Shrimp and Asparagus Pizza with Romesco Sauce

Pizza night gets taken up a notch with this artisan Shrimp and Asparagus Pizza with Romesco sauce. With a lemony ricotta cheese base and a Spanish Romesco sauce, everyone will be fighting for a piece. This quick oven baked pizza is perfect for a weekend party.

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In one of the restaurants I worked in, our go-to, when things got crazy, veg of the day 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 Spanish Romesco sauce 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. Instead, 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 sauce. Simply amazing.

While this sauce just highlights the pizza, it is super important as it helps tie everything together.

What is Romesco Sauce

What is Romesco??? Romesco is an awesome Spanish sauce made of

• Red bell peppers
• Tomatoes
• Garlic
• Onion (I like using shallots personally)
• Toasted almonds
• Olive oil
• Red wine vinegar
• Lots of love (ok, that’s something that I just threw in)

Whenever I serve Romesco sauce, it’s typically served room temperature. To get the maximum flavor, I highly recommend either serving it room temperature or hot.

I love roasting my tomatoes and bell peppers until blistered. That way I can remove the skins but still get a good charred flavor. I also love to roast my garlic and shallots to bring a much needed sweetness to this sauce.

In order to break down the toasted almonds in this sauce, I strongly recommend using a high quality blender like this one. I use it and love it and it produces great sauces that are silky smooth!

Is Spanish Romesco Sauce Spicy

When I was having my little boy try out this sauce, he was scared that it was going to be spicy. I had to reassure him many times that it wasn’t going to be spicy at all. He tried it and loved it!

While many Latin cuisines have a lot of similarities with Spanish cuisine, one of the major differences in their cooking is the use of chiles. In my experience, Latin cuisines have a heavier emphasis on spice and the use of chiles versus Spanish cooking. Spanish cooking has a lot more European influences.

To learn more about differences in regional cuisines, check out this post!

So, if you’re looking for a super flavorful sauce that isn’t spicy, this Romesco sauce recipe will be perfect for you!

What Do You Serve With Romesco Sauce

An authentic Spanish Romesco sauce is typically served with seafood or poultry. However, I find that it’s also super delicious with roasted vegetables like squash and asparagus!

This is 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!

Is Shrimp and Asparagus Pizza Healthy

This pizza 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. A lot of the traditional Italian or European style pizzas are nothing like what we see in the States. After I had that seafood pizza in Austria, it changed the way I created pizzas at home.

This style of pizza is a lot healthier because it’s not loaded with a ton of cheeses and as an added bonus, it has lots of veggies and lean protein!

If you don’t think that shrimp belongs on a pizza, try this out before you completely shut out the idea!

What to Put on Shrimp and Asparagus Pizza

Since I was thinking about my Romesco sauce, I built the pizza around the idea of pairing complementary flavors together.

• Lemon
• Shrimp
• Asparagus

The trick in making this pizza perfect was to create a way for everything to cook evenly together so that they would all be done by the time the pizza was pulled from the oven.

Here are a few things I thought of to make this happen!

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.

I also decided to slice my shrimp in half. This ensures that the shrimp are perfectly cooked when the pizza is done. You’re also able to spread the shrimp out more around the pizza for a fuller look. I also decided to marinade my shrimp with some lemon zest, salt, black pepper, and olive oil to tie in the lemon flavor from my lemon ricotta mix.

I talk more about why I marinade my shrimp with just the zest and not citrus juice in this post.

My lemon ricotta mixture was simple enough because I really wanted the Romesco sauce to shine through.

How to Make Shrimp and Asparagus Pizza

Of course, for any worthy pizza, you need a solid pizza dough recipe. Many people have sworn that this is the bees-knees and only use this recipe!

Within that post, I share my secret weapon when creating any pizza and it’s spreading fresh garlic and oil all on the bottom. It gives the pizza an incredible flavor that makes your pizza irresistible.

After I spread the garlic and oil, I make sure to spread my lemon ricotta mix all over the dough “coast-to-coast” as one of my chefs would say. This ensures that each bite has the mix on it and it helps weight down the pizza and prevents bubbles forming while baking.

Next is laying down the shaved asparagus in a single layer. Topped with the shrimp and off into the oven it goes.

How Do You Cook Shrimp and Asparagus Pizza

I am such a huge fan of cooking any pizza on a pizza stone. I talk more in depth about pizza stones and why they’re awesome in this post. Let it be known though that they transform your oven into a brick oven with their unique ability to absorb and retain heat.

I get my pizza stone nice and hot by letting it preheat at 450 degrees for about 30 minutes. I then cook my pizza on the pizza stone for about 13 minutes or until the shrimp are done!

One other tool that I can believe I lived forever without was a pizza peel. Honestly, invest in one if you love making pizza because it makes your life so much easier to safely put your pizza on a pizza stone and taking it out. You seriously don’t want to know what ghetto rig I had going on until I finally got a peel.

What to Serve with Shrimp and Asparagus Pizza

Since I was building the whole idea of this pizza around the Romesco sauce, that one is an obvious addition. I wanted the texture to be smooth and silky, which would have changed had I added the sauce on to the pizza before cooking.

With garnishing, I wanted to add a bit of saltiness to the pizza and did this with Queso Fresco. It’s a Mexican cheese, and not a Spanish cheese, I know but humor me! This cheese also adds a nice pop of white to a super colorful pizza anyway.

And I don’t know about you, but I always love adding a bit of dried Oregano, red chile flake, and some freshly grated Parmesan cheese!

Enjoy this awesome Shrimp and Asparagus Pizza with 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!

If you have particularly loved this recipe, tell me all about it down in the comments and feel free to rate the recipe too!

Happy eating!

If you liked this adventurous pizza, you might enjoy these as well.

Asparagus and Date Pizza

Butternut Squash Pizza with Fig and Cherry Jam

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Shrimp and Asparagus Pizza with Romesco Sauce

Yield: 1 12 ince pizza

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 10 minutes

Additional Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 50 minutes

Pizza night gets taken up a notch with this artisan Shrimp and Asparagus Pizza with Romesco sauce. With a lemony ricotta cheese base and a Spanish Romesco sauce, everyone will be fighting for a piece. This quick oven baked pizza is perfect for a weekend party.

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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 7-10 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 lemon zest. Split in half.
2. Peel ribbons of asparagus and set aside. Mix ricotta with lemon zest, salt and pepper.
3. Preheat oven to 450 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.  Place in oven and bake about 13 minutes, until crust is set and firm.
8. Pull from oven and garnish Romesco sauce and queso fresco

Notes

For the pizza dough recipe, refer this post.

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  Anolon 46844 Pantryware Teakwood Peel and Pizza Cutter Set, 2-Piece, Medium, Wooden
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  Pyrex Glass Mixing Bowl Set (3-Piece)

Nutrition Information

Yield 1 Serving Size pizza
Amount Per ServingCalories 2756Saturated Fat 36gCholesterol 189mgSodium 3509mgCarbohydrates 223gFiber 16gSugar 39gProtein 68g

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