This spicy vegan butternut squash flatbread has so many of my favourite flavours! Slightly sweet roasted butternut squash is given full coverage by earthy and slightly sour za’atar. Slices of garlic get crispy alongside. All of that is piled onto pillowy dough brushed with chili crunch (my new fave!) and cooked on a mega hot stone. The finished flatbread is drizzled with a creamy, tangy, and garlicky miso sauce and a fresh arugula fennel salad. Such a great welcome to Fall cooking!
One of my best bits of advice for making pizza/flatbreads at home is to invest in a pizza stone and peel. Nothing beats that high heat from all sides of the oven in addition to the stone crisping up your crust. It’s a game changer! I build my pizza on a circle of parchment paper with a little tab on the side. I find this so much easier to transfer to the hot stone.
Some Tips for Making this Flatbread:
- If you really like spice (like me!), you can go for 2 tablespoons of chili crunch instead of mixing it 50/50 with olive oil.
- I mostly buy pizza dough from a local grocery store, but I do have a spelt pizza dough recipe here.
- The miso garlic sauce is super savoury and tangy, and would work great on grain bowls, salads, as a little drizzle on roasted sweet potatoes etc.
- If you do weekly meal prep, you could pre-roast the squash and garlic, store it in the fridge and just have it ready for pizza time! Doing this would cut the prep time down considerably.
I have so many great vegan dinner recipes for the upcoming season! This is the time of year where my cooking style tends to shine. I just like cozy food! I recommend checking out my Creamy Vegan Orzo Risotto with Butternut Squash and this Vegan Soup Recipes roundup for a bit more inspiration.
Spicy Vegan Butternut Squash Flatbread with Za’atar & Miso Garlic Sauce
This is an exceptionally flavourful vegan butternut squash flatbread. The dough is brushed with chili crunch before being topped with za'atar-roasted cubes of squash, shallots, a creamy and tangy miso garlic sauce, and a super fresh arugula fennel salad.
Servings 2 -4
Ingredients
Za’atar Butternut Squash
- 3-4 cups small-diced butternut squash, about 1 small butternut or honey nut squash
- 1 ½ tablespoons olive oil
- 1 ½ tablespoons za’atar, plus extra
- 2 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced
- sea salt and ground black pepper, to taste
Miso Garlic Sauce (makes extra)
- 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
- 5 tablespoons avocado or other neutral-flavoured oil
- 2 tablespoons water
- 1 tablespoon light miso
- 3 cloves garlic, peeled
- 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
- 1 teaspoon maple syrup
Flatbread Assembly
- 1 lb 454 grams pizza dough
- 1 tablespoon chili crunch or other chili-infused oil option
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 small shallot, peeled and sliced
- 1 small fennel bulb, shaved thin
- 2 handfuls baby arugula
- 1 ½ tablespoons olive oil
- 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
Equipment
- Pizza Stone
Notes
- If you really like spice (like me!), you can go for 2 tablespoons of chili crunch instead of mixing it 50/50 with olive oil.
- I mostly buy pizza dough from a local grocery store, but I do have a spelt pizza dough recipe here.
- The miso garlic sauce is super savoury and tangy, and would work great on grain bowls, salads, as a little drizzle on roasted sweet potatoes etc.
- If you do weekly meal prep, you could pre-roast the squash and garlic, store it in the fridge and just have it ready for pizza time! Doing this would cut the prep time down considerably.
Instructions
- Lay a pizza stone on the bottom rack of a cold oven, ensuring that there’s enough clearance above to transfer the pizza, but also an accessible rack at the very top to roast the squash. Preheat the oven to 400°F.
- Transfer the butternut squash to a baking sheet and toss with 1 ½ tablespoons of olive oil, the za’atar, garlic slices, salt, and pepper. Toss to coat and transfer to the oven. Roast until the squash cubes are tender and browning on the edges, about 25-30 minutes. Let it cool slightly.
- While squash is roasting, make the miso garlic sauce. In an upright blender, combine the vinegar, olive oil, garlic, miso, Dijon mustard, maple syrup, water, and pepper. Blend on high until smooth and creamy. Set aside.
- Once squash is done, raise the heat of the oven to 500°F.
