Shrimp Pesto Pizza
A delicious balance of lemon shrimp, zesty basil pesto, sun-dried tomatoes, and creamy ricotta cheese. A classic pepperoni pizza is hard to beat BUT this shrimp pesto pizza might be a worthy contender. Don’t believe me? Try it for yourself and be the judge!
If you know the Frimmel house, you know we love our pizza. And we love trying new toppings, whether that’s at home making it ourselves or eating out. This shrimp pesto pizza is inspired by a pizza we had at a pizzeria here in Canada called Famoso. It has such a delicious combination of flavours with the shrimp, basil pesto, red onion, creamy ricotta, and sun-dried tomatoes. Honestly, it’s become a staple in our house.
So let’s get to it.
Ingredients
Pizza Dough: this can be homemade or store-bought. When camping, I typically buy the fresh dough from the deli section of our local grocery store and keep it in the fridge/cooler until 1-2 hours before I’m ready to cook. Make sure to take it out a little before you’re ready to cook so that it can come to room temperature first. This saves you from having to bring all the ingredients out camping. Alternatively, you can make the dough at home and transport it in a bowl inside your cooler.
Basil Pesto: this serves as the “pizza sauce” and brings in so much delicious flavour to this dish. Again, store bought it easiest but feel free to use homemade if you prefer!
Shrimp: I find pre-cooking the shrimp and storing in the cooler to be easiest when camping. I have also bought the frozen, cooked shrimp before and just defrosted it before adding it to the pizza. Both work great! I like to season the shrimp in a little olive oil, lemon juice, red chilli flakes, and salt and pepper.
Red Onion and Sun-dried Tomatoes: these are my favourite extra toppings for this pizza but feel free to experiment with other veggies like mushrooms, peppers, zucchini, etc.
Ricotta and Mozzarella Cheese: can’t have pizza without CHEESE! Dropping on small spoonfuls of ricotta adds a creamy decadence to this pizza. HIGHLY recommend.
Instructions
Start by preheating the pizza oven to ~450-500F. We used the Camp Chef Pizza Oven attachment on our Pro 14 double burner stove. Alternatively, you can also cook pizza over the campfire using a cast iron dutch oven. If you’re using a dutch oven, make sure to preheat it with hot coals below and on top for at least 15 minutes.
Roll out the pizza dough to your desired thickness and spread a thin layer of basil pesto sauce on top. Add red onions, cooked shrimp, sun-dried tomatoes, small spoonfuls of ricotta and top with mozzarella cheese.
Bake in the pizza oven until golden brown on the edges, making sure to turn the pizza occasionally so it cooks evenly, about 5-8 minutes. NOTE: if you’re using the dutch oven over the campfire, place the pizza inside the preheated dutch oven with 10 hot coals underneath and 20 hot coals on the lid. Cook for 15-20 minutes, making sure to check occasionally to make sure it doesn’t burn!
What are your favourite pizza toppings? I feel like the options are endless so drop your favs below!