I made this recipe because I was so sick of missing out on Bianca pizzas. Before moving to eating mostly plant-based foods, my favourite pizza was a Bianca, a style of pizza with a white sauce as a base, with potato and rosemary for toppings. Super cheesy, super delicious. So naturally, that’s what I tired to vegannise first! Albeit this recipe has no blue cheese (the other ingredient that made this my fav), it’s a crowd pleaser in our house and now no one is deprived of this Italian must favourite.
Ingredients
Pizza dough
3⅓ cups flour (bread flour works best)
7 g (1 sachet) dried yeast
300ml of water (luke warm)
1 tsp of sugar
3 tbsp of oil
15 g of salt
White sauce
1 clove of garlic, minced
2 tbsp of vegan butter
3 tbsp of flour
1 1/2 cups of soy milk (you can also use other plant based milks, but they take slightly longer to cook)
50g of vegan parmesan or 1 tbsp of nutritional yeast
Pizza toppings
3 medium potatoes
1 sprig of rosemary
Method
To make the dough, place the flour in large bowl and make a well in the centre. Add the yeast and sugar to the centre of the well, then pour in the water and oil. Using your hands, mix the liquids into the flour until a dough forms. Add the salt to the dough and knead on a lightly floured surface for roughly 10 minutes. The dough should be smooth and slightly stretchy. Cover the dough (in a bowl with a cloth over the top) and leave in a warm, draught-free place to prove for 1 hour or until doubled in size.
Next prepare your white sauce. In a medium sauce pan on low heat, add in your garlic and olive oil. Continue to stir garlic until golden brown. Next, add in butter and melt. Then add the flour and mix into the butter to form a rough. Stir continuously until cooked through (about 4-5 minutes). Slowly pour in your soy milk, 1/2 a cup at a time, while whisking continuously to breakup the rough and remove lumps. Once all of the soy milk has been added, and all the lumps are removed, continue to whisk for another 5 minutes or until the white sauce is creamy and thick. Add in vegan Parmesan if using and stir through. If you don’t have any parmesan, use 1 tbsp of nutritional yeast. Remove from heat.
Now to prepare your potatoes.
Wash potatoes (I keep skins on) and slice into thin rounds. Line two baking trays with baking paper, or grease with olive oil, and lay out your potatoes across the trays. Drizzle with a bit of olive oil and sprinkle with salt and roast in over for 10-15 minutes (they don’t need to cook right through as they will undergo more cooking on the pizza).
When your dough has doubled in size, remove it from the bowl onto a floured surface and divide into three potions. Then, grease three rectangular baking trays and using your fingers, spread one portion of dough out evenly until it reaches all corners of the baking tray. Then, use 1/3 of the white sauce smooth a think layer over the dough. Next, place your semi-cooked potatoes over your white sauce and sprinkle with rosemary and salt. Repeat process for remaining two pizzas.
Bake pizzas in the oven for 20 minutes, or until dough is slight golden and your potatoes look nice and crispy.
Allow to cool slightly, slice and enjoy!
Tip: If you want to let the dough mature, refrigerate it overnight before proving. The following day, remove from the refrigerator, bring to room temperature, then prove as per the recipe.
