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!
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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.