This Barbecue Ranch Sweet Potato Pizza is gloriously vegetarian and can be made using your favorite crust, flatbread, french bread or gluten-free style straight up on a sweet potato!
September just began and I’m already sick of hearing about pumpkin. It’s everywhere! My Pinterest feed alone is inundated with so many pumpkin spiced cakes, cookies, and confections that I find myself cringing with each scroll. Make it stop! I can’t go down that rabbit hole. I just can’t.
I’m taking a stand and sticking my tongue out at pumpkin. In fact, I’m so ticked off that I’m going to go ahead and boycott it for the rest of 2014.
Take that, pumpkin spice lattes! You don’t own me!
Sweet potatoes are an entirely different story, though. Now THAT veggie owns me.
Factor in a hearty drizzle of deliciously smoky BBQ sauce and zesty ranch dressing and you’ll have me sweet potato wasted for the rest of the year.
Barbecue Ranch Sweet Potato Pizza
I used my go-to garlic naan flatbreads for the base, since it’s the quickest way for me to whip up pizza lately.
You can essentially make a pizza out of anything so grab your favorite crust recipe, some flatbread, or even a crusty loaf of french bread and use this topping combo as your guide!
There’s no wrong way to pizza! Unless of course you don’t do pizza at all, in which case that’s wrong on so many levels. Pizza is a food group around here!
Barbecue Ranch Sweet Potato Pizza
Ingredients
- 2 naan flatbreads
- 1 medium sweet potato peeled
- ¼ cup barbecue sauce
- 1/2-1 cup freshly grated cheese
- 1/2-1 cup baby arugula
- 2 TBSP ranch dressing (see blog post for recipe)
- ¼ cup chopped red onion
Instructions
- Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees F.
- After peeling, slice your sweet potato using a sharpened chef’s knife or mandolin.
- Bring a small pot of water to boil and toss the SP slices in for approx 3-5 minutes.
- Once tender, drain and set aside.
- Slather each flatbread with BBQ sauce and sprinkle with a thin layer of cheese.
- Follow it up with a later of sweet potato and another layer of cheese.
- Bake at 350 F, straight on the rack, for 10-15 minutes or until the crust is crisp and the cheese hot and melty.
- Top with arugula, red onion, and a hearty drizzle of ranch and dig in!
Notes
Nutrition
Since I keep forgetting to post it, here’s my recipe for homemade ranch dressing!
Homemade Ranch
- 1/2 cup of plain greek yogurt
- 1/4 cup of lowfat buttermilk
- 1/4 cup good quality mayonnaise [homemade or store bought]
- 1-2 cloves of garlic, smashed + minced
- 2 stalks of chopped green onion [extra to taste]
- 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
- 1/2 teaspoon dried parsley
- 1/8 tsp salt
- 1/8 tsp garlic powder
- 1/8 tsp onion powder
- 1/8 tsp dill
- a few cranks of freshly cracked black pepper
- a pinch of red pepper flakes
In a food processor or blender, add all your ingredients and give it a good whirl! Since raw garlic has a yummy bite to it, I suggest starting with a little and working your way up based on taste! It’s really that easy! Pulse until everything is perfectly incorporated and allow to chill in the fridge so flavors can mingle and your dressing can thicken a bit. Enjoy!
No processor? No problem! Use a whisk and have at it!
special diets and swaps
Need to mix things up a bit to fit your diet or lifestyle?
GLUTEN-FREE FRIENDS
While there are a bevvy of GF crusts on the market these days, you can simplify your life even further by halving a baked sweet potato and using that as the base for your tasty toppings. Pile on all the above toppings and you have a crustless pizza potato that’s positively tasty!
Channeling your inner T-Rex?
Feel free to add some tender chicken to the mix to round out the meal. It’s great either way!
No matter how you serve it up, I can’t wait for you to try this combo! The cool, tangy ranch and sweet/smokey barbecue sauce are the perfect compliment to these savory sweet potatoes. Add the peppery bite of arugula and red onion on top and hellooooo dellicious!
It also makes fabulous football food. Do it.
If you get a chance to try this jazzed up BBQ ranch sweet potato pizza, let me know! Leave some love in the comment form below or tag your photos with @peasandcrayons on Instagram so I can happy dance over your creation! I can’t wait to see what you whip up!
Questions & Reviews
What kind of grated cheese?
Hi Michaeleen! Any kind you enjoy works great! I love it with grated white cheddar, gouda, or or even pepperjack cheese.
Hi what kind of cheese did you use?
Hey Shannon! I used mozzarella but white cheddar, havarti, or gouda would all be delicious options! xoxo
This looks absolutely delicious – love the sweet potato you’ve added!
Yeesssss! Bring on the sweet potatoes! I love BBQ pizza and I think I could eat 3 of these. And your homemade ranch sounds amazing!!
Craving a slice of this pizza right now.. it looks incredibly delicious!
Thanks Thalia! It was di-vine! <3
Pumpkin is my mistress…. but sweet potato is my wife. 😉 😉 Sweet potato on a pizza, I have to try that!
Remember when I said you should open a pizza shop?
You need to. Stat. In Australia.
Loving this pizza so much!!
Ohhh that look delish!! We joined the paleo bandwagon recently, so I’ll try your sweet potato crust idea 🙂
Yay! Hope you looove it!
This looks completely fabulous. I won’t hold your non-loving pumpkin craziness against you–I love sweet potatoes just as much. 😉
ahhh, garlic naan.. I love you.
I like you so much for not liking pumpkin!! I don’t know what it is with the Americans and they abnormal love for pumpkin… it is not such a thing here in Germany AT ALL. And we don’t have canned pumpkin, at least I haven’t ever seen it anywhere, maybe it hidden in some corners. But that’s another reason why I just cannot make all those recipes that ask for canned pumpkin. And I won’t go as far as roasting pumpkins myself every single time to have mashed pumpkin for a recipe… I just don’t understand the craze 😀 (I think I’ve never typed “pumpkin” as much as right now!)
LOL! Glad I’m not the only one! A fresh-roasted pumpkin is oh-so tasty but that’s a lot of work to just spoon a few tablespoons into recipes so you can call them pumpkin spice ___ // I just can’t get into the crazy when there are so many seasonal veggies that need love!
HA! And I’m the girl that had 3 Pumpkin Spice Lattes in the first week they were released. And the girl that has a pumpkin dessert planned to take to a dinner Tuesday night. Color me pumpkin! 🙂
Also – this pizza looks amazing. And despite the fact it lacks pumpkin, I think it will be going on the menu next week 😉
bahahaha! Go on with your pumpkin’ self! Between me and my sweet potatoes and you and your pumpkin. we’ll have one rockin tan soon!
OMG sweet potatoes on a pizza – holy moly that’s taking it up a notch! What an awesome way to mix it up 🙂 I know a ton of people love ranch to dip their pizza in – this pretty much fixes that problem right!! 🙂 Thanks for sharing – I love the idea of naan as the crust – makes it sooo much easier than waiting on the crust to do it’s thing. Have a great rest of your weekend!
I love my sweet potatoes. Give me a sweet potato pie over a pumpkin pie any day. We need to start a campaign to dethrone pumpkin for the better choice.