Corn, Squash and Goat Cheese Pizza

This Corn, Squash and Goat Cheese Pizza is fresh, cheesy, and packed with summer flavor. Topped with sweet corn, tender squash, creamy goat cheese, and herbs, this easy homemade pizza is perfect for weeknight dinners or entertaining.

Prep Time15

Cook Time15

Pizza dough2 15

Total Time30

Course: Dinner

Cuisine: American

Keyword: Corn, Squash and Goat Cheese Pizza

Servings:

Calories: 514kcal

Ingredients

1 medium yellow squash cut into ribbons with vegetable peeler
1 ¼ cups Italian blend shredded cheese*
2 teaspoon minced garlic
5 oz honey flavored goat cheese*
⅔ cup corn (fresh, or frozen thawed)
1 tablespoon olive oil (for brushing crust)
½ cup fresh basil leaves
4-6 zucchini blossoms (optional)
Balsamic glaze*
pizza dough of choice

Pizza Dough (makes 2 thin crusts or 1 thick crust 14” pizza)

1 cup warm water
1 teaspoon honey
1 teaspoon active dry yeast
1 ¾ cups unbleached all-purpose flour
Olive oil to coat dough and pan
Additional flour, for kneading
Cornmeal, for dusting pan

Instructions

If making the homemade dough

Preparing the dough. In a 2 cup liquid measure or bowl, whisk honey, warm water and yeast to combine and let rest for 3 minutes to allow yeast to bloom. When ready, yeast should form a frothy top the surface.
Add flour to a large bowl and mound it into a rounded pile. Using your fingers, make a small well in the center.
Add the proofed yeast/liquid to the well little by little, combining with your hands as you go and forming new wells until a slightly sticky dough forms.
Kneading. Once a dough comes together, knead the dough on a floured board by hand for 5 minutes until smooth, folding over as you knead to create air pockets.
First rise. Oil a large clean, non-reactive bowl (a sturdy plastic bowl is great) with olive oil- being sure to spread the oil around with your hands to get the bowl well coated.
Use your oiled hands to moisten dough on all sides, and place into the oiled bowl. Cover the bowl with a clean, dampened dish towel or tea towel and let rest on the counted for 1 hour.
Second Rise. After 1 hour, gently punch the dough down, reshape into a ball and place back into oiled bowl for 1 more hour, covered with the damp towel. After.1 hour, the dough is ready to bake. If making thin crust pizza, split dough into 2 balls for the second rise. This recipe makes one pizza- so if only making 1, store additional dough in the refrigerator up to one week, or in the freezer up to 2 months.

Baking and assembling the pizza

When ready to bake, preheat your oven to 500 degrees. Leave oven on 500 degrees for 30 minutes to ensure it is HOT. This makes for an evenly cooked, well browned and consistent pizza.
Coat a 14” pizza pan with olive oil, and lightly dust it with cornmeal.
Remove dough from bowl after second rise and stretch or roll to desired size- I use a 14” pizza pan. You could also stretch the full dough recipe to fit a standard sheet pan, or free form a smaller, rustic style pizza on a sheet pan with ½ the dough for a thin crust.
Brush the dough evenly with 1 tablespoon oil, concentrating on the outer edges.
Layer on an even coating of the Italian shredded cheese, leaving about a 1” gap on the outer edges.
Layer the garlic evenly over the cheese.
Using a vegetable peeler, shave ribbons of squash directly over pizza dough, adjusting as necessary to make an even layer.
Layer the corn evenly over the squash ribbons.
Layer on the squash blossoms. If using the squash blossoms, be sure to throughly clean them and remove the stamens.
Lastly, layer the crumbed goat cheese evenly over the top.
Transfer pan to the oven, and bake for 12-15 minutes, until cheese is melted and bubbly and curst is deep golden brown.
Once pizza is baked, layer on the fresh basil leaves, and drizzle generously with balsamic glaze. Cut with a pizza cutter and serve.

Nutrition