This delicious pizza bianca is topped with potato rounds, pancetta, mozzarella and smoked Gouda and is flavoured with rosemary. Give this authentic pizza recipe from the north of Italy a try. You will love it!
If you are a huge pizza lover but would love a shortcut, take a look at this Puff Pastry Pizza Margherita. Quick and delicious!
Potato Pizza
I was introduced to the potato pizza, I heard so much about, years ago while visiting the city of Trento or Trent. It is situated in the north of Italy and, being so close to Germany, it has a lot of its influences. This pizza recipe is one of the examples.
Potato and pancetta pizza is considered a pizza bianca aka white pizza, since no tomato sauce is involved, and the main flavour comes from the cheese.
The pizza dough is simply brushed with olive oil, then topped with cooked potato, pancetta or bacon and cheese.
It might sound bland but it’s actually anything but! Just imagine golden potato rounds tossed with crispy pancetta, flavoured with bright and vibrant rosemary and coated in fresh mozzarella and smoky Gouda!
The crust itself is paper-thin in the middle, which serves only as a carrier for the delicious topping, and puffed up and chewy around the edges.
How to make pizza crust
I am not new to making, and truth is you can always get a good pizza if your toppings are delicious but pizza crust is a different matter altogether.
I personally love Italian style pizza crust, with incredibly thin middle and puffed up edges, but is it possible to replicate at home?
It’s not easy to mimic the incredibly hot wood-fired ovens, they use in Italy, but we can come pretty close.
Julia’s tips:
- The key is high temperature, so preheat your oven as high as it will go. Mine goes up to 450F/220C.
- Use pizza stone if you have one and preheat it as well.
- Go for a personal size pizza instead of making it extra large. So much easier to work with!
- Instead of rolling out your dough, stretch it out by hand. Don’t worry if it’s not perfectly round as long as it is thin!
Make sure your oven temperature is back up between pizzas. Since they only take about 10 minutes to bake, you will be opening that oven door frequently, which causes the temperature to drop.
So what is so special about this potato pizza? Well if you were raised on meat and potato meals, this pizza is for you.
It will be like a warm hug on a sad and chilly day you will never forget. Give it a try and let me know what you think in comments!
More Pizza Recipes:
This recipe was originally published in 08/2015. Updated and republished in 09/2020.
Potato and Pancetta Pizza
Ingredients
For the pizza dough
- 500g/4 cups white bread flour
- 2 tsp salt
- 7g/2 tsp active dry yeast
- ½ tbsp sugar
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 325 ml/1 ⅓ cups lukewarm water
For the toppings
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- 8 pancetta strips/thick cut bacon cooked
- 3 medium potatoes boiled and sliced
- 2 rosemary sprig leaves chopped
- 250g/8 oz fresh mozzarella
- 125g/1/2 cup smoked Gouda or smoked Cheddar grated
Instructions
For the pizza dough
- In a bowl mix sugar, yeast, olive oil and lukewarm water and let the yeast work its magic for about 5 minutes.
- Sift together flour and salt and empty the mixture in the food processor or a stand mixer, add the wet ingredients to the flour mixture and pulse it until the dough comes together.
- Remove the dough from the food processor into a large bowl, cover it with a tea towel and let it rise somewhere warm for 2 hours. (You can easily make it by hand if you don’t own the machines but they make this task a snap.)
- Once the dough is doubled in size remove the bowl on a flour dusted surface and knead it a bit. Divide the dough into 3 equal sized balls.
For the toppings
- While your dough is rising prepare the toppings by boiling unpeeled potatoes and cooking the pancetta or bacon.
- When potatoes are cool enough to handle peel them and slice into ¼" rounds. Cut pancetta into strips and set both potatoes and pancetta aside.
Assemble pizza
- Preheat your oven to 500F/300C or as high as it could go. If using pizza stone make sure it is preheating in the oven as well.
- Stretch out your pizza dough until it is quite thin in the middle and slightly thicker around the edges and place it on a sheet of parchment paper, that's been oiled or sprinkled with semolina or corn flour.
- Spread 1 tbsp of olive oil on each pizza crust, then spread potato rounds and sprinkle with chopped rosemary, pancetta strips, mozzarella and smoked Gouda or Cheddar.
- Transfer the pizza on parchment paper on the pizza stone. Bake in it the preheated oven for 8-10 minutes. Don't wait longer than that or pizza will turn crunchy instead of soft and pliable.
- Repeat with the remaining 2 pizzas.