- Dust your working surface and a pizza peel with flour OR line the peel with a piece of parchment paper. Start stretching out the dough until you have a 12-inch circle of even thickness. Carefully transfer the dough circle to the floured/papered peel. If you use the paper method, trim the paper so that you have a ½ inch border around the circle of dough.
- Jiggle the pizza peel to ensure that the flatbread will come loose. If it’s sticking, carefully lift up the edges and toss in a bit more flour until it seems to loosen from the peel.
- In a little bowl, mix together the chili crunch and olive oil, then spread it over the surface of the stretched out dough. Then, top the flatbread with the roasted butternut squash and garlic mixture, as well as the thinly sliced shallots. I like to press the toppings into the surface of the dough a bit, kind of like how I would if I was making focaccia. Season the top with more za’atar if you like.
- Open the oven and with equal measures of care and efficiency, slide the flatbread off of the peel and onto the hot stone with a few flicks of your wrist (or just pull a tab of the parchment paper if you went with that option). Close the oven immediately.
- While flatbread is baking, toss the fennel and arugula together with the lemon juice, 1½ tablespoons olive oil, and some salt and pepper.
- Let the flatbread cook for 7 minutes. Open the oven and, using the peel, rotate the pizza. Cook for an additional 3-5 minutes, or until the top crust is browning in spots and the shallots have shrunk up a bit.
- Remove the flatbread from the oven and cut into slices. Drizzle with some of the miso garlic sauce, top with the fennel arugula salad, and serve!
Oh wow!!!! Incredible!!! I am gluten free and used Simple Mills pizza crust and made individual 8” pizzas. The flavor is absolutely delicious. This is definitely company worthy. All the flavors and textures mix so well together. The miso sauce is so good, the chili crunch gives heat and the za’atar completes it. A must try!! Thank you for an amazing dish.
This was incredible! The flavors all went together so well and made for a really fun, different pizza! We will definitely be adding this to the rotation and I am bookmarking it for the next time we have people over for dinner :)
So, so, so good. This flatbread is going into regular rotation. I am putting the sauce on EVERYTHING now. I even added a little gochujang sauce to the garlic miso sauce — crazy good.
Ok, I did make a couple of changes, mostly just to reduce the oil a bit for my personal taste, and I added some vegan sausage for added protein.
That being said, this was amazing. The buttery squash had little bits of char and pops of sesame from the zaatar seasoning. The bite from the arugula and fennel was perfectly balanced by the squash. This may be one of the best pizzas I’ve ever had.
I am pescatarian, not Vegan, so I typically make my pizzas with cheese. However, I love your recipes above all others and I wanted to have a vegan pizza in my back pocket so I tried this one this weekend.
This was just phenomenal. I used a subpar chili crisp so that’s the only change I’ll make next time. However, the flavors were incredible. The crunch from the shaved fennel and arugula, the spicy chili crisp, the zatar zing on the squash. Most of all, the sauce!!
My husband, who is a meat eater, took one bite, and then said “that sauce!” We ended up having a bowl of the sauce and just kept dipping the crust into the sauce. SO good.
Super delicious, and a great variation on more traditional pizza recipes. Made the following changes out of necessity: rose wine vinegar instead of white wine vinegar, mixed spring lettuce instead of arugula, omitted the shallot. The only change I would make is to roast the garlic cloves with the butternut squash whole, rather than sliced, because mine burnt. I would also use about 1/2 the amount of maple syrup in the miso dressing, as the squash is already fairly sweet. The fennel and greens with lemon are ESSENTIAL here; the fresh and sour crunch goes so well with everything else. Really creative combo, thanks for the recipe.
OMG this was seriously amazing. This tasted like an expensive pizza you would get from a swanky pizza joint but so much better! I never would have thought to combine all of these ingredients but you are a genius Laura, it’s seriously so delicious!
Dude, this SLAPS. I’m not vegan but I really enjoy all your recipes because they help me incorporate more veg into my diet and this one is a winner. That miso sauce, the spice from the chili, the bite of the arugula and fennel… *chefs kiss*
Oh goodness, I can’t wait to try this one. What a great combination of flavor profiles. My partner does not enjoy spice so I might have to do half the flatbread without chili crunch and then double down on my side haha. I agree, your cozy recipes really shine. Keep them coming