Bacon Bleu Cheese Pizza

Inspiration: Pizza is one of my favorite foods. And I love a nice, greasy deep dish pizza with a big pile of cheesy, garlicy breadsticks as much as the next person. But truthfully, nine times out of 10, I’d much rather make pizza at home. I like to do this for health reasons, but I also love it because it’s one of my favorite ways to relax on a Friday night. I love to come home from work, crack open a beer with my hubby, and make a pizza with whatever ingredients we happen to have in the fridge. And even a homemade bacon pizza is healthier than one ordered for delivery.

What we Loved: B and I only recently started exploring bleu cheeses, because it took us a while to learn to like them. Now that we do, though, we really loved the bleu cheese flavor on this pizza. I scattered the crumbles of bleu cheese over the pizza, so we didn’t get a singular bleu cheese flavor with every bite, which might have been overpowering. Instead, there were little pockets of bleu cheese goodness throughout the pizza, which was perfect. Together with bacon and onion, this pizza definitely had a lot of strong, intense flavors, and we both really enjoyed it.

Helpful Hints:  If you’re not sure that you really like bleu cheese, then I wouldn’t try this pizza. While it’s not completely overpowering in its bleu cheese flavor, I would definitely say that you have to really enjoy bleu cheese to enjoy it on a pizza, even in crumbles. That being said, there’s nothing wrong with a bacon and onion pizza. :)

Similar Recipes: Bacon avocado pizza

Bacon Bleu Cheese Pizza
Source: Original Recipe

1/2 recipe pizza dough
Extra virgin olive oil
Mozzarella cheese, freshly shredded
3-4 ounces bleu cheese (I used roquefort)
10 strips bacon
1/2 small onion, diced
Freshly cracked black pepper

1. Add the bacon to a saute pan or griddle, and cook until crispy. Drain on paper towels, and then crumble into small pieces.

2. Spread the pizza dough onto a greased pizza pan. Drizzle with olive oil, and brush to distribute the oil completely over the dough.

3. Top with mozzarella cheese, the bacon crumbles, and the diced onions. Crumble the bleu cheese over the pizza, and top with a bit more mozzarella. Sprinkle with black pepper.

4. Bake at 450 for 10-12 minutes, or until the crust is browned.

Bacon Avocado Pizza

Cuisine: American

Inspiration: There really just aren’t a lot of things better than homemade pizza on a Friday night. When B and I were on our honeymoon a few years back, we ate at an Italian restaurant in San Francisco and ordered their “California” pizza, which had avocados and cilantro as a couple of the toppings. It was the first time that we’d ever had those flavors on a pizza, and we really loved it. With a spare avocado to be used, I decided to make my own avocado pizza.

What we Loved:  I think that this is the best pizza that I’ve ever made (aside from our margherita pizza, which is our all-time favorite). This was a good pizza. It’s heavy with toppings (literally heavy), and the toppings all taste really great together. I used Vidalia onion slices, bacon, chopped cilantro, and sliced avocado, and along with pizza sauce and mozzarella cheese, the flavor combination was just amazing. I really can’t rave enough about how good I thought this tasted. I particularly loved the salt from the bacon and the creamy richness from the avocado, which, by the way, I used plenty of.

Helpful Hints: There’s nothing too difficult about making this pizza. Just prepare and enjoy.

Other Pizza Recipes: pizza margherita, chicken pizzas

Bacon Avocado Pizza
Source: Original Recipe

1/2 recipe pizza dough (I used the dough in this recipe)
1/2 recipe pizza sauce (I used this recipe)
1 small Vidadlia onion, cut into slices
8 slices bacon, cut into strips and sauteed until browned
1/2-2 cups freshly shredded mozzarella cheese
1/2 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
1 large avocado, sliced

1. Grease a pizza pan. Spread out the pizza dough on the pan, using flour if necessary to help spread the dough. Top the dough with the pizza sauce, the cheese, the onion slices, and the bacon.

2. Cook the pizza in a preheated 400 degree oven for 12-15 minutes, or until the bottom of the pizza crust is browned and the cheese is browned.

