Making pizza can be a weeknight kind of meal with a few small tweaks for a vegetarian main dish. Caramelized onions are one of those easy add-ons that might not come to mind. When mixed with Mission or Golden Dried Figs, you’ve got the fixings for a solid savory pie.
Caramelized Onion 101
When it comes to caramelized onions, the most difficult ingredient is time. We start by using equal parts butter and olive oil for flavoring the thinly sliced onions as they cook. A splash of balsamic vinegar adds a touch of extra flavor. Then, over medium heat they need to cook down for about 25 to 30 minutes until they are completely transparent and slippery. At that point comes another flavor hack: adding in fresh or dried herbs off-heat. The caramelized onion pizza below calls for thyme, but you could swap in rosemary or another earthy herb like oregano. Lastly, stir in thinly sliced California Dried Figs. Both Mission or Golden Figs add a touch of sweetness to what will be your savory sweet topping, used instead of sauce.
Cheese, Please
Cheese is an indispensable ingredient to pizza. Here we use goat cheese, crumbled atop. We suggest using plain goat cheese, but you could make a different type of pizza just by using a flavored goat cheese like garlic & chive, black truffle or olive. Another way to vary the pizza below would be to cut fat slices of mozzarella, shave Parmesan, or crumble a bold cheese like blue cheese or gorgonzola.
Pizza Night, Any Night
Instead of making pizza dough from scratch or even buying pre-made dough, we’ve got a quick pizza hack here in using Italian pre-baked pizza shells that then get topped with fig-caramelized onions. You can find pre-baked pizza shells typically in the bread aisle or sometimes hanging at the end of the frozen pizza aisle. Hungry? Pick up the ingredients and make pizza tonight.
Caramelized Onion Fig Goat Cheese Pizza
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 3 large onions thinly sliced
- 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar or red wine vinegar
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon pepper
- 1 cup Orchard Choice or Sun-Maid California Figs thinly sliced, stems trimmed
- 1 tablespoon fresh thyme chopped, or 1 teaspoon dried
- 1 12" Italian bread shell pizza crust
- 2/3 cup crumbled mild goat cheese
Instructions
- Heat oven to 450°.
- In large deep skillet or Dutch oven, melt butter in oil over medium heat. Stir in onions, vinegar, salt and pepper; cook, stirring occasionally, until softened and golden brown, 25-30 minutes. Stir in figs and thyme; remove from heat. (Onion-fig mixture can be made ahead and refrigerated.)
- Spread onion-fig mixture evenly over pizza crust and top with cheese. Bake until crust is crisp and cheese has softened, 8-10 minutes.
