If a squash blossom pizza sounds a little exotic for you, here’s a fun Italian food fact: In Italy, squash blossoms are a common topping on pizza—definitely way more common than pepperoni!

I grew up eating zucchini flowers with the Italian side of my family. So, to me, they are something I look forward to preparing every summer in many different forms. Today, it’s a delicious pizza!

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Squash Blossom Pizza Ingredients

As with my other squash blossom recipes (zucchini flower fritters and stuffed zucchini blossoms), all of the ingredients for this pizza are readily available at your grocery store, except the fresh squash blossoms. Most likely, those will come from your garden or local farmers markets.

Here are some tips on selecting the best ingredients for this pizza and making substitutions if needed.

Pizza Dough

You can make your own fresh dough or use a store-bought pizza dough for a super easy meal. Some grocery stores sell ready-made fresh pizza dough balls. Or you can usually find tubes in the refrigerator section that you can easily roll out.

Whether you choose homemade dough, a dough ball, or a tube, cook the dough first, unless you have a pizza oven. You can use a pizza stone or a regular sheet pan to cook your dough.

Zucchini Blossoms

You can use any type of fresh squash blossom or even pumpkin blossoms. I usually choose zucchini blossoms because that is what I can find at my local farmers markets.

Every zucchini plant has male and female flowers. Female zucchini flowers have a tiny zucchini at the ends, whereas males just have a stem. So, for this pizza recipe, male flowers are best to purchase.

I use the whole flower, center stamen and all. If you cannot find squash blossoms, you can use another type of edible flower like nasturtium, orchids, or fennel flowers.

Lemon Olive Oil

As much as I love both my Marinara Sauce and Pomodoro Sauce, I prefer to make this recipe as a white pizza. Red sauce overpowers the delicate squash blossoms, so I pair them with lemon olive oil instead of tomato sauce.

If you don’t have lemon olive oil, you can use a high-quality extra virgin olive oil and add lemon zest.

Cheeses

You can use either whole milk ricotta and mozzarella or part-skim. If I’m making this pizza for others to enjoy, I use whole milk cheeses because they do taste better to me. However, if it’s for myself, I will usually use part-skim as I need to watch my fat intake.

If you want to substitute with other popular Italian cheeses, use ones with similar properties. For example, the creamy Italian cheese ricotta can be replaced by fresh burrata or goat cheese.

Red Onion

I love raw red onion and the color that it adds to this beautiful zucchini blossom pizza. Of course, you can sub white onion, shallots, green garlic, or green onion.

Parsley

Fresh Italian parsley (also known as flat leaf parsley) adds another pop of color and flavor.

For substitutions, I would stick with Italian/Mediterranean herbs like fresh basil or oregano.

Squash Blossom Pizza Recipe

Ingredients

1 pre-baked pizza dough
3 tablespoons lemon olive oil 
8 ounces shredded mozzarella cheese 
½ teaspoon sea salt 
½ teaspoon black pepper 
¾ cup ricotta cheese
¼ cup red onion, sliced thin
12–15 zucchini blossoms, sliced lengthwise 
1 tablespoon chopped Italian parsley

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 400°.

2. Place cooked pizza dough on a baking sheet or pizza stone, and brush with lemon olive oil. Keep the extra oil for later.

3. Sprinkle the mozzarella evenly over the pizza dough, going all the way to the edges.

4. Sprinkle the mozzarella with salt and pepper.

Pizza dough with mozzarella and salt and pepper added

5. Add ricotta in small dollops (about 1 teaspoon) over the mozzarella.

6. Sprinkle the pizza with red onion, then sprinkle with parsley and your zucchini blossoms.

7. Bake the zucchini blossom pizza for approximately 3–4 minutes until mozzarella cheese is melted.

8. Top the pizza with a drizzle of lemon olive oil.

9. Transfer pizza to a cutting board for portioning.

Serving Squash Blossom Pizza

I like this squash blossom ricotta pizza best hot out of the oven, but it’s even good cold out of the fridge.

squash blossom pizza with zucchini flower fritters on a plate

Optional Toppings

Crushed red pepper flakes, lemon zest, grated parmesan, or pecorino Romano cheese all make good additions either before or after cooking your pizza.

Make Ahead

You can have your pizza ready to pop into the oven at the last minute. Or you can even cook it a day or two ahead and store it in an airtight container.

If you reheat your pizza after it’s cooked, it will just take 2–3 minutes at 375°.

Side Dishes

Serve your zucchini flower pizza as you would any other pizza. It can certainly handle center stage as a solo act. But I think a green salad is always a lovely backup addition to any great pizza.

I’ve also served it with other zucchini blossom dishes (yep, I’m obsessed).