Sure, you can buy a prepared crust, but rolling your own is easier than you think, and using “00” extra-fine Italian flour yields a perfect 10 crust, one that’s light and airy with a crisp exterior. When it comes to toppings, this one has mastered balancing taste and texture, allowing ingredients to shine in every bite with a combination of freshly grated mozzarella, dollops of creamy ricotta, shallots, herbs, and garlic-sautéed mushrooms.–Julie Albert & Lisa Gnat
Why Our Testers Loved This
Our testers are a discerning bunch when it comes to pizza, but this easy mushroom and ricotta pizza quickly won their accolades. They were impressed by how quickly the dough came together and the excellent flavor of the finished pizza.
Jenny Latreille summed it up best. “I make a lot of pizza at home. A lot. This recipe is easy to put together and delivers an excellent finished pizza.”
What You’ll Need to Make This
- Mushrooms–Use your favorite assorted mushrooms here. Regular button mushrooms will work well, but if you have access to them, try adding shiitake, oyster, or cremini mushrooms.
- Pizza dough–This recipe provides a quick and easy pizza dough, but you can use your favorite store-bought or homemade pizza dough here.
- Mozzarella cheese–For best results, use the best-quality, low-moisture pizza mozzarella you can find, and shred it yourself. Pre-shredded cheese doesn’t melt well.
- Ricotta cheese–This adds a creamy richness to your pie and shouldn’t be skipped. If you’ve got the time, we highly recommend making your own ricotta.
How to Make This Recipe
- Heat the oven to 450°F. Heat a baking stone or baking sheet in the oven for 30 minutes.
- Sauté the mushrooms and shallots in oil until golden. Stir in the garlic, oregano, thyme, and salt and cook for 1 minute more.
- Roll out each pizza into a 12-inch circle. Brush them with oil, and top with mozzarella, ricotta, and the mushroom mixture.
- Bake the pizzas one at a time until golden. Top with Parmesan cheese before serving.
Common Questions
White pizza is, quite simply, pizza without a red sauce. Typically there’s no sauce whatsoever. Some renditions of white pizza have a cream sauce, which can be lovely, though as you’ll experience here, it’s entirely unnecessary.
Mushrooms that are stored improperly can become dry and shriveled or, worse yet, wet and slimy. To keep your mushrooms fresh, store them in the refrigerator in a paper bag or wrap them in paper towel. Store them in the main area of the fridge, as the humidity in the crisper is too high for mushrooms.
Helpful Tips
- The pizza dough can be prepared a day in advance and stored in an oiled, covered container in the refrigerator. Bring to room temperature before rolling and topping.
- A pizza peel is the best tool for transferring pizza to a baking stone or the oven. If you’re uncomfortable attempting to transfer your pizza stone with a peel, simply slide the parchment containing the pizza directly onto the baking stone.
- This mushroom pizza recipe is suitable for vegetarian diets. To make it gluten-free, substitute gluten-free pizza dough.
More Great Pizza Recipes
Write a Review
If you make this recipe, or any dish on LC, consider leaving a review, a star rating, and your best photo in the comments below. I love hearing from you.–David
We loved the flavours in this vegetarian pizza. The combination of the mushrooms, spices and cheeses made this a keeper in our books!
Angelene
Mushroom Pizza with Ricotta
Ingredients
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 to 1 1/4 pounds sliced mixed mushrooms, such as cremini, shiitake, or white button
- 1 large shallot, thinly sliced
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more for the crust
- 1 recipe quick pizza dough, divided into two balls
- 2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
- 1 1/2 cups ricotta cheese
- Shaved Parmesan cheese, for garnish
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 450ºF (232°C). Place your pizza stone in the oven to preheat for 30 minutes before cooking the pizza. (If you don’t have a stone, you can use a baking sheet.)
- In a large skillet over medium-high heat, warm 2 tablespoons of the oil. Add the mushrooms and shallot and cook, stirring occasionally, until the mushrooms are golden and the liquid has evaporated, about 10 minutes.
- Add the garlic, oregano, thyme, and salt. Continue cooking for 1 minute more. Remove from the heat and cool completely.
- On lightly floured piece of parchment paper, roll each dough ball into a 12-inch (30-cm) circle. Brush the edges of both pizza crusts with the remaining 1 tablespoon oil and sprinkle the edges with a pinch of salt. Top the area within the edges of both crusts with the mozzarella, dollops of ricotta, and the mushroom mixture.
