Quick Mushroom Leek Lunch Pizza

I am having so much fun exploring the mushroom food trend for 2013 on behalf of Sargento this year. I love mushrooms and am finding the that more I learn about them the more curious I become. This week I decided it was time to explore the idea of using mushrooms to make a quick meal. I find that it is easy to fall into the trap of making large, involved meals featuring mushrooms. But, what about something easy and fast? My quickest meals usually come about during the day which is why I came up with this lunch pizza.

Part of the ease of this pizza is that I had a lot of the ingredients already prepared. I’d saved some cooked leeks from dinner the night before and I already had a ball of pizza dough in the fridge. All that was left was stewing some mushrooms, adding some cheese, and popping the whole thing in the oven!

The nice things about this quick lunch is that it was hearty and filling, for me at least, and beautifully featured the shitake mushrooms I used. I also had some dried porcini on hand, but I’ve decided to wait to use those for another recipe next month. The shitake were actually perfect for the pizza. The chewy texture stood up nicely to the crispy crust, and the leeks and cheese added a subtle savory touch. While mushrooms have long been a traditional pizza topping these really stood out! Now that I have such a hit on my hands I think I’ll make a larger version of these for family pizza night soon.

(Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Sargento. All opinions are my own. Thank you for supporting the sponsors that make The Naptime Chef possible.)