Shrimp and Asparagus Pizza with Romesco Sauce

Pizza night gets taken up a notch with this artisan shrimp and asparagus pizza with Romesco sauce. Fresh lemon zest brightens up and ties all the flavors of this great pizza together.

In one of the restaurants I worked, our go-to veg of the day, when things got crazy, was roasted veggies (mostly asparagus) and Romesco sauce. It was easy to make and super tasty; honestly, people would go crazy for this whenever we did it! And who could blame them, the smoky and bright flavors of the Romesco had a way of highlighting the beautiful flavors of the vegetables we used that day.

When thinking of how to show this fantastic sauce off, I thought that just roasted vegetables would be such a cop out and I had to think of the best recipe for this awesome sauce (ha! Points for getting that to work!) Then it hit me, “we haven’t had pizza in a while…” one thing led to another, BAM shrimp and asparagus pizza with Romesco. Simply amazing. While this sauce just highlights the pizza, it is super important as it helps tie everything together.

What is Romesco??? Romesco is an awesome Spanish sauce made of roasted red bell peppers, tomatoes, garlic, onion, almonds, olive oil, some red wine vinegar and a whole lot of love! It’s typically served with seafood, which I why I thought that shrimp would be awesome on this pizza. You could switch the shrimp out for a good, firm white fish, and it would still be awesome!

This pizza very vaguely reminds me of a seafood pizza I had in Austria; when I say vaguely, I mean that the pizza had shrimp on it, amongst other types of seafood on it. If you don’t think that shrimp belongs on a pizza, try this out before you completely shut out the idea! One tip I do have for putting shrimp on pizza, cook it about 80% of the way before adding it to the pizza. It’ll keep from the shrimp being complete rubber when finishing in the oven.

I found that the asparagus is best prepared by just using a food peeler to get the thin ribbons I wanted. They cook just fine in the oven and add some moisture to the overall experience. If you have any questions of how to make amazing pizza, read this guide on how I made pizzas in restaurants and how I now make them at home with the same results! Here’s my awesome and simple pizza dough recipe! Many people have sworn that this is the bees-knees

Enjoy this awesome shrimp and asparagus pizza and especially the Romesco sauce. If you end up having too much sauce, making a nice pasta with the left-over shrimp and asparagus will make a show-stopping dinner!

Do you have any crazy food pairings that you want me to feature on the blog? Just send me an email and I’ll make it happen!

Happy eating!

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Shrimp and Asparagus Pizza with Romesco Sauce

Prep Time

10 mins

Cook Time

10 mins

Total Time

20 mins

 

Course: Main Dish

Cuisine: American

Servings: 1 12 ince pizza

Author: ijustmakesandwiches

Ingredients

Romesco Sauce

• 1 bell pepper
• 2 Roma tomatoes
• ½ head roasted garlic
• 1 shallot
• ½ cup olive oil
• 2 T red wine vinegar
• 2 T almonds toasted
• To taste salt and pepper

Pizza

• 1 batch pizza dough
• 3 cloves garlic minced
• 2 Tablespoons olive oil
• 5 stalks asparagus
• 7 each shrimp
• ½ cup Ricotta cheese
• ½ lemon zested
• To taste salt and pepper
• ¼ cup Queso fresco for garnish

Instructions

Romesco Sauce

1. Roast garlic and shallot in a 350-degree oven, wrapped in tin foil for 45 minutes. Pull when soft and cool.
2. Set oven to broil, line sheet pan with aluminum foil. Oil bell pepper and tomatoes. Broil in oven until skins darken, about 5 minutes. Pull and let cool.
3. Peel skins off pepper and tomatoes, remove garlic from wrapping and shallot from skin. Place in blender with oil, vinegar, almonds. Blend until smooth, season with salt and pepper.
   

Assemble Pizza

1. Toss shrimp with olive oil, salt and pepper, and cook 80% over medium heat in a skillet (about 3 minutes). Pull from heat and set aside. Split in half when cool
2. Peel ribbons of asparagus and set aside. Mix ricotta with lemon zest, salt and pepper.
3. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Press out dough to desired shape. Mix together minced garlic and olive oil together, brush over top of pizza dough.
   
4. Smear ricotta mix over the garlic, making sure there is a slight boarder around the pizza.
   
5. Add asparagus in a single layer, covering ricotta cheese.
   
6. Add shrimp around the pizza.
   
7. Drizzle Romesco sauce around pizza. Place in oven and bake about 10 minutes, until crust is set and firm.
   
8. Pull from oven and garnish with lemon zest and queso fresco.

Recipe Notes

For the pizza dough recipe, refer this post.