The Best Mushroom Pizza

Let’s make some delicious mushroom pizza!

I recently spent several days with my friends at California Grown visiting farms (including a mushroom farm) along the Monterey coastline and learning about innovative farming methods that California farmers are employing to keep California, and the US, fed and it was a beautiful, delicious trip!

About this Mushroom Pizza

Most mushroom pizzas go for a white sauce, but nope, not here! I wanted my favorite pizza sauce and a heap of seasonal, delicious veggies.

This pizza is layered in sauce (that comes together in seconds), quick sautéed mushrooms, onions and garlic, ribbons of lacinato kale and light layers of mozzarella (fresh and shredded) and parmesan cheese. 

The pizza in the photos also has some salami (yum). Read below for my tips on putting mushrooms on pizza (no raw mushrooms!), making the sauce, the dough and all that goodness!

California Grown Tour

Our last in-person California Grown Ag Tour was in November 2019. The past several years they have been remote (and lovely!), but nothing beats visiting the actual farms and speaking with the farmers one-on-one. 

I am a proud partner with CA Grown whose mission is to connect us with the people that grow our food. On this trip we met with organic farmers, the largest artichoke producer in California (did you know artichokes are the official state veg of California and that we produce 100% of the commercial US crop?). 

Our first stop on the tour was to a mushroom farm (which inspired this recipe!!) — scroll to read more and get my current, favorite pizza recipe that is loaded with sautéed mushrooms, kale and all kinds of deliciousness!

The Mushroom Farm

The first stop was at Far West Fungi, a 35-year-old, family-run farm dedicated to growing and distributing high-quality, delicious mushrooms…this is where I got the idea for this pizza!

They showed us the different types of mushrooms they grow and walked us through the mushroom’s life cycle and each varietals different needs. 

They sent us home with this mushroom kit and if you have mushroom lovers in your life, I can’t recommend it enough (I think kids would love it!).

Delicious Pizza

One of my favorite ways to highlight California produce is by making pizza…you need very few ingredients to produce a delicious crust, it takes surprisingly little effort and you can feed a crowd – what’s not to love?

This particular pizza I baked in my new pizza oven. It took me a minute to get used to the extreme heat, but now I’m in love! The instructions included below are for using a regular indoor oven. If that’s how you’re baking your pizza, I can’t recommend a pizza steel enough.

The Baker’s Guide to Measuring Flour

One of the biggest (and most common) mistakes in baking is how we measure flour. If you find yourself without a scale, see my top tips on how to properly measure flour for the perfect amount every time!

The Pizza Dough

This is my favorite pizza dough that I’ve been futzing and refining over the years. You’ll find slightly different iterations of it throughout my site (some with beer instead of water, some overnight, some same day, more yeast, less yeast, etc).

All versions work beautifully and you can find a collection of my pizza recipes here. 

This is a rather sticky dough but if you follow the instructions, it will be a piece of cake to work with.

Same Day Pizza

You can assemble the dough in the morning, knead it, place it in a lightly oiled, air-tight container and stash it in the fridge until the evening.

About an hour before I want to put the pizzas in the oven, I’ll pull the dough out of the fridge and separate it into however many pizzas I’m making (I feel like 3 to 6 is the sweet spot). I’ll roll each hunk into a dough ball and cover with a clean, slightly damp hand towel (read the recipe and watch the video for more details).

After about 30-ish minutes, I will start gently shaping the dough into a pizza round working from the center of the dough out. I’m thinking I should put together a pizza dough shaping video…putting that on the to-do list! In the interim, you can see some pizza-dough shaping in the video on this page.

Once your pizza dough is the desired shape and thickness (I don’t like it too thin or it gets fussy to work with), then I either transfer to the well-floured pizza peel, add my sauce + toppings or place on a piece of parchment and then decorate away!

Alternatively, you can mix up the dough, let it double in size (about 1 1/2 to 2 hours) and then proceed with separating the dough as outlined above.

Either of these options work for same-day pizza.

Overnight Pizza

For overnight dough you’ll just follow the above steps but leave the dough in the fridge overnight or up to 48 hours. You can use the dough after this point I just don’t like the consistency of it as much.

Mushrooms on Pizza

Prepping the Mushrooms

You don’t want to add raw mushrooms to your pizza as they’ll dry out while baking. I have you give them a quick sauté in olive oil with minced garlic and thinly sliced onions. This is literally all your pizza needs with the cheese and the sauce.

However, for these pizzas I also added Olli thinly sliced Calabrese, Pepperoni and Chorizo salami…because I was in the mood for something meaty. I also add in some thinly slice kale which gets crispy and delicious when on top of pizza.

