Autumn is finally here! While we're certainly starting to miss the warmth and extra daylight, it's great to start experimenting with some new fall flavors.
This
sweet potato pesto white pizza
is the perfect way to bring in the fall.
Besides for the pizza dough, it's packed with whole plant based ingredients.
Yes, this includes the vegan ricotta cheese which is made from white beans, cashews, and tofu!
This recipe is quick and easy to make, especially if you opt for a pre-made pizza dough.
Enjoy!
Prep Time
30 minutes (excluding dough)
A slice of pizza after it was assembled and baked.
This is a great recipe to have fun with as once you have the sweet potato base, you can omit or add any toppings that you'd like.
Enjoy!
Love Potatoes? Check Out These Sweet Potato Fry Cutters & Slicers...
Ingredients
In case you wanted to leave out parts of the pizza, we've separated out all of the ingredients and steps for each different element. Even though the recipe seems long because of this, don't worry!
A square slice of the sweet potato vegan pizza
We promise it's easy!
Pizza Dough
We made our pizza dough in our Cuisinart bread maker by adding the following ingredients and pressing go. And yes, we forgot to add sugar to help activate the yeast (because the recipe called for honey), but you can add 3/4 a tsp of sugar.
- 1 cup room temperature water
- 1 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 3 cups ivory wheat flour
- 1/2 cup whole wheat flour
- 1 3/4 tsp of bread machine yeast
Side Note: Trying to figure out how to go vegan in a healthy and sustainable way?
Check out this vegan starter kit
A
store-bought vegan crust will also work fine if you don't feel like making your own dough.
Otherwise, you can make your own following any dough recipe.
Vegan Ricotta Cheese
The Vegan Ricotta Cheese in this recipe is made from the following ingredients:
- 1 block of tofu
- 1 can of white beans
- 1/2 of a medium lemon (squeezed)
- 1/2 cup of cashews
- 1/4 cup of nutritional yeast
- Salt
- Pepper
- Onion powder
Sweet Potato Base
The sweet potato spread that makes up the bottom layer of the pizza is the following:
- 2-3 boiled and thoroughly mashed sweet potatoes
- Garlic powder
- Onion powder
- Salt
- Pepper
It's basically just mashed sweet potatoes with some seasonings.
Pesto Paste
This pesto paste so good you can eat it by itself.
It's the key component to making this pizza stand out from the crowd.
If you have leftover sunflower pesto, you can eat it right out of the container!
- 3 handfuls or around 4 ounces of basil
- 1/3 cup of raw hulled sunflower seeds (can roast for additional flavor)
- Juice of 1/2 a lemon
- 1/4 cup nutritional yeast
- 1-2 tbsp of olive oil
- 1 tbps of minced garlic
- Salt
- Pepper
Other Toppings
We topped out pizza with the following ingredients after we laid on the sweet potato, cheese, and pesto. You can absolutely experiment with whatever you'd like here or omit these ingredients. Some crispy tofu would be an excellent addition!
For extra-crispy tofu, you have to get rid of the excess moisture before deep-frying or air frying by using a tofu press. You can check out this list for best tofu press options if you're considering to buy one.
- Beets
- Arugala
- Extra sunflower seeds
Directions
Now that you've got all of the ingredients you need. Here's how you make the pizza. Once you get the crust ready, you'll be able to make it really quickly!
Step One: Sweet Potato Spread
- Take your 2-3 medium sweet potatoes and slice them in half without peeling them.
- Throw them into a boiling pot of water and boil until soft.
This should take 10-15 minutes.
- Take the sweet potatoes and throw them into a colander.
Rinse with cool water.
- Once cool, you can ask your hands to easily remove the skin.
- Once the skin is removed, place into a bowl and mash or use a hand blender until smooth.
- Season with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder to taste.
Step Two: Vegan Ricotta Cheese
Making the vegan ricotta cheese is a two step process.
It's easy once you do it, so don't get overwhelmed by the steps!
This is what the cheese looks like before the second step of blending.
- Put the white beans, cashews, nutritional yeast, and lemon juice into a blender (see our
best blender for cashew cream picks here).
- If your blender can't fully liquefy nuts, you can soak the cashews for 30 minutes to an hour beforehand.
- Once you've made a thick liquid out of all of these ingredients, it's time to add in the tofu.
Adding it in after means that the cheese will have a texture to it, like a real ricotta cheese.
- If your blender has multiple speeds, add in the tofu and blend on the lowest setting or
pulse so that it doesn't liquefy.
- Alternatively, you can throw the tofu and cheese sauce into a food processor and pulse until you get the right texture.
- The final product may taste a bit bland, so add your salt, pepper, and onion powder to taste.
- You can also increase the "zing" of the cheese by adding a bit more yeast and lemon.
Step Three: Sunflower Seed Vegan Pesto
This sunflower seed pesto paste is what gives this pizza the extra kick!
You can technically make the entire thing without it, but making it really takes the pizza to the next level.
- Add the sunflower seeds, half a lemon, basil, nutritional yeast, olive oil, minced garlic to the food processor.
- Process until it becomes a chunky paste and add salt and pepper to taste.
- If you want to make a thinner pesto sauce, you can add more olive oil and then drizzle it over the pizza instead.
Step Four: Assemble the Pizza!
No complicated instructions needed here. This is the fun part!
This is what your pizza should look like before putting it in the oven.
- Spread the mashed sweet potato on top of the pizza crust.
- Follow that by doing dollops of the vegan ricotta cheese on top of that.
Depending on your preferences, you can make thick or thin dollops.
We did ours pretty thick.
- Place the sunflower pesto paste between the dollops of cheese and layer the beets on any barren spots.
- Sprinkle the entire pizza with arugula or raw spinach and place into the oven.
- Enjoy!
This looks amazing! I’ll be sure to try it this weekend.