Lots of roasted garlic, creamy ricotta, spinach, and mozzarella make up this incredible (and incredibly cheesy) white pizza with spinach.

We’ve recently discovered a sort of hole-in-the-wall type of restaurant near us that serves really, really darn good pizzas. In particular, they make a white pizza that’s kind of to die for. It’s apparently New York style (I have never been to New York, sadly, so I cannot confirm or deny this). It’s simply made, with a chewy thick crust, dollops of herby (and mysteriously slightly sweet) ricotta cheese, and a melty smattering of mozzarella. I’ve started having them add spinach which makes it even better.

I’m into making white pizza at home (and I’m a little obsessed with white-pizza-inspired foods, too) – so naturally, I needed to go there. I decided some (or okay, a lot of) roasted garlic should to make an appearance along with all that other cheesy goodness (and, of course, the spinach too!) For my carnivorous guy, I grilled up some chicken and added it to the mix.

I decided to try to replicate the slight bit of sweetness I’ve been detecting in the ricotta in my inspiration pizza by adding a touch of honey. It’s pretty perfect, although the roasted garlic adds sweetness, too, so it’s not the end of the world if you decide to leave the honey out. Me, though, I’m never going back. Honey all the way man!
When we do pizzas one-dish-two-ways style, I like to take a one-pound ball of dough and divide it in half to create two smaller pizzas instead of one large one. But if you’re going all meat (or all meatless), you may want to just make one big pizza. Your call! Either way, it’s all good.

White Pizza with Spinach & Roasted Garlic
Ingredients
- 1 pound refrigerated pizza crust dough (I like Trader Joe's garlic & herb dough for this one or use your own favorite pizza dough)
- 24 medium cloves garlic (about 2 heads, separated, peel left on)
- 2 tablespoons olive oil (plus more for working the crust, if desired)
- 1 cup part-skim ricotta cheese (whole milk ricotta works too)
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
- 1 teaspoon honey
- 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt (more for sprinkling the garlic)
- 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 10 ounces frozen chopped spinach (thawed and squeezed to remove any excess moisture)
- 2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese (divided) (about 8 ounces)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Drizzle a baking sheet with a little olive oil and place the pizza dough on top to rest before working. (Trader Joe’s pizza dough requires 30 minutes sitting at room temperature, so I usually do that first).
- Lay out a large square of foil and place the garlic cloves on top (be sure you leave the peel on!). Drizzle with 1 tablespoon olive oil and sprinkle with a couple of pinches of kosher salt. Fold the foil into a sealed packet and place in the oven (put it on a baking sheet if you're worried about leaking). Roast the garlic until soft, golden, and fragrant, about 25 minutes. Remove from oven and set aside to cool. Once cool enough to handle, peel the cloves and discard the skins. Increase oven heat to 450 degrees Fahrenheit to prepare it for baking the pizza.
- Add 8 of the peeled garlic cloves to a small bowl. Smash with a fork. Add the ricotta, 2 teaspoons olive oil, basil, honey, oregano, 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, and pepper. Mix well.
- Stretch the pizza crust into a large (approx. 14-inch) round and place on greased cookie sheet or a pizza stone. If creating one meatless version and one chicken version, split the dough in half and stretch each into smaller rounds, approximately 8 inches or so, and place each on an olive-oil-greased cookie sheet.
- Top the crust(s) with tablespoon-sized mounts of ricotta, as evenly spaced as possible (but it doesn't have to be perfect!) Scatter with spinach and remaining garlic cloves. Top with cooked chicken chunks (instructions in recipe notes) if using (you may only want to use half of the chicken if you're making two smaller pizzas). Scatter mozzarella cheese over the top(s).
- Bake at 450 degrees Fahrenheit until the crust is crisp and golden and the cheese is melted and bubbling, 9-10 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool for a couple of minutes before slicing into wedges with a pizza cutter and serving.
I honestly prefer white pizza, there is something about tomato sauce that just doesn’t do it for me anymore. Roasted garlic makes everything 100x better too!
White pizza is definitely the BEST pizza, I’m with you there! 🙂
This is the 2nd white pizza I’ve seen and yours is pushing me over the edge! I now NEED one. ASAP! The cheese looks so ooey gooey and delicious!
I hope you had one! 😀
This looks insanely good! The pics are seriously making me drool. That bubbly, gooey cheese looks to die for! I definitely have to make this pizza very soon. Roasted garlic….*drools*
Thank you so much! You are making me feel better about the photos, actually, too – because I was feeling like they weren’t the greatest. So thank you for that! 😉
Oh my YUM! This looks slamfantastic!
Hee hee – thanks Becca!
YUM! We almost always do a regular margarita pizza around here because it is hubby’s favorite – but a white pizza like this is one of my favorites, and I am slowly being allowed to integrate changes to our pizza flavors. This is out of this world, totally beautiful!
Thank you so much, Rachel! We do pizza every. single. Friday. – I never thought I’d get tired of pizza, but it happened! So now we tend to mix it up quite a bit. I’m to the point where I omit the red sauce and do something different more often than not now!
I’ll try this using my homemade crust, a little less garlic and some carmalized onion. Like some of the others, I rarely make a tomato sauce.
Just made this. I really like the flavours and my fussy vego bf loved it too. I found it a little dry though, even with fresh homemade pizza dough. I think it needs a cream sauce as a base before the ricotta goes on to add moisture.
This pizza looks insanely awesome and good! I would love to make this. I recently just a couple of weeks ago made my very first flatbread, it came out good. I can’t wait to try this one!
Why the honey?
Never mind = read the article!!! Duh!
I go to this restaurant that has a fabulous white sauce Philly Steak pizza. Any recipes you could share for one?
So I started out wanting to make this recipe but realised that I didn’t have spinach. So I decided ( my stomach decided because it was hungry) to try it with kale as a substitute. Well it worked great.. Tummy approved! Thanks!!
Calories? Carbs?
Wow. This was super yummy! I made the two pizzas, chicken and veggie, and they were super rich and flavorful. This was definitely some comfort food, and it really satisfied. Thank you for these “one dish, two ways” – they have saved the day many times this week!