Types of Mushrooms to Use

The types of mushrooms we saw on our tour included Fresh King Trumpets, Shiitake, Lion’s Mane (which I think has a citrus flavor lingering in the background…fresh…I loved it) and Oyster mushrooms. Random note: not all mushrooms can be cultivated…some have to just grown wild and we get ‘em when we can!

Any mushrooms would be delicious on pizza, but one of my favorites is Shiitake, which is what I used on these pizzas. Experiment with Cremini, Button and Oyster or a combo of the four would be delicious!

Make sure you don’t use canned or raw as neither will yield great results.

Favorite Pizza-Making Equipment

Pizza Peel This is not as pretty as I’d like ;), but it does the job and it’s reasonable!

Resealable Containers For storing your pizza dough

Pizza Cutter I find this indispensable…a regular knife just doesn’t cut it (literally)

Bench Scraper One of my favorite kitchen tools. You can see me shape the pizza dough with it in the video

Awesome Knife This is my favorite chef’s knife — so pretty!

Pizza Board Love serving pizza on this

Pizza Stone I use mine in the oven and on my bbq

Or Pizza Steel My preference for indoor pizza — love!

My New Pizza Oven Not sponsored – I bought it for my birthday in May!

The Organic Farm

Back to the farm tour…after lunch, on our first day, we popped over to Lakeside Organic Gardens, one of the first organic farms in California. Owner Dick Peixoto walked us through his fields, harvesting procedures and everything they do to manage pests (see the tractor above that sucks up pests!). 

The thought that Dick puts into caring for the land, his workers and the products he puts out into the world was honestly amazing – the world needs more people like him. 

The Tour

One of my favorite parts of these California ag tours (aside from meeting the farmers and visiting the farms) is when we all get to sit down to eat together. This year they prepared the most delicious (and completely vegetarian) meal that many of us didn’t even realize was meatless until it was mentioned.

We sampled lots of California wines, had mai tais in the lobby bar of the Monterey Plaza  Hotel (they’re so good!) and called it a night.

The next day we were off early to visit Ocean Mist Farm. We saw first-hand their enormous artichoke harvesting process in action. They sent us off with handfuls of beautiful artichokes and that was the end of this year’s ag tour!

I’m always struck with the care the farmers put into the land, rotating crops throughout California seasonally, bringing their workers with them throughout the state so their work is stable and less seasonal. Also, fyi, both Ocean Mist and Far West Fungi ship nationwide!  

About California Grown 

California Grown is an amazing resource for recipes, finding out what produce is in season and learning more about where your food comes. I hope you’ll hop over to check it out!!

California Seasonality Chart

Where Your Food Is From

More California Grown Recipes!

Chocolate Brownie Vegan Cookies

Salted Honey Pear Crostata

California Peach Cornmeal Cake

Vegan Peppermint Brownies

Beer-Crust Pizza + Sauce

Burnt Caramel Apples

Five-Spice Prune Bars

Flaky Buttery Prune Danishes

Enjoy!

The Best Foolproof Mushroom Pizza

This delicious mushroom pizza is smothered in sautéed mushrooms, onions and garlic, slivers of lacinato kale and layers of mozzarella and fresh-grated parmesan. The dough has same day as well as overnight options. You will love it!

5 from 11 reviews

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Prep Time: 3 hours hours 40 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 10 minutes minutes

Course: Dinner

Cuisine: Pizza

Keyword: Pizza, Mushroom, Pizza Sauce, Easy Dough Recipe, Dinner, Entertaining

Servings: 4 Servings

Author: Rebecca Firth

Ingredients

For the Pizza Dough

• 14 ounces (395 g) water, (warm (100-110F, 38-43C); see notes for more info)
• 3 teaspoons (9 g) active dry yeast
• 1 1/2 tablespoons (32 g) honey
• 4 cups (540 g) all-purpose flour or bread flour (how to measure flour)
• 1 tablespoon (14 g) extra-virgin olive oil, (plus more for the bowl)
• 1 tablespoon (18 g) sea salt

For the Pizza Sauce

• 15 ounces (425 g) tomato sauce ((see notes))
• 3 tablespoons (54 g) extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 1/2 tablespoons (9 g) dried oregano
• 2 teaspoons (12 g) sea salt
• 1 garlic clove, (peeled and crushed (see notes))