- Transfer 1 pizza at a time to the preheated stone and bake until the crust is golden, 12 to 16 minutes.
- Remove from the oven and top with shaved Parmesan cheese. Slice and serve.
Notes
- Get ahead–The pizza dough can be prepared a day in advance and stored in an oiled, covered container in the refrigerator. Bring to room temperature before rolling and topping.
- Use a peel–A pizza peel is the best tool for transferring pizza to a baking stone or the oven. If you’re uncomfortable attempting to transfer your pizza stone with a peel, simply slide the parchment containing the pizza directly onto the baking stone.
- Dietary–This mushroom pizza recipe is suitable for vegetarian diets. To make it gluten-free substitute gluten-free pizza dough.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Recipe Testers’ Reviews
While I NEVER object to a pizza night, I don’t always plan well enough ahead (ideally a day before). I’ve tried several methods of “hurry up” or used same-day doughs but always felt a little disappointed. This dough is definitely an exception and turns out an absolutely delicious pizza that really does all come together in about 2 hours.
So is it a walk-in-the-door and-make-pizza recipe or a weekend project? Both! And it has a secret bonus that knocked my socks off.
Even with the most ordinary button mushrooms and A/P flour (I love Beehive from Central Milling), this worked and focused the flavors for a great pizza bianco (I would almost never make a tomato-based sauce if it was up to me).
Because we’re a small household, I only wanted to cook one pizza, so I saved the second ball of dough in an oiled one-quart container in the fridge for the next day. My bonus pizza.
On both nights, I gave an extra four minutes for the pizza, resulting in nice browning of the topping, the golden-brown crust, and, on the second night, those beautiful airy bubbles of a long-fermented dough. To steal a term from my spouse, I am totally “chuffed” at these results.
If you’re like me and aren’t totally confident transferring a pizza to the stone, assemble it on parchment with a bit of cornmeal and slide it in the oven!
The topping is more than sufficient—a perfect amount of mushrooms, good mozzarella coverage, and generous ricotta (perhaps a shade too generous). I like to see some browning on the toppings.
The shelf and stone were in the lower third of the oven. The pizza had great flavor, the crust was strong enough to allow us to pick it up by the slice, and the dough had a lovely tenderness and was not overworked at all.
This was a winner, especially since so many same-day crusts have felt like compromises. However, we really could only eat one pizza between us (being somewhat greedy people).
I make a lot of pizza at home. A lot. This ricotta cheese pizza recipe is easy to put together and delivers an excellent finished pizza. I love mushrooms, and I’d even go so far as to use more in the future.
I did end up drizzling the finished pie with balsamic glaze because I thought it needed a little something extra, but even so, it was pretty good on its own.
The dough in this recipe is particularly good. The method is easy enough for a beginner, and the finished product is decent enough to meet approval from seasoned bakers. The resulting crust was airy and elastic.
I used a mixture of mushrooms, the majority being cremini, and 50 grams of shallots. I might have added more thyme than called for (just because I’m clumsy), but it did ramp up the flavor a bit more.
I do find white pizzas to be generally tamer, and this one isn’t really an exception. It’s a great pizza, but it’s like all pizzas: It’s made for embellishing.
This is a quick and easy recipe for when the urge for pizza strikes. The dough is the easiest one I have ever made, it only required four minutes of mixing on low (my stand mixer seems to be quite vigorous!) to come together. It rose perfectly within an hour.
The mushroom topping has great flavor with the herbs, garlic, and shallot. The only thing I would change would be to add a few more mushrooms, as I like a loaded pizza. I went a little light on the mozzarella; it’s not my favorite cheese. The ricotta added a nice creaminess to every bite, and the Parmesan shaved over the top when it came out of the oven gave some zing.
This will be a regular pizza for us, and it can be spruced up with various additions like bacon or maybe clams. There are endless possibilities.
Another one of Jim Lahey’s great pizza recipes. Creamy ricotta, gooey mozzarella and mushrooms – sigh…and the seasonings are so spot on.
Im trying to use up a (Costco) huge jar of dried wild mushrooms, reconstituted them and used them for the topping and it was just an exceptional pizza.
What’s more, the pizzas come out looking beautiful as well as great tasting.
I’m now a convert – never again soggy pizza in oily boxes.
Who knew it could be this easy to make great gourmet pizza.
I don’t use a pizza stone but bake in a big cast iron skillet since I find it easier to handle getting in and out of the oven.
Wow, Marilyn!! Thank you for the kind words. I shall pass them on to Jim. He (and we) never tire of hearing them.