Good Eats at the TEOTWAWKI Café—Zucchini Pizza

I might be going out on a limb here, but in uncertain times I truly believe that most people are going to plant a lot of zucchini in their gardens.  It’s prolific, versatile, and you’re virtually guaranteed to harvest a good crop.  And it starts producing rather early in the summer and continues until the first hard frost.  It’s possible to harvest for three months and then continue enjoying it for another couple of weeks if refrigerated, and several more months if frozen.  Wisdom supports the utility of having many diverse ways of preparing this oft-maligned veggie.

And so I got the idea that there must be a recipe out there for making a zucchini pizza crust.  And yes, there were quite a few.  I settled on one that I thought would adapt well to Dutch oven cooking if that became necessary.

Zucchini Pizza

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 pound (3 cups) zucchini, coarsely grated

1 teaspoon salt, divided

1 large egg

1 teaspoon Italian seasoning

Dash black pepper, or to taste

6 ounces grated mozzarella cheese, divided

1/3 cup pizza sauce

Fresh basil leaves and/or crushed red pepper flakes, optional

Preheat oven to 400°F.  Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.  Grease the parchment with the olive oil.

Place the grated zucchini in a colander over a bowl.  Toss with ½ teaspoon of the salt.  Let sit 10-15 minutes.  In the meantime, whisk together the egg, Italian seasoning, ½ teaspoon salt, and pepper.  Stir in 1 cup of the cheese. 

Squeeze any remaining liquid from the zucchini using your hands or pressing through a flour sack towel.  Add the zucchini to the egg mixture and stir well.

Spread the mixture on the prepared cookie sheet and press it into a large, thin circle about 8” wide.  Bake on the lowest rack of the oven about 20 minutes, or until the bottom of the crust is golden and crispy.  Remove from oven.

Place a second cookie sheet directly on the crust.  Quickly flip the baking sheets.  Remove the hot baking sheet and parchment paper.  Return the crust to the oven on the lowest rack and bake another 5-10 minutes, or until the crust is golden-brown and crispy. 

Remove the crust from the oven and set the broiler to high.  Sprinkle the crust with half of the remaining cheese.  (This helps prevent the sauce from making the crust soggy.) Spread pizza sauce over the cheese.  And then sprinkle the remaining cheese on top.  Add your favorite toppings.  Broil on the upper rack about 2-3 minutes, or until the cheese is bubbly and brown.  Garnish with torn fresh basil leaves and crushed red pepper flakes, if desired. 

Family reviews:  OK, the crust isn’t quite as filling or satisfying as a bread dough pizza crust.  And it probably takes a bit more hands-on time to make.  I thought it tasted ok, okay enough to eat several slices.  It wasn’t as crispy as I thought it should be, which may be attributed to operator error.  Becky didn’t like it at all, though she did confess that it wasn’t repulsive, just not her cup of tea.  Aaron ate a few slices, but it clearly wasn’t his favorite, either.  We all agreed that we’d rather eat the zucchini mini pizzas that I’d made last year.  I think this recipe will be entirely acceptable to those with less finicky taste buds.

Links to related posts:

Zucchini Mini Pizzas