This recipe is loosely inspired by the enticing flatbreads of Michigan’s Secret Bakery e.g. dirty martini bread, crab rangoon bread. Seeing those topped breads gave me a hankering for a cheesy bread topped with egg, along the lines of Georgian Khachapuri but less gooey-rich and more “garden herb and vegetable.” Apart from dough, cheese, and egg, these breakfast pizzas have zhug, a spicy Yemeni parsley and cilantro sauce, halved cherry tomatoes for bursts of sweetness and acidity, and in batch two, sauteed shiitake mushrooms for woodsy umami.
These breakfast pizzas turned out so tasty, both fresh out of the oven, and to my surprise, after being refrigerated and reheated. In the latter scenario, the yolk gels up and the pizzas are perfect for a meal on the go.
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- Savor with a fork and knife
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- Reheat for a portable meal
About zhug, zhoug, sahawiq (and many more names)
This Yemeni sauce contains parsley, cilantro, green chilis, cumin, coriander, cardamom, salt, and olive oil. Like Italian pesto, it’s traditionally made with a mortar and pestle. One of the names for it, sahawiq, actually stems from the Arabic root for pestle or crush.
If you can’t find zhug at the store—I’ve only seen it sold at Trader Joe’s—it is easy to make from scratch. I’m a fan of this zhoug recipe, though I use 50:50 cilantro and parsley rather than all cilantro. Like the author, I throw everything in the food processor rather than use a mortar and pestle, mainly because I like to make a large amount at once.
Substitutions
If you prefer an herb sauce without spicy heat, try making your zhug with bell peppers instead of chilis, or use an Italian pesto instead of zhug. Because pesto often has parmesan and/or pecorino cheese in it, you might skip the feta to balance out the salt in the final flavor profile.
The short video below demonstrates shaping and topping the breakfast pizzas and a Photo Gallery after the recipe offers step-by-step pics of the process.
Egg and Herb Breakfast Pizzas
Try these egg and herb breakfast pizzas for a delicious meal of tangy sourdough bread, spicy herby zhug sauce, two cheeses, cherry tomatoes, and a sunny-side up egg added a few minutes before the baking is complete. Bonus: the breakfast pizzas reheat nicely for a meal that is so flavorful and convenient.
Ingredients
Dough for 4 breakfast pizzas * see notes for scaling tips
Toppings
- 1/3 cup zhug or pesto
- 1 1/2 cups shredded mozzarella
- 1/2 cup crumbled feta
- 10 cherry tomatoes, halved
- optional 1/2 cup sliced and sauteed shiitake or other mushrooms
- 4 eggs, room temp
- after baking, minced fresh chives or dill, and salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Mixing this dough in the a.m. has the pizzas ready around lunchtime. For breakfast timing, mix the dough in the early evening or late afternoon and then refrigerate it overnight when it is close to doubled. Divide, pre-shape, and proof in the morning. (A room temperature fermentation option would be to mix the dough before bed with a tiny amount of starter, e.g. 3-5 grams, for doubling by morning.)
- With ripe sourdough starter and a warm ambient temperature, this dough needs 3-5 hours to double. After dividing and pre-shaping, the dough balls should rest and rise again for about 30 minutes. Rolling out, topping, and baking will take about 40 minutes more.
- Mix the dough ingredients until you have a smooth and elastic dough. Transfer to a straightwalled container if possible, mark the level of the dough, cover, and let the dough double in size. Refrigerate overnight if desired.
- On a floured work surface, divide the dough into four equal pieces, 145 grams each. Roll the pieces into balls and cover. Let the dough rest and rise for about 30 minutes if room temp, and if cold from the refrigerator, let it rise closer to an hour.
- If you’re using toppings that need to be sauteed e.g. shiitake mushrooms, do this prepwork.
- When the dough rest/proof is complete, preheat your oven to 450°F and line one or more baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Roll each dough into a circle about 8 inches in diameter. Transfer to the baking sheet. If you’re short on baking sheet space, roll out and top the doughs one at a time because the next step of folding the crust edge inward makes each pizza smaller.
- Place shredded mozzarella cheese (or feta) around the perimeter of the dough and fold the edges of the dough over it. Brush zhug onto the dough. Top with shredded mozzarella, crumbled feta, cherry tomatoes, and mushrooms.
- Bake for 10 minutes at 450°F until the cheese is bubbling.
- Remove the baking sheet from the oven, crack an egg over each pizza, and return the sheet to the oven.
- Bake 2 minutes more at 450°F.
- Broil 1 minute for a runny yolk or 2 minutes for a gel-set yolk.
- Bake and broil times may vary with your oven and how much cheese or other toppings you use.
- Let cool on a rack. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and minced herbs like chives or dill. Store in a covered container in the refrigerator. Reheat with a combination of microwaving and toaster oven/frying pan.
Notes
Each breakfast pizza has 75 grams of flour. If you’d like to make, for example, six breakfast pizzas, multiply 75 x 6 for your total flour = 450 grams. From there you can use the baker’s percentages to calculate the rest of your dough ingredients. The dough weight for each pizza is 145 grams.
Baker’s Percentages
100% flour
71% water
18% starter
3% olive oil
2% salt
Photo Gallery
