This easy potato pizza with Fontina cheese and rosemary is one the classic Roman pizzas which Italians adore. A potato pizza, or, pizza con patate, is a thin pizza topped with sliced yellow potatoes, grated Fontina cheese and fresh rosemary–that’s all! While the combination of two starches in a pizza might seem a little strange to some Americans, it is considered a classic topping for pizza in Italy.
As is always the case with recipes that call for very few and simple ingredients, the quality of those ingredients is very important: for this pizza, we will use plenty of good olive oil, a chunk of good Italian Fontina cheese, a few creamy potatoes, and, most important, everything will be seasoned very generously.
Essential Ingredients
The classic Roman version of this delicious pizza calls for just three ingredients for topping: sliced potatoes, rosemary and olive oil. Other regional variations also include local cheese, which makes this pizza even more irresistible!
- Pizza dough, homemade or store-bought
- Yukon Gold potatoes, thinly sliced
- Fresh rosemary
- Fontina cheese, a delicious semi-soft cheese from northern Italy
- Extra virgin olive oil
- Sea salt
- Freshly ground pepper (optional)
- Red pepper flakes and dried oregano for topping (optional)
How to make the Easy Potato Pizza with Fontina and Rosemary
1. Make the dough
This dough is easy enough to make by hand, but it is even faster to make with a stand mixer, if you have one. The dough will need to rise at room temperature until double in volume before you can use it. Even better, allow it to stay overnight in the refrigerator and use it the next day. Once it is ready to use, place it on a piece of parchment paper and shape it into an oval or rectangle.
2. Prepare the potatoes and place them on top of the pizza dough
With the help of a mandolin, or your food processor, slice the unpeeled potatoes very thinly and place them in a bowl with water. When ready to use, drain them very well, and pat them dry with a kitchen towel. Toss them with olive oil, sea salt and the rosemary and place them on the dough in an overlapping pattern.
3. Top with the Fontina cheese
Spread the Fontina cheese over the potatoes, sprinkle with some dried oregano and red pepper flakes and place in the preheated oven.
4. Bake until the cheese is melted
Allow the pizza to slightly cool down for a few minutes before cutting into pieces
Useful Tips:
- Slice the potatoes very thinly so they cook fully and evenly in the oven
- Toss the potatoes with the olive oil and the rosemary and season them very generously with salt pepper
- Before you start stretching the dough, make sure it is at room temperature
- This particular pizza is neither rolled or tossed in the air, just stretched with the fingertips
- If you do not want to use parchment paper, you can also use a rectangular pan, greased with olive oil
- Unlike other kinds of pizza which require higher temperature, we bake this pizza at 450˚ F to allow the potatoes to cook fully
Potato pizza is one of the many kinds of pizza that Italians enjoy for a quick lunch as “pizza a taglio” (or, pizza by the slice). The are baked in large rectangular or oblong shapes, and then cut with scissors to any size you ask for and sold by weight. It is the perfect street food to have when you want a quick snack or a light lunch on the go!
- For the pizza dough:
- 1 cup lukewarm water (90°F to 105°F)
- 2 tsp. active dry yeast
- --- pinch of sugar
- 2 cups bread flour (or “00” pizza flour)
- 1 tsp. sea salt
- 1 TBSP. extra virgin olive oil
- For the topping:
- 3 small Yukon Gold potatoes (about 10oz.)
- 4 TBSP. extra virgin olive oil
- 1 tsp. sea salt, more to sprinkle on
- --- freshly ground black pepper
- 2 TBSP. fresh rosemary, minced (about two rosemary sprigs)
- 6–7 oz. Fontina cheese, grated
- --- dried oregano (optional)
- --- red pepper flakes (optional)
- To make the pizza dough:
- Add the lukewarm water, the yeast, and the sugar to a medium bowl (or to the bowl of a stand mixer equipped with a dough hook). Stir well to dissolve the yeast and allow the mixture to sit for about 5 minutes or until foamy. Add the flour, the sea salt and the olive oil and mix until a soft dough forms. Stir in a little more flour if the mixture is still wet.
- Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled bowl and brush it all over with olive oil. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough rise at room temperature for an hour or until it is doubled in volume. At this point, it is ready to use. For better results, refrigerate the dough overnight (the dough will be much easier to handle the next day).
- To assemble the pizza:
- Allow the dough to come to room temperature if it was in the refrigerator overnight. Preheat the oven to 450ºF and place a pizza stone or a pizza steel in the lower rack of the oven.
- Thinly slice the unpeeled potatoes with the help of a mandolin (or a food processor with the slicing blade) and place them in a bowl with cold water. Rinse them a couple of times to remove the starch.
- Stretch the pizza dough out on a large piece of parchment paper. As you stretch the dough with your fingertips, use some flour if the dough sticks. The dough should roughly form a 10″x14″ rectangle. When the dough shrinks back and resists the stretching, let it relax for five minutes before stretching it again. Drizzle the dough with 1 tablespoon of the olive oil.
- Drain the potatoes well and pat them dry with a kitchen towel. In a dry bowl, combine the potatoes with the rest of the olive oil, the salt, the pepper and the rosemary and place them on the dough in a slightly overlapping pattern.
- Spread the Fontina cheese over the potatoes and sprinkle with some dried oregano and red pepper flakes. Slide a pizza peel under the parchment paper, lift the pizza (with the parchment paper), and slide it on the preheated pizza steel or stone.
- Bake for about 15 to 18 minutes or until the crust is crispy and golden. If the cheese has not completely melted, move the pizza to the upper rack of the oven during the last few minutes of baking, so that the cheese gets a nice golden-brown color.
- With the pizza peel, carefully lift the pizza from the oven and place it on a rack. Let it cool slightly and then cut it in small pieces to serve.
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