For the Mushrooms

• 2 tablespoons (36 g )extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 garlic clove, (finely minced)
• 1 ½ cups (roughly 75 g) mixed mushrooms, ( thinly sliced)
• 1 small purple onion, (thinly sliced)
• ½ teaspoon sea salt

For the Toppings

• 1 Bunch kale, (thinly sliced)
• Fresh basil
• Mozzarella cheese, (I like both fresh as well as grated)
• Parmesan cheese

Instructions

For the Pizza Dough

• In the bowl of an electric stand mixer* fitted with the dough hook attachment combine the water, yeast and honey and let sit for 10 minutes until the yeast is floating at the top and looks foamy. Add in the flour and olive oil and stir to combine thoroughly, you don’t want any dry bits of flour.
• Cover with a damp hand towel and let sit for 10 minutes. Add in the salt and run the mixer on medium high for 10 minutes or until the dough is sticking to the bottom of the bowl and slapping the sides. It should not be sticking to the sides of the bowl at the end of the 10 minutes. If it’s sticking to the sides, add flour in 1 tablespoon increments. The dough should be smooth, soft, pliable and elastic; it will also be quite damp. Lightly grease a large bowl with olive oil and place the dough in there, turning once to make sure the topside has a light coating of olive oil.
• At this point, you can A) let the dough rise at room temp until double in size (about 2 hours) and proceed with the recipe; B) stash in an air-tight container in the fridge for the day and pull it out that evening when ready to use or; C) cover tightly and stash in the fridge overnight and up to 2 days.

For the Pizza Sauce

• For the pizza sauce, combine the tomato sauce, olive oil, oregano, salt and the crushed garlic clove in a medium, lidded, non-reactive container. Cover and stash in the fridge. When you’re ready to make pizza, bring to room temperature before using. This will last up to 1 week in the fridge.

For the Mushrooms

• In a medium sauté pan over medium-low heat, add the olive oil. Once warm, add the garlic and sauté for 20 seconds. Add in the mushrooms and onions and frequently stir until soft, glossy and fragrant, about 4 to 5 minutes. If at any point the mixture starts to look dry, add 1 tablespoon more of olive and continue to stir until done.

To Assemble

• Preheat your oven to 500F (260C) and place a pizza stone, pizza steel or inverted, level baking sheet on the center rack of the oven. I like to preheat my oven for at least 1 hour prior to making pizza. Set your pizza sauce out on the counter to come to room temperature.
• Equally divide the pizza dough up depending on how many pizzas you want to make (3-6). Roll each piece of the divided dough into a tight, compact ball. Set on a lightly floured surface and lightly dust the tops with flour. Lay a clean hand towel over the top. Let rest for about 30 to 60 minutes or until the dough is no longer cool to the touch; may take longer depending on ambient temperature.
• Once they are no longer cool, gently stretch the dough into pizza rounds. Cut sheets of parchment paper the size of each pizza dough round, lightly dust with flour and set the dough on top. The parchment makes it easier to get the pizzas in and out of the oven.
• Cover each pizza in a light coating of pizza sauce, cover with some cheese (not too much), the mushroom and onion mixture, kale and whatever toppings make you happy (I like to add a little more cheese on top) and then bake in the center of the oven for about 10 minutes. Some ovens will take a minute or two less (a pizza oven will only take about 3 minutes), some ovens a minute or two more. You want there to be some dark charred spots on the top of the crust and the bottom should be firm and crispy (see note). Let sit for 3 minutes (this lets the cheese set a bit) and then cut and serve!

Notes

*This recipe can be made with an electric stand mixer fitted with the dough hook attachment or using a bowl and your strong arms for kneading — both work great! If you knead by hand look for the dough to become smooth and elastic; it will take longer than 10 minutes to get there. 

*You can use fresh tomatoes for the sauce but you’ll need to either strain out the excess moisture or cook the tomatoes down before using so you don’t end up with soggy pizza.

*If using a pizza oven, I’ve found the crust to be not as crispy as when baked in the oven.

*In the video, I used finely minced garlic for the pizza sauce instead of a crushed garlic clove; use whichever is easiest (I go back and forth between the two). The finely minced will yield a more garlic-y pizza sauce.

*Also in the video, I used a light-flavored beer in place of water for the pizza dough. Feel free to use either, I have tested this recipe with both!

Thanks for baking with me! Please rate + comment this recipe and tag me on social @displacedhousewife #displacedhousewife so I can see your beautiful treats! xo

This post was created in collaboration with California Grown!! A big THANK YOU to them + you for supporting the brands I work with! When shopping, look for the California Grown license plate logo to know that you’re getting the goods from our awesome state!!