Have fun making this beautiful pizza, no artistic talent required. It’s guaranteed to be crispy, light and delicious! In place of pizza dough, extra thin sheets of filo dough are easily layered with a bit of olive oil then topped with a few bits of feta and fresh mozzarella and some strategically sliced and lightly roasted vegetables. It’s got the pizza vibes without all the heft.
prep: 30 mins
cook: 30 mins
total: 60 mins
Cooking or baking with filo (a.k.a. phyllo) pastry can be tricky and laborious. However, as with my Phyllo Apple Tart, this recipe comes together easily and without too much work, for a showstopper presentation. If you don’t enjoy working with pizza dough, or the labor and timing involved with making it, I recommend keeping a box of filo dough on hand in the freezer, so you can make this beautiful and fun filo pizza anytime it strikes your fancy.
Take note, this filo dough pizza is very light and crispy. There is no tomato sauce and very little cheese. What’s more, the cheese that is used is high moisture and lower in fat than hard cheeses. All around, the recipe is a perfect mix of healthy, quick and carefree. It’s not overly filling and could be cut into smaller pieces as an appetizer easily.
Filo? Phyllo?
If you are not familiar with Filo (a.k.a. Phyllo) dough, it is found premade in the frozen section of your grocer, and I don’t know of anyone who endeavors to make it homemade. It is delicate, thin, and the package contains many many sheets of the dough, amazingly, not separated by anything. The brand I buy has two packs, one usually is needed for a recipe (each pack is many layers, rolled up, encased in plastic).
As a result, it’s a flexible dough to keep on hand for different recipes, as it defrosts on the counter in an hour, or the fridge overnight and can be kept in the fridge for a few days, but otherwise is to be kept in the freezer in between uses. For example, I left mine on the counter for an hour and then put it in the fridge overnight because I changed my mind about when to make my recipe and the dough performed perfectly.
Ingredient notes
- Filo dough- check out the info box above. This premade dough is bought in the frozen food section. If you don’t like the shards of filo or dislike all the layering with oil, you can certainly substitute frozen puff pastry dough for a similarly care-free pizza making experience.
- Feta & fresh mozzarella- The more I cook with feta that comes packed in brine (versus dry in plastic wrap), the more I recommend you use it as well, if you can. It’s smoother, less salty and creamier. It’s higher end and likely more fresh, so it’s also more expensive, however. The cherry sized fresh mozzarella balls (Ciliegine) that come packed in brine are fun and easy to work with, but like the feta, can be pricier, so you can use any mozzarella you are able to get your hands on. The fresh stuff is milder and less salty and has a fun, kind of chewy texture.
- Fresh herbs- The fragrance of both the fresh oregano and basil are mind blowing. It is a big part of the pizza flavor in this recipe.
- The vegetables- I recommend following my lead and prepping the vegetables as per instructions in the recipe card (and photo above) because the nice small and thin shapes allow them to roast nicely in the 30 minutes needed to bake the crust. Larger pieces would not cook sufficiently by the time the crust is done.
Step-by-step instructions
As per the recipe card, most likely the longer side of the filo pastry sheet will equal the shorter side of the sheet pan, so you will overlap three sheets of filo to form each layer.
Once you lay all the filo sheets (6 layers of 3 sheets each), take a couple minutes to fold over the edges, and use a drizzle of oil to help the edges stay more or less folded over.
First layer the crumbled feta and snipped fresh herbs.
After that, you will artfully scatter all the other prepped veggies and finish with the fresh mozzarella balls, and sprinkled dried oregano and pepper flakes (if desired).
Bake in 375 degree oven for about 30 minutes until golden brown.
Tips for making this recipe
- When folding over the edges I recommend rolling twice versus just folding over once, and then drizzling a bit of oil along the edge that you can spread a bit with your fingers to help the edges stay put.
- I highly recommend sticking to the 1/4 cup of oil when laying the dough and drizzling as per recipe card, to avoid excess oil and greasiness. The beauty of this recipe is that you do not need to use a lot of oil to achieve the crispy crackly filo crust.
- Reheat leftovers easily in the oven at 350. Don’t use a microwave, which would render the filo crust soggy and chewy. Don’t reheat too fast on high heat or the reheated filo will burn.
- Serving/Topping idea: I even love drizzling my Creme Fraiche Dressing with Roasted Garlic & Herbs over this pizza to make it a bit “extra”!
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Light and Crispy Sheet Pan Veggie Pizza (With Filo)
Kitchen Tools
- 1 sheet pan, with or without edges (doesn't matter)
Ingredients
- 1 packet frozen filo (phyllo) pastry dough (usually come 2 per box )
- 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 4 oz feta cheese
- 1 Italian eggplant small (about 4 oz )
- 1 cup cherry tomatoes (about 6 oz)
- 1/2 bunch asparagus (about 4 large spears)
- 2 scallions (a.k.a. green onions)
- 1 bunch fresh oregano (won't use all)
- 1 pack fresh basil (won't use all)
- 4 oz Ciliegine fresh mozzarella (the little cherry tomato size balls)
- dried oregano (to taste)
- red pepper flakes (to taste)
Method:
- Place one packet of frozen filo in fridge (from freezer) overnight to defrost (if you forget, it also works to take from freezer and leave on counter a few hours, I've done both).
- Preheat oven to 375.
- Chop the herbs, halve the tomatoes, quarter and thinly slice the eggplant, slice the scallions and slice asparagus on an angle into 1" ish slices, as per photo.
- Measure out 1/4 cup olive oil. This is all you will use for making the pizza.
- For good measure, either spray sheet pan lightly with spray oil or brush a teaspoon of oil on pan, just to be sure the filo doesn't stick. Don't overdo it.
- Open the defrosted filo dough, unroll it (you will be unrolling multiple layers), and place a damp cloth over all of the layers.
- Lay your first layer of dough down. Ultimately you will lay a total of 6 layers of the dough sheets, using it all up and spreading oil on each layer, before you lay the next. How you decide to lay the initial layer (and subsequent layers) will depend on the pan/dough size. For example, my dough sheets were pretty small (about 8"x 13") and my sheet pan was large (13" x 18"), so I laid three sheets across the 18" length of the pan, overlapping them 1-2"(see photo).
- Begin the layering process. In between each layer, you will drizzle a spoonful of oil over the dough gingerly. In an effort to keep this pizza light and avoid greasiness, please take care with this process. Drizzling and using the spoon to try and spread it a bit works. It is not necessary to cover the entire surface with the oil.
- Now that the dough is all layered onto the pan, you can begin to layer the ingredients over the dough. Leave about 1" of the dough uncovered, around the edges and fold that 1" in, with a couple small rolls/folds – see photo.
- Lay the herbs and crumble the feta, then artfully scatter the rest of the veggies, finishing with halving and scattering the Ciliegine mozzarella balls.
- The final touch before baking the pizza is to sprinkle any left over oil (or drizzle a tad extra) across the pizza and sprinkle with dried oregano and pepper flakes (if you like a bit of spice).
- Bake for 30 minutes, checking after 20 minutes and aiming for a golden but not dark brown crust. Slice into 8 pieces and enjoy. Reheat in oven (filo won't reheat will in a microwave).
