I’ve been tossing around the idea of making a ‘nacho’ pizza for a few weeks now. I haven’t been able to nail down exactly what I want to use for the sauce – refried beans? Nacho cheese sauce? But I know it would be topped with the normal nacho ingredients and … nacho chips.
As a warm-up to the nacho pizza, I made this vegetarian pizza with two different kinds of beans. My dad and sister approved. My dad said I could sell this pizza while my sister commented that it’s pizza-restaurant worthy.
ingredients.
- 8 oz pizza dough
- olive oil
- salt and pepper
- 1 15-oz can refried beans (I used salsa style)
- 12 oz shredded mexican cheese
- 1/2 red onion, chopped
- 1 large jalapeño, chopped
- 4 Roma tomatoes, de-seeded and diced
- 1 15-oz can black beans, rinsed and drained
- two 8-inch tortillas cut into strips and covered evenly in a small amount of vegetable oil
directions.
- Remove pizza dough from the refrigerator and let sit at room temperature for 20 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 425 degrees and spray a 16-inch round pizza pan with cooking spray.
- With a pizza cutter, cut tortillas into small strips about 1/2 inch by one-inch long. Place in a plastic Ziploc baggy and pour a small amount of vegetable oil in the bag. Sprinkle with a small amount of salt. Seal the bag and toss the ingredients until the strips are evenly coated. Set aside.
- Using flour (if necessary), begin to stretch the dough out into as large of a circle as possible. Place on the pizza sheet and work the dough at the edges using the heel of your hand to press and stretch toward the edge of the sheet. This will take a few minutes. Try to make the crust of the pizza as even as possible or you’ll have pockets of thicker chewy crust when the pizza is cooked. Or use a rolling-pin to stretch the dough out evenly.
- Once the crust is stretched all the way to the edge of the pan, sprinkle with salt and pepper and olive oil (enough to lightly cover the crust). With the back of a spoon, spread enough refried beans on the crust so that it’s evenly distributed. There should be a thin layer of beans.
- Sprinkle with cheese, onion, jalapeño, tomato, black beans and tortilla strips.
- Place back in the oven and bake the pizza for 25 to 30 minutes or until edges of the pizza are beginning to brown and turn crisp. Remove from the oven and let sit for five minutes before slicing. Top with sour cream, guacamole or salsa if desired. Enjoy!
After many, many months of making pizza by painstakingly spreading pizza dough onto my pan with the heel of my hand (and fingers), I had an epiphany which occurred while watching Eat Pray Love this morning: use a rolling-pin.
It worked so much easier and faster! Though I will say that it took me two turns to get a circle-shaped disc of dough thanks to the elasticity of the dough.
I didn’t say this in the directions because I wouldn’t do it again, but I pre-baked the crust for five minutes first. Then baked the pizza for another 25 minutes. The pizza was so loaded down with veggies and beans that the middle wasn’t piping hot when I cut into it. However, I couldn’t cook it any longer because the crust was beginning to brown way too much.
My idea to crisp the tortillas by coating them in vegetable oil worked very well, though I suppose they would still brown without the oil.
I would have loved to add some chicken or ground beef to the pizza but I let my dad make the call on having a vegetarian dish or not and he chose vegetarian.
Recipe rating:
Food Snob 