Recipe Monday: Hummus Pizza

Awhile back, MJ was scouring the internet looking for hummus recipes, and found a good one at Cook’s Illustrated‘s website (which we, of course, tinkered with further to our own taste). Enroute to this destination, however, he also ran across a recipe for Hummus Pizza at Recipezaar.com (now food.com). He badgered me for a week: “I need you to make me some pizza dough.” I procrastinated, thinking, “Really? Hot hummus?” “When are you going to make me some pizza dough?” I made the pizza dough, already.

MJ made the hummus and the caramelized onions and I roasted the red peppers and made the pizza. We’ve made this on store-bought crust and with jarred red peppers, as well, with good results, so if you don’t want to stand there forEVER, blackening a bell pepper over an open flame, peeling, seeding, etc., feel free to buy a jar. And of course, buying one of those shelf-stable pizza crust thingies is a huge time-saver, although I just make a large batch in my mixer, divide it into 4 pieces, and freeze what I’m not going to use right away.

The source recipe called for caramelizing 3 red onions. This yielded more onions than you can possibly put on one pizza, so we cut it down to 1. We also doubled the balsamic vinegar and added a pinch of salt and put the crushed rosemary in the onions, rather than sprinkled on the pizza. We also used nearly double the amount of hummus, because, well, we’re just like that.

We’ve made this several times, and it was consistently delicious each and every time. Try it!

Hummus Pizza

Ingredients:

One pizza crust (store-bought or homemade) – approx. 12″

1-1/2 to 2 cups of your favorite hummus

1 roasted red bell pepper, sliced into strips

1 large red onion, sliced thinly

4 Tbs. balsamic vinegar

pinch salt

1 tsp. dried rosemary leaves, crushed (optional)

Approx. 1 Tbs. olive oil to drizzle over the top (optional)

For the Onions:

Put the onions in a medium, non-stick pan, along with the balsamic vinegar and rosemary. Heat over medium-high, stirring occasionally, until the onions begin to soften. Reduce heat to medium and continue to cook until the onions have softened completely, and have taken on a sticky glaze.

You can do this part several days in advance and refrigerate the onions until needed.

For the Pizza:

Preheat the oven to 475º. If using a pizza stone, heat it up with the oven; if not, make sure your rack is in the lowest position.

Lay out your prepared pizza base or roll out your dough over a generous scattering of corn meal. Transfer to a peel or pan.

Spread the hummus generously and evenly over the pizza dough. Top with the caramelized onions and the red pepper strips. Drizzle a bit of olive oil over the top, if using.

Bake for 12 – 15 minutes.

Slice and enjoy!

Click here to see the recipe from which we adapted this. It’s a good jumping-off point to explore some other flavor combinations you might like.