3. Top the pizza with the cilantro and the avocado. Slice and serve.

Chicken Pizzas

B and I tend to enjoy suppers where we can sample a lot of different foods. We like to have wine and cheese suppers with all kinds of cheeses, breads, olives, etc., and every once in a while for some sort of special event we’ll throw together a bunch of appetizers. For a Friday pizza night this week, we did something similar and had four different mini pizzas. It was so fun to taste them all! I split my pizza dough into four small pieces, and then I sauteed a chicken breast, sliced it up, and included it on each pizza. I happened to have a ton of cheese and other odds and ends in the fridge to use up, so I had some fun and made these pizzas all very different from one another. If you have some extra time and are looking for a fun meal, we really enjoyed doing this!  Rather than typing out a recipe for each pizza, I’ll just list the ingredients that I used. I just threw all of the pizzas into a 400 degree oven at the same time for about 12-15 minutes.

The above pizza was my favorite. I used fig preserves, goat cheese, sauteed chicken breast, Parmesan cheese, and black pepper as the toppings, and it was awesome! I don’t usually like sweet and savory combinations, but this one was so good! I really can’t explain how good it was. The sweet fig preserves paired so well with the goat cheese and the Parmesan, and the chicken and black pepper added a really great savory flavor. It all blended together perfectly and was so creamy and delicious!

This pizza had a great Italian flavor. I brushed the crust with extra virgin olive oil, then topped it with mozzerella, sauteed chicken breast, chopped basil, pine nuts, sundried tomatoes, and Parmesan. I love this particular combination of flavors and use it all of the time in pastas, stuffed chicken breasts, couscous, paninis, etc., so I knew that the ingredients would taste great on a pizza, too. I’ve never had pine nuts on a pizza before, and while B didn’t end up caring for them too much on the pizza, I thought that they added a nice buttery flavor.

This was a standard barbeque chicken pizza. Barbeque sauce, sliced onions, sauteed chicken breast, mozzerella, and cheddar. I love barbeque sauce as a pizza sauce, so I used a lot! This was one of B’s favorites, and I loved it too. I think that cilantro would go really great on this pizza, and I definitely would have thrown it on top if I would have had any in the fridge. We loved this as it was, though! Nice and smoky from the barbeque sauce.

I used jalapeno pesto that I had in the freezer as a sauce for this pizza, and then I topped it with sauteed chicken breast, mozzerella, and roasted red peppers. B and I both loved it, and it was my favorite pizza of the night aside from the fig and goat cheese pizza. It had a nice spicy flavor from the jalapeno pesto and the peppers, but it wasn’t anywhere near too spicy. It just had a perfect little kick, almost with a little Mexican flavor. I think that this pizza would be great on the grill in the summer!

Mediterranean Pizza

I love homemade pizza, particularly on the weekends. It’s such a fun meal, and I like making it homemade because I can control the ingredients. Usually, we take the half-healthy approach….I use white flour pizza dough and full fat cheese, but then I use a sparing amount of cheese, a tablespoon or so of extra virgin olive oil as a light sauce, and fresh veggie toppings. We both thought that this particular pizza turned out great. I sauteed some portabella mushrooms in garlic and balsamic vinegar before adding them to the pizza along with black olives, roma tomatoes, feta and mozzerella cheeses, and a some spices. I was really surprised by how syrupy strong and delicious the balsamic vinegar was when biting into the mushrooms, and I’m thinking that it would probably taste really great to drizzle some balsamic vinegar over the whole pizza before putting it in the oven. We loved the pizza how it was, though, and along with a bottle of cabernet, it was a great Friday night meal.

Mediterranean Pizza
Source: Original Recipe

1/2 of one recipe of pizza dough
Extra virgin olive oil
3-4 fresh thyme sprigs, stems removed and finely minced
Pinch of oregano
2 portabella mushroom caps, sliced
3 cloves garlic, minced
2-3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 roma tomatoes, seeded and diced
8 oz black olives, sliced
8 oz mozzerella cheese, shredded
3-4 oz feta cheese, crumbed (I used a package of feta cheese with Mediterranean spices)
Pinch of black pepper

1. Heat a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil in a pan, and when it is hot, add the garlic. Saute for 30 seconds, and then add the mushrooms and the balsamic vinegar. Stir to coat, and cook until all of the water released from the mushrooms has evaporated, approximately 10-15 minutes.

2. While the mushrooms are cooking, preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Spray a pizza pan with nonstick spray, and spread the pizza dough on the pan. Brush  the dough with extra virgin olive oil, and sprinkle it with thyme and oregano.

