Our Best Pizza Ever-Chicken and Artichoke Hearts with Pesto Sauce and Fresh Mozzarella

We have made a lot of pizza at home over the years and with the current pandemic we have been make it about every other week lately.  We do a lot of pepperoni by itself or with a variety of toppings. But we do tend to make two pizzas at a time and we also go for some variety.  We had some chicken in the freezer that I pulled out for the meat on the second pizza.  For a crust, I made our extremely reliable and easy recipe from Tyler Florence.

For a sauce on the pizza we used the Kirkland Signature Basil Pesto.  

Here is the crust with the pesto on it:

I add some Artichoke Hearts from Costco.

After adding the chicken the pizza is starting to look pretty good!

Finally, I add the Belgioioso Fresh Mozzarella and it goes in the oven with its companion pepperoni based pizza.

Bake it until it is golden brown and delicious and you end up with this magnificent pizza.

The pesto sauce gives a very different cheesy, herbal flavor versus the more typical marinara sauce.  Chicken as a meat is a good match for the other major topping of the artichoke hearts.  Finally, the fresh mozzarella completes the profile of brighter, less heavy flavors.

As I said, we tend to make a lot of pizza.  We always have enjoyed what we have made but this one really stands out as the best pizza we have ever made.  And with all the quality ingredients we get from Costco at a great price it is really easy and affordable to make.

I absolutely recommend getting some pesto, cheese and artichoke hearts from Costco and making your own killer pizza like this.

I am really confident you will love it.

Enjoy!

Some Pizza Ideas With BelGioioso Fresh Mozzarella and a New Link

We like making pizza at home fairly occasionally.  We enjoy the ownership of making our own food, the flavor, the fun of cooking and the value.  Sure, we get takeout pizza also, but making our own pizza is something we value and frankly do very well.

I have blogged previously that our preferred pizza dough is from Tyler Florence at the Food Network.        It is a great tasting dough with good texture and it is really reliable. This is important because having the basic components of a dish be of good quality is important.  Another important fundamental item for pizza is cheese.  While we have made pizza without mozzarella, it goes on most of our pizza.  Our preferred choice for mozzarella is BelGioioso Fresh Mozzarella from Costco.

It is a very high quality cheese and at $6.99 for two pounds of it, the price is really right at Costco.  We also like the convenience of it.  It comes in two separate one pound packages which makes it handy to use.  Finally, it is sliced and that saves some hassle and timel.  All in all a great product at a great price.

Recently, we made a couple of pizzas using some homemade marinara sauce (which we will cover in another post) and some various toppings.

One pizza was topped with marinara, pineapple, ham and finally with cheese.  The other was a triple meat of pepperoni, ham and bacon topped with cheese, although my side of it had mushrooms and olives which are not to my lovely wife's liking.

We really enjoyed both of these pizzas.  The Hawaiian style pizza had a sweeter, brighter taste with the glazed ham and the pineapple.  The triple meat pizza was very hearty and also really hit the spot.

Yes, it is sometimes nice to get pizza from your local place, a chain or Costco but there are also the times when making a killer pizza at home is delicious and satisfying to the heart and the wallet.  And as I write this, we are still dealing with the Coronavirus pandemic and this sort of food and cooking does bring me a sense of accomplishment that helps me to deal with the world.

So make some dough, save some dough and have a delicious pizza.  And for more ideas on what to do with BelGioioso Fresh Mozzarella, visit their recipe page that I have added to the link sections.

Take care and be well!