We make pizza once a week, every week (pizza Friday) and have a few different seasonal variations. This spinach artichoke pizza is one of our favourite summery versions, with no tomato sauce (or any sauce!) and a base of plenty of roasted garlic. It’s simple but packs a big punch with the garlic, artichoke hearts, and zucchini. It’s an excellent vegan pizza and you won’t miss the cheese!

Transitioning to vegan pizza was as hard as you might think if you’re a big cheese person, and I didn’t like it at first, but now I prefer vegetable-centered pizzas like this one. If you’re new to not eating dairy you might like to do what I used to and load up the top of your pizza with dressed greens. Otherwise there are some pretty good vegan cheese alternatives available these days (see how good the vegan mozzarella looks on my spelt flour pizza dough). This pizza is rich and savoury without the cheese.

For more seasonal pizzas, try my winter pizza with apples, caramelised onions, and mushrooms – we make this most of the year – or vegan pesto pizza with more summer veg.

Ingredients

The salt pictured is wild garlic salt, so it is green, but still salt.

Ingredient Notes and Substitutions

• Artichoke hearts: you can use the type that come in oil or in vinegar, depending on what you like more. I generally prefer the ones in oil for this recipe but the bite of vinegar can be nice sometimes too.
• Olive oil: if the artichokes come in olive oil (which is pretty rare) you can use that instead of plain olive oil.
• Spinach: we have tried this with other hardy greens and nothing is as good as the spinach. So while you can use something else like chard, it won’t be as nice.
• Pizza dough: pictured is spelt sourdough pizza dough. Sometimes we use this spelt pizza dough made with yeast instead. For either of those recipes you’ll need a half batch and can freeze the other half for later. You can use any dough you like, including store-bought if you want a quicker option. Here’s a good gluten-free pizza dough.
• Zucchini: this can be any summer squash. Remember with summer squash that smaller is better.

Step by Step

These steps don’t include roasting the garlic and potentially making your own dough, both of which will need to be done in advance. Both freeze well so I make each once or twice a month and store in the freezer for recipes like this one.

Step 1: roll out the pizza dough and top in the order listed. Add the oil and salt.

Step 2: bake until golden brown and serve hot.

Recipe Notes

The important thing about making this pizza excellent is to go heavy on the toppings. Both the spinach and the zucchini will shrink down a lot, so pack them on there – you want a thick layer. The garlic is the most important element of the pizza so be sure that you have enough.

A drizzle of olive oil helps to imitate something of what cheese adds to pizza, by bringing in a hint of that rich oiliness. Without it the toppings and crust will be dry and a bit bland.

How to Store

Storage: keep leftovers in a sealed container in the refrigerator for a couple of days. Eat it cold or reheat in a frying pan with a splash of water.

Freezing: transfer fully cooled pizza slices to an airtight container and freeze for up to a month. Thaw in a frying pan over low heat, covered, or in a warm oven with a dish of water nearby.

Expert Tips

• Don’t skip the salt: like the oil, the salt adds a big flavour boost. I sprinkle a bit of salt on any vegan pizza I make.
• Use a good dough: this should be the case for any pizza you make, and common sense, but a good dough will make a huge difference. Some bakeries sell nice unbaked pizza dough if you don’t make your own. We sometimes use the grocery store rolled-up ones when travelling but they’re always a bit blah.

More Vegan Mains

Red Lentil Pancakes
Spicy Black Bean Burgers
Mushroom Fajitas
Vegan Pasta Bake