Veg packed
recipes BBC GOOD FOOD TEAM
Punchy spinach pesto pizza
‘My love affair with pesto has been going on for as long as I can remember – I’ll put it on anything and everything. When I realised that you can actually make it with any green vegetable you have lying around, it changed my life – and that helps save food waste, too. My mission for this pizza recipe was to get delicious green vegetables into each element, and I think the spinach works really well in the base. The mixture of lemon and crème fraîche is light and zingy, brilliantly offsetting the heat of chilli flakes and savoury depth of the pesto.’ Liberty Mendez
SERVES 6 PREP 40 mins plus 2 hrs proving COOK 1 hr MORE EFFORT V
400g spinach
7g sachet fast-action dried yeast 500g strong white bread flour, plus extra for dusting
For the spinach pesto large bunch of basil
50g pine nuts, toasted
50g parmesan or vegetarian alternative, grated
100ml olive oil
1 lemon, zested and juiced
2 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
For the toppings
200g crème fraîche
300g long-stemmed broccoli, halved if thick
200g cherry tomatoes, halved 200g ball mozzarella, torn
½ tsp chilli flakes, plus extra to serve (optional) extra virgin olive oil, for drizzling (optional)
Cook the spinach in a pan of boiling water for 30 seconds until wilted, then drain and rinse under cold running water to cool. Squeeze out the excess water. Put half the wilted spinach in a blender with 150ml hot water and blitz to a smooth green