2. Sprinkle 3/4 of the mozzerella cheese on the dough, and then add the cooked mushrooms and garlic, the tomatoes, and the black olives. Add the remaining mozzerella and the feta. Sprinkle with black pepper.

3. Cook the pizza until browned on the bottom and starting to brown on top, approximately 10-15 minutes.

Cilantro Shrimp Pizza

I was trying to use up a bunch of leftovers and came up with this pizza. I was sort of looking for a Mexican feel with the cilantro, shrimp, and tomatoes, but I was a little worried about how a pizza would taste with cilantro. It turned out that I loved the cilantro flavor, and this ended up being one of my favorite pizzas that I’ve made at home. I used a light coating of olive oil and garlic for the sauce, sprinkled it with a bunch of cilantro, and then I added the cheese and toppings. I also used a lot of feta cheese…one of my very favorite ingredients on pizza.

Cilantro Shrimp Pizza
Source: Original Recipe

Pizza dough (I use the dough in this recipe)
Extra virgin olive oil
Black pepper
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 bunch of cilantro, chopped
Mozzerella cheese, freshly shredded
Feta cheese (I used about 1/2 a container)
1 roma tomato, thinly sliced
1/3 package of turkey bacon, chopped into small pieces and cooked
12 shrimp, tails removed

1. Preheat the oven to 425.

2. Spread the pizza dough onto a pan and lightly brush with olive oil. Sprinkle with black pepper and the minced garlic cloves.

3. Sprinkle the cilantro on the pizza and top with some mozzerella. Add the tomato slices and cooked bacon, and then top with more mozzerella and feta.

4. Cook the pizza for approximately 10 minutes, or until the crust has browned. Meanwhile, drizzle a pan with olive oil and season the shrimp with salt and pepper. Saute until just cooked, only 2-3 minutes. Chop the cooked shrimp into smaller pieces.

5. Add the shrimp to the pizza and sprinkle with a little more mozzerella. Return the pizza to the oven and cook just until the additional cheese has melted, 1-2 minutes.

Pizza Margherita

This is our favorite pizza dough and our favorite pizza. A lot of people don’t add the basil to pizza margherita until after it’s out of the oven, but we like to bake ours right into the pizza. It may not be as pretty, but we think that the flavors really melt together best this way.

Pizza Dough
Source: Adapted from Cooks Illustrated
*Makes enough for three thin pizza crusts.

1 3/4 cups water, divided (1/2 cup of the water should be warm, the rest should remain at tap temperature)
2 1/4 teaspoons dry active yeast (1 envelope)
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
4 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons table salt
Non-stick cooking spray or extra virgin olive oil for brushing bowl

1. Measure 1/4 cup of warm water into a mixing bowl. Sprinkle in the envelope of yeast, and let stand until the yeast dissolves, approximately 10 minutes.

2. Add the remaining 1/4 cup warm water to the bowl, plus the remaining 1 1/4 cups of tap water and the 2 T of olive oil. Meanwhile, mix the flour and the salt in a large mixing bowl. Add the liquid ingredients (holding back a tablespoon or two) to the flour mixture and combine. If the dough does not readily form into a ball, add the remaining liquid and continue to mix. Process until the dough is smooth.

3. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured work surface and knead by hand to form a smooth, round ball. Put the dough into a large oiled bowl, and cover with a damp cloth. Let rise until doubled in size, about 2 hours.

4. Place the dough onto a lightly floured work surface and use a chef’s knife to cut the dough into three equal portions.

Pizza Margherita
Source: Original Recipe

I portion of pizza dough
Extra virgin olive oil
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
Mozzerella cheese, freshly shredded
1 large tomato, sliced as thinly as possible
1 bunch of basil, roughly chopped
Black pepper
Parmesan cheese

1. Preheat the oven to 425. 

2. Grease a pizza pan with extra virgin olive oil or nonstick spray and stretch out the dough to cover the pan.

3. Lightly brush the dough with extra virgin olive oil, taking care to brush the crust.  Sprinkle with chopped garlic.

4. Sprinkle approximately half of the freshly shredded mozzerella onto the pizza, and top with the sliced tomatoes and chopped basil.

5. Sprinkle the rest of the cheese over the tomato and basil.

6. Sprinkle with black pepper and parmesan cheese.

7. Bake for approximately 10-15 minutes.