On our first night in Naples, I ate the best pizza I’ve ever had. On top of the amazing crust, generous cheese and tender potato slices, there was something I’d never had before: cooked quinoa prepared like ground meat.

In the months leading up to our honeymoon in Italy, we binge watched “Searching for Italy,” a show that heavily focuses on the country’s food, so I figured it would be a good pairing for my attempted recreation of the best food I ate during our three weeks in Italy.

The pizza we ate in Naples was vegetarian, but our recipe is vegan, making 4-8 “servings” or 2 pizzas.

Crust Ingredients
0.75 cups lukewarm
1 packet active dry yeast
0.5 teaspoons sugar
2 cups pizza flour
(Find a gluten-free pizza crust recipe here.)

Toppings
4 tablespoons garlic-infused olive oil
8 small purple potatoes, sliced into circles
1 8.5-ounce packets pre-cooked red quinoa
4 tablespoons rosemary-infused olive oil
8 ounces vegan Italian cheese blend (shredded)
4 teaspoons dried parsley, oregano or basil (or some combination)

Instructions
Pour the yeast and sugar into the water and let it sit until it gets foamy.

While the yeast mixture gets foamy, sift the flour and salt together in a bowl or stand mixer.

Pour the yeast mixture into the flour and salt to form a rough dough.

Cover the dough and let it sit at room temperature for 12-24 hours.

Divide your pizza dough into two pieces.

Preheat your oven to 400°F with your pizza stone (if you have one) inside to heat up.

Slice the purple potatoes into thin circles.

Heat the garlic-infused olive oil in a pan over medium high heat, then carefully add the potatoes and quinoa. Coat the potato slices and quinoa grains in the oil and cook until the potatoes are just starting to soften.

Remove the pan from the heat and set aside.

Roll out your pizza crusts onto parchment paper and roll up the edges.

Brush the dough with the rosemary-infused olive oil (half on each crust). If you don’t have infused olive oils, you can just use plain olive oil with the option of adding some rosemary to it here or adding garlic or garlic powder when you’re cooking the potatoes and quinoa.

Top your pizzas with the quinoa, potatoes and cheese (half on each pizza). We recommend putting some of the quinoa and potatoes under the cheese and some on top of it.

Sprinkle your dried herbs (basil, oregano and/or parsley) over the top. We used a combination of parsley and oregano.

Place the pizza (with the parchment paper) on a pizza stone or pizza pan. Bake at 400°F for 10 minutes.

Slice and enjoy with the Naples episode of “Searching for Italy!”

The Easy Route
Using pre-cooked quinoa made this a lot easier for us. I suppose you might also be able to find pre-sliced potatoes.

Also, instead of making your own crust, you could buy a ball of dough or a fully prepared crust.

And then there’s the easiest route of all: ordering a pizza for delivery or takeout. Of course, it will probably be hard to find one that has fried quinoa and purple potatoes as topping options.

The Pairing
Watching Stanley Tucci explore and eat in the two seasons of “Searching for Italy” was a great primer for our honeymoon.

In the show’s two seasons, he visits Naples, the Amalfi Coast, Rome, Bologna, Milan, Tuscany, Sicily, Venice, Piedmont, Umbria, Calabria, Sardinia, Puglia and Liguria. We stayed in Venice, Verona, Florence, Rome and Naples on our trip, with day trips to Murano, Lido, Valpolicella, Pisa, San Gimignano, Siena, Torrempietra, Pompeii and Capri.

I knew this would be a perfect pairing since the series starts in Naples with a heavy focus on pizza.
Yes, Tucci does occasionally go into other subjects on the show, but it really is a show made for foodies.

Tucci is a great host for this romp all around Italy, from some of it’s biggest cities to the beautiful Tuscan countryside to the breathtaking coast and islands.

There are only 14 episodes of the show, and they’re really a breeze to binge-watch. But the show will make you hungry and want to book a ticket to Italy. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

If you decide to make this pizza and/or watch “Searching for Italy,” let us know! Tag us in your Instagram posts & stories, tweets or TikTok videos: @veg_out_recipes

This is part three of our five-part Honeymoon in Italy series. The others:
Part 1: “Brideshead Revisited” + Aperol Spritz
Part 2: “Roman Holiday” + Supplì
Part 4 coming August 17
Part 5 coming August 24