Name: Caramelized Onion and Apple Pizza
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 30 min
Yield: 4-8 servings
Ingredients: 2 slices bacon, diced (optional) or 2 tablespoons unsalted butter; 1 large yellow or sweet onion, thinly sliced; 1 large apple, cored and thinly sliced; 1 teaspoon salt; 1 recipe pizza dough, your favorite; olive oil; 4 ounces mozzarella or other cheese, grated; 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Though unconventional, caramelized onion and apple pizza is delicious and makes your homemade pizza a little more special than the standard cheese and pepperoni (not that there’s anything wrong with that!) using ingredients that you probably already have in your house!

I know that apple pizza might sound a little bizarre but hear me out on this. You guys know that I would never lead you astray.

You might think that as a food blogger I never suffer from bouts of just not wanting to cook. Sometimes it’s about actually not wanting to cook and other times it’s about a craving…usually Mexican but sometimes something more lowbrow like (gasp!) fast food. When the “don’t wannas” strike it’s good to have some back-ups that feel like fast food but aren’t.

Like tacos, or risotto, or pizza. Pizza is one of those foods that you can just throw anything on and dang, it’s good. Pizza is a receptacle for the leftovers in my fridge and the items in my pantry that I probably won’t use for anything else.

Sometimes a pizza craving strikes and we’ll grab Domino’s or Pizza Hut but usually when a pizza craving strikes I can talk myself out of it because when you can make pizza at home with little to no effort why would you spend extra money to eat pizza that you usually end up deciding isn’t as good as what you’d make yourself? Wow, that was a major run-on sentence. Anyway…that’s how this caramelized onion and apple pizza came about. I was actually going to rephotograph my baked potato pizza, but then I remembered that (a) I was almost out of sour cream; and (b) I had a green apple in my fruit drawer that needed to be used.

So there you go. Caramelized onion and apple pizza. I used a yellow storage onion because it’s what I had, but bonus points if you have a sweet onion (like a Vidalia, which of course is what I would use). And a Granny Smith apple, but again…use what you have. Smoked mozzarella was delicious here, but regular mozzarella would be great as would Gouda…and if I had some blue cheese it would have worked marvelously here. Oh, and I used bacon, because when you have Benton’s bacon in the house you’ll find any reason to use it….but it would be great without too. Just use some butter to cook the apples and onions instead. The flavors of those apples and onions cooked down until practically syrupy was a perfect compliment for the salty cheese.

Caramelized onion and apple pizza for the win!

Yield: 4-8 servings

Caramelized Onion and Apple Pizza

15 minPrep Time:

30 minCook Time:

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Ingredients

2 slices bacon, diced (optional) or 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 large yellow or sweet onion, thinly sliced
1 large apple, cored and thinly sliced
1 teaspoon salt
1 recipe pizza dough, your favorite
olive oil
4 ounces mozzarella or other cheese, grated
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Instructions

Preheat a 10-inch skillet over medium heat. Sauté the bacon until crisp then remove to a paper towel lined plate. If not using the bacon, skip this step and melt 2 tablespoons of butter in the skillet instead.
Add the apples, onions, and salt to the pan and sauté over medium heat, stirring frequently, until cooked down and caramelized. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 450 degrees (I preheat my stoneware pizza pan but you can also use a baking sheet) with the rack at the highest level.
Roll out the pizza dough on a floured surface or a large sheet of parchment paper. Spray or brush with olive oil. Distribute the onions and apples over the pizza dough and sprinkle with the mozzarella. Top with the bacon, if using, then finish with the Parmesan.
Bake the pizza for 10 minutes or until the cheese has lightly browned. Cut into wedges and serve immediately.

Notes

Placing the rack at the top level of the oven allows the heat to bounce off the roof of the oven, which will cook the top of the pizza more efficiently.