[This post is sponsored by KitchenAid. I’m excited to share some of the appliances we installed during our kitchen remodel.]
This is my dream pizza.
If you’ve followed me for a while, you know tomato sauce has never been my favorite. I grew up avoiding it, and though I love pizza, I usually choose a white pizza over a classic tomato-based pie. This pizza is everything I want in a white pizza — rich, savory, and layered with flavor.
The combination here nearly makes my taste buds explode every time I see it. It’s piled with favorite flavors that balance and elevate one another. The base is a silky garlic cream sauce, and the toppings — slow roasted cherry tomatoes and caramelized onions finished with peppery arugula — are what truly make it special.
This recipe was inspired by a pizza I fell in love with at Ironborn in Smallman Galley. The garlic cream base is luxuriously smooth and supports the sweet, concentrated roasted tomatoes and deeply savory caramelized onions perfectly. I’d been wanting to recreate it at home, and now is the perfect time.
This post is in partnership with KitchenAid, and I’ve been using several of their appliances since our remodel. They’ve made prepping and cooking so much easier. First up: the slow roasted cherry tomatoes. Late summer and early fall are the best times for them, but even store-bought tomatoes benefit from roasting. Slow roasting transforms ordinary cherry tomatoes into intensely sweet, caramelized bites of tomato candy. I roast them at 300°F for about 1.5–2 hours until they’re shriveled and deeply flavored. It’s tempting to eat them straight from the sheet pan.
We also add caramelized onions, which take roughly 35–40 minutes to become soft and sweet. This step makes the pizza a little more hands-on than a standard pie, but you can cook the tomatoes and onions while your dough is rising, so the timing works out well. I slow roast the tomatoes in my KitchenAid Wall Oven so they come out evenly caramelized every time.
I love the Wall Oven because it bakes so evenly. Its Even-Heat™ system preheats reliably and removes cold spots, so the tomatoes roast consistently. That evenness also makes baking this pizza a dream: a golden crust and bubbly, slightly browned cheese every time.
The final pizza is cheesy, sweet, and caramelized with a garlic-forward cream sauce and a fresh pop of arugula. The contrast between warm, sweet tomatoes and cool, peppery arugula is one of my favorite flavor pairings. I often skip deli meats on this style of pizza so the greens really shine on top.
For the dough, I use my go-to pizza dough recipe and the dough hook on my KitchenAid Stand Mixer. The hook kneads the dough evenly and creates a smooth, elastic texture without the elbow grease. The Wall Oven’s proof setting is an especially handy feature — it gives a warm, controlled environment for dough to rise without the old trick of setting the bowl on a hot stove.
The garlic cream sauce is quick to make and should be prepared shortly before assembling the pizza so it stays silky. Heat most of the cream with butter and garlic, whisk a slurry of flour and the remaining cream, then combine and cook until thickened. Spread this onto your rolled dough, add strained ricotta, then top with caramelized onions and slow roasted tomatoes. Bake until the cheese bubbles and the crust is golden, then let the pizza rest so the center sets before topping with fresh arugula.
A big cooktop on the island was a must for me. We installed a 36-inch, 6-burner KitchenAid rangetop and it’s become a daily workhorse. The burners heat quickly and offer a range of power — two 20K BTU, three 15K BTU, and a small 5K BTU burner for gentle simmering. I used one of the 15K burners to make the garlic cream sauce and it was ready in minutes.
I always bake pizzas on a pizza stone, and the faster preheat of my Wall Oven means the stone reaches temperature more quickly. The pizza bakes beautifully at 425–475°F depending on whether you use a stone, crisping the crust and melting the cheeses just right. The oven racks slide smoothly too, which makes loading and unloading hot pizzas much less stressful.
Once the pizza comes out of the oven and you pile on the arugula, the flavors pop — sweet, savory, creamy, and peppery all at once. It’s an incredibly satisfying pizza and currently the only one I want to eat.
Slow Roasted Cherry Tomato Pizza with Garlic Cream and Arugula
Ingredients
dough
- 1 1/8 cups warm water
- 3 teaspoons active dry yeast
- 1 tablespoon honey
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
toppings
- 2 pints cherry tomatoes, halved
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 2 sweet onions, thinly sliced
- 2 teaspoons light brown sugar
- 2 cups heavy cream
- 1 tablespoon unsalted butter (for sauce)
- 6 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
- 8 ounces full-fat ricotta cheese
- 3 to 4 cups fresh baby arugula
Instructions
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook, combine water, yeast, honey and olive oil. Stir, then let sit until foamy, about 10 minutes. Add 2 1/2 cups flour and salt and mix on low until dough comes together but remains sticky. Form into a ball and knead in the remaining 1/2 cup flour by hand on a floured surface until smooth. Oil a bowl, place the dough inside, turn to coat, cover and let rise in a warm place for 1–1 1/2 hours.
- Punch down the dough and shape it on a floured surface into your desired pizza shape. Place on a baking sheet or pizza pan, cover with a towel and let rest in a warm place for 10 minutes.
- Heat the oven to 425°F (if using a pizza stone, preheat to 475°F and bake about 15 minutes; otherwise bake at 425°F).
toppings
- Preheat the oven to 300°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment and arrange halved cherry tomatoes on it. Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with sugar and salt, toss, and roast for 1.5–2 hours, tossing every 30 minutes, until the tomatoes are deeply caramelized.
- While the tomatoes roast, melt 3 tablespoons butter in a skillet over low heat. Add sliced onions, a pinch of salt and the brown sugar. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions are soft and caramelized, about 35–40 minutes.
- To make the garlic cream sauce, warm 1 1/2 cups of the cream with 1 tablespoon butter over medium-low heat and stir in the garlic. Whisk the remaining 1/2 cup cream with the flour to make a slurry, then add to the cream mixture and cook 2–3 minutes, stirring, until thickened.
- Place the ricotta in a fine-mesh strainer and press gently with a paper towel to remove excess liquid.
- Assemble the pizza: spread the garlic cream on the dough, leaving a 1-inch border. Dollop or spread the ricotta, then add caramelized onions and roasted cherry tomatoes. Bake 20–25 minutes (15–20 minutes on a pizza stone) until cheese is golden and crust is browned. Let rest 10–15 minutes to set, then top with fresh arugula and slice.
