
- First, carefully drizzle 1 teaspoon of olive oil (per pizza) across each pizza. Next sprinkle garlic powder evenly across each pizza.
- Now evenly divide your ½ cup of Garlic Basil White Sauce between all 4 pizzas. Spread the sauce across the pizzas. Each pizza will get about ⅛ cup of sauce.
- Top the white sauce with ¼ cup each spinach (¼ cup per pizza). You will need to use your fingers to evenly spread the spinach out.
- Top the the layer of spinach with 1 tablespoon (per pizza) of ricotta cheese. Place the tablespoon of ricotta cheese in the center of each pizza. The cheese will spread out and soften up while baking in the oven.
- Finally, sprinkle mozzarella cheese evenly across each pizza and then a sprinkling of dried oregano.
- Put the pizza back in the oven and bake for 5 minutes or until the mozzarella cheese is melted.
- After the cheese has melted, remove the pizzas from the oven and let cool for 5 minutes before serving.
Notes
*A roux is typically made from equal parts flour and fat, cooked together and used to thicken sauces. A roux is an excellent cooking technique to master as it is the base of almost all cheese sauces, used to thicken soups and many other sauces.
- Prep Time: 10
- Cook Time: 15
- Category: dinner
- Method: baking
- Cuisine: American
- Diet: Vegetarian
Keywords: pizza, naan, cheese, spinach, ricotta, basil
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