Portobello Pesto Pizzaswith Italian pasta salad
These vegetable-based pizzas have been a long-time favorite in our members' kitchens since May 2014. We add a pasta salad to round out this Italian inspired dinner.
Ingredients
- Pasta, fusilli - 6 oz (sub any pasta shape)
- Bell peppers, red - 1, chopped
- Cucumbers - 10 oz, chopped
- Olives, any pitted (5 oz / 142 g) - 1 can, drained and rinsed (look for pre-sliced to save time)
- Italian seasoning - 1 tsp
- Honey - 1 tsp
- Mustard, Dijon - 1 tsp
- Vinegar, red wine - 1 1/2 Tbsp
- Oil, olive - 2 Tbsp
- Mushrooms, portobello - 4
- Tomatoes, medium - 2, sliced
- Cheese, fresh mozzarella - 5 oz, sliced
- Oil, cooking - 2 Tbsp
- Foil - for grilling
- Pesto (leftover from Monday) - ~6 Tbsp
Nutrition Facts
Prep
- Cook pasta - (If prepping right before cooking, get oven / grill heating while pasta cooks.) Boil pasta according to package directions. If using right away, rinse under tap water to cool. (Can be done up to 5 days ahead)
- Bell peppers / Cucumbers - Prep as directed and combine. (Can be done up to 4 days ahead)
- Portobello mushrooms - Remove stems. Using the side of a spoon, scrape out the inside gills (the dark ridge-y stuff). (Can be done up to 3 days ahead)
- Tomatoes / Cheese - Prep as directed.
- Olives - Drain and rinse olives. (Chop into slices if not already sliced.)
Make
- If cooking on a grill: Heat grill to 500F / 260C degrees. Clean grates and brush with some oil.
- If cooking in the oven: Heat oven to 400F / 204C degrees.
- {Grill}: Brush portobello mushrooms with cooking oil (both sides). Grill on both sides until grill marks appear, 3 to 4 minutes per side. Place mushrooms stem-side up (even though the stems are gone) on a piece of foil on a portion of the grill that is not over direct heat. Spoon pesto into mushrooms. Top with a slice of tomato and then a slice of cheese. Close the lid and continue cooking until cheese is melted, 5 to 6 minutes more.
- {Oven}: Brush portobello mushrooms with cooking oil (both sides). Place portobellos cap side down (or stem-side up, even though the stems are gone) on a sheet pan. Spoon pesto into mushrooms. Top with a slice of tomato and then a slice of cheese. Bake in the oven for 15 to 18 minutes, until cheese is bubbly.
- While mushrooms cook, whisk together Italian seasoning, honey, mustard, vinegar, and olive oil in a mixing bowl. Add pasta, bell peppers, cucumbers, and olives and toss to combine. Season with some salt and pepper.
- Serve mushrooms with pasta salad on the side. Enjoy!
Reviews
This meal has 34 reviews
Surprisingly delicious and simple. Perfect weeknight meal.
The portobello pizzas were tasty! The pasta salad was fine - nothing special, but easy and palatable. An enjoyable meal overall, but I'm not sure I'd go out of my way to make it again.
No complaints! I find portobello mushrooms a bit hard to work with, but the flavor was good. The pasta salad was a bit bland for my taste.
Loved this! Even the boyfriend that doesn't love mushrooms loved it. I ended up using sun-dried tomato pesto just because I don't like basil.
I was indifferent to the pasta salad, but I LOVED these. Simple simple simple and so tasty. I used Trader Joe's pesto once, and then after making the red pesto for the stuffed chicken recipe, I used that and loved that more than the green pesto. Yum.
Loved these. Trader Joe's has a frozen version of sorts with eggplant. I tried to model these based on that frozen dinner, so I added eggplant. Next time I'll use more mozzarella cheese, ricotta cheese, and find a way to incorporate Italian-seasoned breadcrumbs for a little crunch. But this meal, in spite of being vegetarian, was perfectly filling. Using Trader Joe's jarred genova pesto was a great hack to speed things up and limit dish clean-up.