Pizza Salad

Supreme Pizza Salad: this salad is no boring, average salad. Mixed greens are tossed with crisped pepperoni, pesto pita chips, artichoke hearts, mini mozzarella balls, marinated olives, cherry tomatoes, sun dried tomatoes, pepperoncini, and a flavourful 3-ingredient pesto vinaigrette.

It’s perfectly suited to hot weather, being a hearty meal that doesn’t weigh heavy on your stomach and doesn’t require you to heat up the kitchen to uncomfortable temperatures. Gather up all your goodies and get ready for a salad that truly satisfies!

A while back, when my husband and I were on the best Caribbean cruise we’ve ever experienced, I discovered the pizzeria on board. If you know me, you know that pizza is my kryptonite.

The pizza on the Caribbean Princess was perfect. It was hand tossed and stretched dough with the ideal amount and type of toppings, baked right in front of me while I waited.

But if you know me, you also know I’m a maniac for salad, and the 24-hour salad bar aboard the Caribbean Princess was magnificent. My husband and I had epic salads for lunch every single day.

Ya know, with my pizza slices. Basically, it was heaven.

And then I was home. Sigh. It always has to come to a close eventually, but I really missed the pipeline to pizza and salad.

While perusing Instagram, I came across a *GASP* pizza salad in my friend Shari’s feed, and knew my girl was onto something good. I hatched my plan, shopped my list, and created this salad that handily combines two of my all time favourite foods into one irresistible Supreme Pizza Salad: this salad is no boring, average salad.

What ingredients do I need for a pizza salad?

Now friends, I really want you to go great guns and try this mega supreme pizza salad in all its enormous, fully-loaded glory. But if you are a pepperoni pizza kind of guy or gal, or if you just plain don’t want to gather all the little goodies for the pizza salad, feel free to pare it down to the pepperoni, cheese, pesto pita chips, and dressing.

If you go for the full shebang, you’ll be adding pepperoni, homemade pita chips, artichoke hearts, mini mozzarella balls, marinated Italian style olives. That’s not all though!

Don’t forget the cherry tomatoes, sun-dried tomatoes packed in oil, pepperoncini rounds, grated Parmesan cheese, and homemade 3-ingredient pesto vinaigrette to your greens. Can I get an amen?

Pizza Salad Cook’s Notes

If you have to fire up your oven in the summer, make it do double duty. You can bake the homemade pita chips recipe and the pepperoni to crisp them up at the same time on two pans.

Speaking of crisping the pepperoni, keep your eyes peeled because it goes from almost done to charcoal pretty quickly. The process is fast; you really don’t need to have them in there for long.

And they’ll darken and crisp up further as they cool on paper towels. It’s better to go a little under than to go too far with it.

I prefer to crisp the pepperoni for our Supreme Pizza Salad on parchment or foil for easier clean up because the pepperoni gives off quite a bit of grease.

And on the subject of grease, I prefer to cool and drain the crisped pepperoni simultaneously on a couple layers of paper towel. If you dig the grease, though, there will be no judgement from me if you go straight from the pan to the salad with them.

If you cannot find mini mozzarella balls easily, you can substitute 1 cup of cubed mozzarella cheese or torn fresh mozzarella from a ball.

As far as greens go, the best choices for this salad are mixed spring greens, arugula, or a combination of those.

When choosing sun dried tomatoes for the pizza salad, choose ones that are packed in oil, and preferably marinated in Italian herbs as well.

The same applies to the olives. I am lucky enough to have a Wegman’s with an olive bar where I can choose Italian marinated olive salad.

If you don’t have this available, any marinated olive with herbs and garlic will do. And if that is not available, you can substitute whichever olives you prefer on pizza.

If you want to prep this salad ahead of time to be served later in the day, you can separate each of the toppings into a container and store it tightly covered in the refrigerator. Assemble right before serving for best taste and texture.

If Main Dish Salads are your thing, we also have Bo Luc Lac (Vietnamese Shaking Beef Salad), Cheeseburger Salad, Greek Salad, Tex-Mex Cobb Salad, Spicy Southwestern Chicken Salad + Meal Prep, and Blackened Salmon Caesar Salad.

If you love Pizza Salad, you’ll love these pizza goodies, too!

• Pepperoni Pizza Bialys
• The Best Pan Pizza; How, Why, and What to Put on It
• Smoked Salmon Cucumber Pizza
• Pepperoni Pizza Gnocchi
• Tuscan Style Prosciutto Fig and Greens Pizza
• Slow Cooker Deep Dish Pizza
• Charred Corn and Rosemary Grilled Pizza
• Hawaiian Pizza

Use these to make Supreme Pizza Salads more easily!

• sheet pan
• parchment paper
• cutting board
• chef knife

This post was sponsored in July of 2018 by my friends Princess Cruises. It was republished in May of 2020 with improved notes.