This Vegan Potato Pesto Pizza is easy to make at home and ready in just 30 minutes! Full of fresh flavors and colorful herbs, this vegan dinner is topped with decadent cashew cheese and a creamy green sauce. Perfect for spring and summer dinners!
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Have you ever tried making pizza at home? To be honest, it's one of my favorite foods to eat out at a restaurant and I've never been one to regularly make it at home. However, I realized the main issue was that I NEVER felt like making dough myself. Perhaps this will change once I purchase a stand mixer, but in the meantime, I realized the key to getting over this roadblock was to just purchase pre-made dough at the grocery store. So simple and freezer-friendly! Today's recipe makes use of the 1-pound refrigerated dough from Trader Joe's.
How to Make Vegan Pesto Potato Pizza
Ingredients needed:
- Pre-made pizza dough (store-bought or your favorite recipe)
- Pre-made pesto (again, store-bought is fine)
- 1 Yukon gold potato
- Olive oil
- Cashews (for cashew cheese)
- Herbs and spices: Dried basil, cumin, lemon zest, sesame seeds, salt and pepper
Instructions:
- Preheat your oven to 450 degrees F. Mix the sesame mixture in a small bowl and set aside.
- Roll out your pizza dough on a floured surface or stretch with your hands to form a rough circle/square. Drizzle a little olive oil on the crust and coat with your fingers. Sprinkle the seed mixture evenly across the top.
- Coat the entire crust with pesto, reserving a small amount for additional topping while serving. Lay potatoes on the crust evenly. Drizzle with olive oil once more. Bake for 15 minutes, until cooked through and golden.
- While pizza is baking, blend cashew cheese in a food processor or high-speed blender, scraping down the sides as needed. Set aside. As soon as the pizza comes out of the oven, dollop of cashew cheese and more pesto.
Tips When Adding Potatoes to Pizza
- Slice the potatoes as thinly as possible. Thin, equally cut slices of potato will cook much more evenly and crisp at the same rate in the oven. If you have a mandolin, this is the perfect excuse to use it.
- Coat in olive oil before cooking. This again will act as a protective barrier to keep them from drying out and ensure they cook thoroughly.
- Add the potatoes in a single layer to the pizza. Slight overlap is fine, but try not to stack potatoes on top of one another. This will again help things cook more evenly.
How to Make Vegan Pesto in a Food Processor
- Add ½ cup walnuts to a food processor with a pinch of salt and one large garlic clove. Process to combine.
- Add ½ cup cashew parmesan and pulse once more to incorporate. Add a bit of lemon juice, if you'd like.
- Top the processor with a heaping cup or two of fresh basil. while the processor is running, stream in as much olive oil as needed to form the desired texture (it's often more than you think!).
To be honest, I rarely measure ingredients when making pesto and find this formula to be rather loose. Pine nuts are the more traditional base; they are very expensive, so slivered almonds or walnuts are my go-tos. Cashew parm can be substituted for regular parmesan (or your favorite dairy-free brand). I am never able to keep my basil plants alive so will often mix in fresh parsley (even the stems). Love pesto? Try Pesto Tomato Toast Tartine or this Grilled Veggie Party Sub with Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto.
Topping Ideas for Potato Pesto Pizza
- Fresh herbs, like parsley and basil
- More pesto and cashew cheese
- Pumpkin seeds or pistachios, for crunch
- Red pepper flakes, for heat
- Edible flowers!
How to Reheat Pizza
Homemade pizza especially can get rather tough after refrigeration, and microwaving often makes this worse. The best way to reheat pizza is to add 1 TBS of oil to a cast iron skillet over medium heat. Add your pizza, cover, and let cook for 1-2 minutes. This will ensure your toppings reheat while the bottom layer once again becomes crisp. I also use this trick when reheating takeout pizza.
This recipe can be made ahead, but I recommend reserving the optional toppings (pesto, cashew cheese, nuts, herbs) for just before serving.
More Vegan Pizza Recipes
Easiest Grilled Flatbread (for homemade dough)
Vegan Pesto Potato Pizza
Ingredients
For sesame mixture
- 2 teaspoon dried basil or oregano
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1 TBS lemon zest
- 1 TBS sesame seeds
- Pinch each salt & pepper
For Pizza
- 1 lb prepared pizza dough or this flatbread recipe
- Olive oil
- 1.5 cups pesto sauce
- 1 large Yukon gold potato, thinly sliced into rounds
- For serving: microgreens sunflower seeds, fresh basil, fresh parsley
For cashew cheese
- 1 cup cashews soaked in boiling water for 10 minutes and drained
- 2 TBS lemon juice
- Pinch salt
- 2 TBS nutritional yeast
- Splash of unsweetened almond milk if necessary
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 450 degrees F (see notes to prepare this on the grill). Mix sesame mixture in a small bowl and set aside.
- Roll out your pizza dough on a flour surface or stretch with your hands to form a rough circle/square. Lay dough on a cornmeal-dusted baking sheet or pizza stone. Drizzle a little olive oil on crust and coat with your fingers. Sprinkle the seed mixture evenly across the top.
- Coat the entire crust with pesto, reserving a small amount for additional topping while serving. Lay potatoes on crust evenly, as pictured above. Drizzle with olive oil once more. Bake for 15 minutes, until cooked through and golden.
- While pizza is baking, blend cashew cheese in a food processor or high speed blender, scraping down the sides as needed. If a cohesive mixture is not forming, add a few tablespoons of almond milk. Set aside.As soon as the pizza comes out of the oven, dollop cashew cheese and more pesto on as pictured above.
- Top with microgreens, pumpkin seeds for crunch, and fresh herbs. Best enjoyed immediately! If reheating, do so in a cast iron skillet to insure crispiness.
Dan Meyers says
Looks delicious!
Emily says
Thank you 🙂
somethingaboutfoodandfitness says
This is so pretty! I definitely have to make it.
Emily says
Thank you so much, please let me know what you think!