Ratatouille & Wild Onion Pizza Buns

Spicy sauteed wild onions and herbed mozzarella, kept warm and happy in a soft whole wheat pizza bun

Flavor: 9/10

Ease at home: 7/10

Ease at camp: 3/10 (depends on your stove/cook system)
Heat level: 5/10

Times made: 1

This post concerns a new and improved pizza recipe, or at least a different way of preparing it, which is arguably both tastier and more convenient than my original recipe.


I offer no changes to the original dough recipe- still works great and used it again. Instead, I wanted to address and improve two issues from last summer: #1, flavor/texture, and #2, the inconvenience of trying to slice/serve a pan pizza with only a spork.

So what was the problem with last summer's flavor/texture? A few things. I could honestly do without the beyond meat in my pasta sauce, and instead wanted more veggies. In addition, while the parmesan was delicious in flavor, I seriously missed melty mozzarella texture. So I addressed these issues by instead preparing a deeply flavorful ratatouille for the sauce, and finding a good mozzarella with a few days' stability for the cheese.

As for the convenience of service, I wanted to give a shot at something handheld. So I figured I'd try making pizza pockets. Something between monkey bread and stuffed pizza.

Ultimately, it came out great! The middle bun could have actually used a little more time because the sides were a tad doughy, but the convenience could not be beat. I dipped my pizza in the extra ratatouille, and luxuriated in the molten cheese. The only thing that was missing, ironically, was the parmesan cheese I removed. Next time: parmesan AND mozzarella!

A smoky, cool McClure meadow, about to be filled with the aroma of sizzling bread.

Recipe (3 servings):

• 1 batch ratatouille. Expect to have extra ratatouille on the side to eat along with the pizza- the pizza doesn't actually take much filling.
• 1 braid of Karoun herbed cheese in olive oil. Expect to have extra cheese for snacking or sharing.
• 1.5x batch of pizza dough

Herbed Karoun Cheese was a great choice. It kept well, still fresh after 4 days in the bear canister. If I were a solo hiker or we were 2 hikers with limited appetite, I'd bring along an extra ziplock and keep half  of the cheese for snacks the following day. 

At Camp:

Prepare dough as described here. While it rises, you have time. You can rehydrate the ratatouille as described here- boiling water just to cover, and kept in a cozy. You can slice your cheese into bits, you can gather, clean, and sautee some wild onions, and you can catch trout. Either way, you have about an hour or two to kill while you wait on the rise.

Once the dough is ready, you'll assemble the pockets:

Fillings: sauteed wild onions, sliced cheese, and rehydrated ratatouille

begin by oiling your hands, and flattening out a small circle of dough

add cheese

and fillings. In this bun, I just used sauteed wild onion flowers foraged nearby.

Bring the sides of dough around and seal- doesn't have to be perfect

Fill the pan with buns and cook

Delicious leftover ratatouille to eat alongside your pizza buns

As with any dough or batter, the real difficulty here is, well, the time involved to make and assemble the buns, but even more so, the degree to which you must baby the stove if you have a direct-heat stove with no diffuser (we use an Optimus Crux stove and an MSR flex skillet- not ideal, but it works). Cooking the buns entailed spending about 15-20 minutes (7-10 minutes per side) moving the pan slowly around the burner so that nothing scorched. Wholly worth the effort, but effort indeed! So, be warned. If you are in an area that permits fires and could set up a nice stove, that's another (and much better, much more fuel-efficient) option. Next time I make pizza, I'd like to do it with fire and good rocks and put together a makeshift oven. The flat, slab-like rocks at Hutchinson Meadow would be perfect, actually. I'd also like to do cheddar and kimchi buns. I mean, we're crossing into grilled cheese territory at that point, but hey, that's cool too man. I could definitely dig a grilled cheese.

Anyway, the next step is obviously to enjoy your meal, and hopefully not give away too many! If you have any leftovers, they will keep overnight in your bear canister and make a lovely breakfast.