Roasted Garlic White Pizza with Arugula Salad

To keep organized in this recipe, I’d definitely recommend reading through all the directions first! This isn’t a hard recipe, it just has multiple steps, so it’s important to be as organized as possible!

For the roasted garlic:
First, we’re going to roast some garlic. Take peeled, whole garlic cloves and place in an oven safe bowl. Cover with oil and a pinch of salt. Cover with foil and roast at 350ºF for 30–45 minutes or until golden brown. If you’d like, in the last 5–10 minutes, you can remove the foil to speed up the process!

For the pizza crust:
Now let’s make the dough. Combine warm water, dry yeast, honey, and olive oil together in a bowl. Let rest for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, the mixture should be quite foamy. Place this into the bowl of your stand mixer and add in 1 cup of flour. Mix with dough hook on low while slowly adding in remaining flour and salt. Mix for 10 minutes. The dough will be smooth and should not be sticking to sides of bowl.

Remove dough from bowl and onto a well floured surface. Knead a few of times using your hands (I kneaded the dough 12 times). Place in a well oiled bowl (I used cooking spray) and turn to coat dough in oil. Cover with a dish towel and let rest for 30 minutes.

While dough is resting, make the roasted garlic white sauce.

For the roasted garlic white sauce:
Warm whole milk in a sauce pan over medium low heat and keep warm until ready to use.

You’re going to start by making a roux. Melt butter over medium low heat and then add flour. Whisk until smooth and then whisk constantly while it cooks for about 90 seconds (up to 2 minutes).

Again, whisking constantly, slowly add warm milk. Then add salt and cayenne pepper. Bring mixture to a boil. The sauce should be nice and thick now.

Add roasted garlic (just the cloves, not the oil) and then transfer mixture into a high powered blender, like the Vitamix. Blend until smooth. Taste and re-season with salt, if necessary! Set aside to let it thicken up.

To assemble the pizza:
Dough should be fully rested by now! Roll it out onto a lightly floured surface and punch down. Let rest again for 10 minutes. Roll dough out using a rolling pin. The dough should be about ¼ in thick. Make sure dough is completely even or you may have cheese sliding off while baking.

Preheat oven to 500ºF and line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a Silpat mat.

Top dough with roasted garlic sauce. Make sure to leave ¾ inch border for the crust. Also, I reserved about 2 tablespoons of sauce to dip the crust in later on.

Top sauce with thinly sliced mozzarella and freshly grated fontina. Bake for 6–10 minutes or until the cheese is melty and the crust is a golden brown.

For the salad:
While you let your pizza cool, make the salad. Combine olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper in a bowl. Give it a whisk and pour over arugula. Toss to combine. Use as much or as little dressing as you like. I’d recommend starting with a little and adding more as you see fit.

Cut pizza into equal pieces and top with the arugula salad and chopped cherry tomatoes! Serve immediately.