White Pizza with Fontina, Chicken and Arugula

This recipe and photography was provided courtesy of local cookbook author and chef, Carla Snyder. Learn more about Carla and discover her recipes at Ravenouskitchen.com, or in her cookbook, One Pan Whole Family.

I’ve been making a version of this pizza for the last 30 years and it never fails to please. The garlicky oil base is just right with all that flavorful rotisserie chicken blanketed with Fontina cheese. The arugula salad on top adds a spicy green note to lighten things up and I love how the heat from the pizza wilts the arugula a bit. It’s essentially dinner on a pizza.

It’s that easy: It may sound odd, but baking the pizza on parchment makes creating pizza at home a breeze. Transferring the pizza to the oven on parchment paper means you don’t have to worry about the dough sticking to the counter or the peel when you need to move it fast. It also keeps your oven from becoming trashed by all the cheese and toppings that can fall off without that protective under layer of paper. Buy a roll of parchment and use it to bake cookies, pizza, cakes, breads and bar cookies for no-stick success.

Click here to get inspired with more recipes featuring rotisserie chicken.

White Pizza with Fontina, Chicken and Arugula

Start-to-Finish: 30 minutes
Hands-on Time: 20 minutes
Makes 1 pizza, serves 4

Ingredients

• 2 cloves garlic
• 1/2 red onion
• 1 1/2 cups shredded rotisserie chicken
• 1 1/2 cups grated Fontina cheese
• 1-lb bag frozen pizza dough, thawed and out of the refrigerator for about 10 minutes
• 2 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan
• 2 teaspoons lemon juice
• 3 handfuls baby arugula

Method

1. If you have a pizza stone, place it on the bottom rack and preheat oven to 450°F. If you don’t have a stone, invert a sheet pan on the bottom rack and bake the pizza directly on it.
2. On a large cutting board, mince the garlic and thinly slice the onion.
3. Cover a pizza peel or rimless cookie sheet with a large sheet of parchment paper. Pat and stretch out the dough on a lightly floured surface into a 16-ich circle and place it on the sheet of parchment. Drizzle the dough with the oil, rub the garlic over the top with your fingers and layer on the chicken, a sprinkle of salt, a few grinds of pepper, Fontina, Parmesan and red onion.
4. Slide the pizza, still on the parchment, onto the heated pizza stone in the preheated oven and bake for 12 to 15 minutes, or until the bottom is crispy and cheese has browned slightly. If you don’t have a pizza stone skip this step and bake the pizza on the inverted sheet pan. It won’t be as crispy on the bottom and may take an extra minute or two, but will still be great.
5. While the pizza cooks, in a large bowl combine the lemon juice, a sprinkle of salt, a few grinds of pepper and the remaining 1 1/2 tablespoons oil and whisk to combine it well. Add the arugula to the bowl and toss with your hands to coat it with the dressing.
6. Slide the peel or rimless sheet pan under the parchment to remove it from the oven, arrange the arugula salad over the top and let cool for about 5 minutes before cutting into wedges. Serve hot.

Extra hungry Kids? Scatter some canned, rinsed white beans along with the chicken. It adds heft and nutrition and tastes great as well.  Adult Taste Buds? The arugula topping is a basic version, but you can get more creative and add halved grape tomatoes, thinly sliced radish, shaved carrot or fennel and make it a salad party on top of your pizza.

In the glass: Vermentino is a lively white wine from the Sardinia region of Italy. Similar to Sauvignon Blanc it partners well with many dishes and can vary from grassy and herbaceous to fruit. All iterations are delightful, plus it’s usually inexpensive so a great bottle for the weeknight.

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