Pizza Zucchine | Zucchini Pizza with Gruyère Cheese

This zucchini pizza with Gruyère is a crispy and crunchy treat, and is a delicious way to use up all of the zucchini bounty available this time of year.

The crust of this pizza is very thin, more like a flatbread than a traditional pizza crust. The dough is "no knead," in that all it requires is a little bit of mixing with your hands and a two hour rest on the counter, and then you have pizza dough!

My cousin gave me a couple of giant zucchinis that she had grown in her hillside garden. With the first squash, I made these baked zucchini fries (which are amazing).

With the other giant zucchini, plus the "regular" sized one, I made this pizza.

Last summer, I made a version of this pizza when my cousin gave me a big pile of onions, and it was wonderful! A few months later, I made it with sliced potatoes, and it was jump-up-and-down "this is soooo good" good.

The zucchini for this pizza is shredded, salted, and allowed to release its water. Guess what! There is A LOT of water. I had no idea!

You can either use Fontina, Swiss, or Gruyere cheese for this pizza. I used Gruyere, because I love the way it bakes and browns in high temperatures, especially in breads.

This pizza makes a wonderful lunch or dinner, and leftovers, reheated, are really good for breakfast (trust me). I sprinkled my slices with crushed red pepper.

Zucchini Pizza Recipe

Ingredients

Crust

250 grams (about 1 3/4 cups plus) bread flour

5 grams (1 1/4 tsp) instant yeast

2.5 grams (3/8 tsp) salt

1.5 grams (generous 3/8 tsp) sugar

150 grams (2/3 cup) room temperature water

Extra virgin olive oil

Zucchini Topping

2 1/2 pounds (1.2 kilos) trimmed zucchini, skin on

1 1/2 teaspoons (10 grams) table salt

2 cups (150 grams) grated Gruyère cheese (you can substitute quality Swiss cheese or Fontina)

2 to 2 1/2 tablespoons bread crumbs

Instructions

1. Whisk the dry ingredients for the crust together in a medium bowl. Add the water and mix it into the dough with a dough whisk or your hands until all of the flour is incorporated, no more than a minute. 
2. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let sit until doubled, about 2 hours. 
3. About an hour before baking time, preheat the oven to 500 degrees F. If you have a baking stone, place it on the middle rack. 
4. Grate the zucchini, skin and all, and place the pieces into a medium bowl. Toss it with the salt, and let it sit for about 20 minutes, until the zucchini releases its water. 
5. Drain the zucchini in a colander, and then squeeze out the rest of the water with your hands. Pat it dry with paper towels and place back into the bowl. Set aside. 
6. When the dough is ready, drizzle about 2 tablespoons of olive oil into a half sheet pan and spread it with your hands to coat the pan. 
7. Place the dough in the half sheet pan, and stretch it out to a long column to fit the middle of the pan. With your fingertips, begin to press the dough to the sides of the pan. This may take awhile. When the dough resists your efforts, let it rest for a bit while you mix the zucchini and cheese. Eventually, your dough should just about cover the entire pan. 
8. Add the cheese to the zucchini and mix them together until evenly distributed. 
9. Evenly top the crust with the zucchini and cheese mixture, making sure it covers the crust from edge to edge. Sprinkle the top evenly with the bread crumbs. 
10. Bake the pizza for 30 to 35 minutes, until everything begins to turn golden and the crust begins to pull away from the sides of the pan.

Recipe slightly adapted from Jim Lahey's My Bread.