White Bean, Kale, and Butternut Squash Pizza

Roopa Kalyanaraman Marcello is the author of the vegetarian food blog Raspberry Eggplant. Each Monday, she shares with Patch readers a recipe for Meatless Monday.

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I’ve always liked the combination of white beans, kale, and butternut squash, but I’ve primary seen it as a stew – kind of boring and also fairly common, especially when the weather gets colder. One of my culinary solutions to everything is pizza, which is possibly my favorite food (hey, I was born and raised in New York), so I figured that these winter ingredients would be great on a pizza.

Instead of a tomato sauce, I make a white sauce using white beans - sort of a faux bechamel sauce.  Not only does this add more flavor than a traditional bechamel, but it adds protein to make this pizza a bit more substantial than the average pizza.

My favorite pizza dough recipe is this one from Jim Lahey, the mastermind behind the revolutionary no-knead technique.  It's incredibly easy to make but it does require some advance planning.  However, it makes the best pizza I've ever made at home, and if all the conditions are right, sometimes so good to rival many good pizza places.  If you're not an advance planner (which I very rarely am), feel free to use any pizza dough recipe you want (or just pick up some pre-made dough to make this pizza even easier to prepare).

The preparation for the kale and squash are very simple - the kale is quickly blanched while the oven is heating and the squash is shaved into thin slices with a vegetable peeler.

All of the flavors really shine in this pizza – nothing gets lost like it might in a stew. And it’s a pizza. Who doesn’t like pizza?

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White Bean, Kale, and Butternut Squash Pizza
(from Raspberry Eggplant)

makes two 10-inch pies

 vegan if omitting cheese or using vegan cheese

2 balls of dough, each for a 10-inch pizza (I always have some in my freezer)

½ cup white beans
2 cloves roasted garlic
1/8 teaspoon salt
Pinch of freshly ground black pepper
4 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil, divided
2 tablespoons + 1 teaspoon milk (or soy/rice milk)
2 cups (tightly packed) kale, cut into bite size pieces
Neck of a small (about 1 – 1 ¼ pounds) butternut squash
¼ teaspoon light brown sugar
1 ¼ cups shredded fontina cheese (optional, or use vegan cheese)
About 20 small sage leaves

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Heat your oven to 500º F and place a rack in the upper third of the oven. (If you are using a pizza stone, place the stone on the rack and heat the oven at least a half hour before baking the pizza so that the stone gets hot.)  

Make the sauce by pureeing the beans, garlic, salt, pepper, 2 teaspoons of oil, and milk in a food processor until smooth.

Bring a medium pot of water to a boil. Add the kale and cook for 5 minutes. Drain in a colander. Return the kale to the hot pot to dry off any excess moisture.

Peel the neck of the squash and cut it into 4 pieces lengthwise. Cut each piece crosswise into 1/8” thick slices. Toss the squash slices with the remaining 2 teaspoons of oil, brown sugar, and a pinch of salt.

Stretch one ball of dough into a 10-inch round and place it onto a pizza peel coated with cornmeal or onto a large baking sheet coated with cornmeal. Spread half the sauce evenly on the dough, leaving a ½” border. Evenly distribute half the kale over the sauce and top it with half of the cheese. Arrange half of the squash slices over the cheese and sprinkle half of the sage on top. Repeat with the remaining ball of dough.

Bake until the squash is just soft and the crust is lightly browned, about 10 minutes. Let the pizza rest for a few minutes before slicing.