Avocado and Cream Cheese Smoked Salmon Pizza
I’m going to be totally transparent with you—the entire idea for this pizza recipe was an accident.
Well, sort of.
Like all good things in life, this story starts with sushi.
I received a sushi bazooka from my mother as a Christmas present (if you don’t know what a sushi bazooka is, I’d LOVE to be able to see into your minds to know what’s going on right now. NO, my mother did not gift me a cannon that shoots sushi rolls. Although that would be pretty cool.)
A sushi bazooka is a little contraption that lets you make sushi at home! You just stuff in the rice, add your veggies and fish, then close the lid and it squeezes out. If I’m still not making much sense, here’s a visual, even though it’s highly unrelated to this smoked salmon pizza recipe whatsoever.
Since this was my first time trying to make sushi at home, I needed a little guidance on where I could buy fish that was “sushi grade” to be able to eat raw. I just so happened to be at Trader Joes a few days before my planned sushi night, and I saw that they had smoked salmon there! It looked pretty raw, so I figured this had to be the stuff and I bought it.
Wrongo.
Apparently the salmon you eat on lox bagels or in cute cucumber sandwiches is NOT the same kind of salmon/fish that you use in sushi. Ugh. Long story short, I had some smoked salmon at home that I needed to use for something!
Like all good things in life (part dos), the story was saved by Pinterest. I typed “recipes with smoked salmon” into the search bar, and pizzas were the first few pins to pop up! After looking (and pinning) what seemed to be dozens of recipes, I finally formulated a recipe that was a little healthy and a little original. And it was a success!
PS, if you’re interested in my other pinnings, click here!
Because I wanted to keep the pizza as healthy as possible as well as gluten free, I was able to use my other Trader Joe’s purchase—their new(ish) cauliflower crust!!
I KNOW this recipe would be way better with a whole wheat tortilla or store-bought pizza base, so def feel free to make the swap, I probably will in the future too. I’ve also been playing around with using smoked salmon on a pizza with pesto (heathy fats FTW)… stay tuned.
Enjoy!
Smoked Salmon Pizza
Change it up and try something new for dinner! This lox inspired pizza hits a perfect balance of savory and sweet. Try it tonight!
Ingredients
- 1 Cauliflower Pizza Crust (Trader Joe's is my JAM)
For the sauce:
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 5 ounces Neufchatel cheese (or cream cheese) room temperature
- 2 tbsp chopped dill
- 1 pinch black pepper
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 1 whole lemon, divided for use
For Pizza:
- 6 ounces smoked salmon
- 1/2 cup mozzarella cheese, shredded
- 1/2 avocado, sliced thinly
- 1 handful fresh arugula
Instructions
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If using the cauliflower pizza crust, bake the crust according to package directions. Once the crust is cooked, adjust oven temp to 400 degrees.
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While crust is baking, mix ingredients for sauce. Spread over pizza crust, and then top with almost all of the shredded cheese. Bake in the oven for 10 minutes, or until cheese has melted through.
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Remove from oven; top with salmon slices, avocado slices, and arugula leaves. Sprinkle with pepper and top with the remaining cheese and place back into the oven for an additional 2-3 minutes to warm salmon through.
