Easy Strawberry Dessert Pizza Recipe

For a delicious dessert that looks beautiful and elegant yet comes together in just a few minutes, look no further than this scrumptious and easy strawberry dessert pizza. Developed by nutritionist Kristen Carli, this sweet confection takes advantage of the simplicity of store-bought break-and-bake sugar cookie dough, then tops it with a dreamy combination of cream cheese and fresh strawberries. The result? An easy-to-make, fresh-tasting dessert with just the right amount of sweetness.

This fruit pizza is also incredibly versatile and easy to adapt to any occasion by changing up the shape of the cookies. In Carli's version of the recipe, she bakes the cookie dough in such a way that it looks like an actual pizza of sorts. "This is designed to be a 'pizza' you can cut into squares or slices," Carli explains, also noting that you can get creative and try out other shapes by using cookie cutters. Not only is this strawberry dessert pizza delicious, but it's also fun to put together, making it the perfect go-to dessert for the whole family.

To make this strawberry dessert pizza, you'll only need four key ingredients, so your shopping trip will be incredibly easy. First and foremost, you'll need sugar cookie dough for the crust. "I like break-and-bake for this recipe," Carli says of the cookie dough. Additionally, you'll need fresh strawberries, plain cream cheese, and lemon juice to top off the pizza. Notably, for the cream cheese, consistency matters. "Whipped cream cheese is ideal because it spreads more easily," Carli explains, noting that you could get creative with the flavors and try out strawberry cream cheese to double down on the wonderful strawberry flavor in this dish.

Before you can construct a dessert pizza, you have to make the crust, so preheat your oven to 350 F. Then, grab the break-and-bake sugar cookie dough and break each cookie apart, placing them onto a large baking sheet. To make your dessert as pizza-like as possible, place the rectangles of cookie dough only ½-inch apart from one another, rather than the spacing suggested in the package directions. This way, as they bake and spread out, they will melt into one another, creating a uniform "crust." Once you have all the dough lined up on the baking sheet, bake the cookies for 10 to 12 minutes. Then, let the cookie crust cool for at least 10 minutes after baking.

As you wait for the cookie crust to cool down after baking, you can work on preparing the toppings. Start by thinly slicing your strawberries, if they aren't already sliced, and then toss them in a small bowl with the lemon juice. Or, if you don't have strawberries, Carli gives you permission to change up your berries. "This would also be delicious with blueberries and raspberries," she suggests. And, if fresh berries are out of season, don't worry — you can still make this dessert pizza. "You could use frozen berries if you allowed them to thaw before serving," Carli tells us.

Once your cookie crust is cool and your berries are ready, it's time to put your dessert pizza together. Begin by spreading the cream cheese in an even layer over the baked cookies. The whipped texture of the cream cheese will help it spread nice and smooth. Next, add your sliced strawberries in a single layer, making sure they're distributed evenly so that each piece of your pizza will have berries in every bite. If you've decided to bake individual cookies instead of one big crust, you'll need to divide up your cream cheese and berries to top each one instead of spreading them across all of the cookies at once.

After you've assembled your dessert pizza, all that's left to do is to slice it up and enjoy! If you arranged your cookie pieces in a circle, making a more traditionally shaped pizza, you could cut the finished pie into wedges, sticking with the pizza concept. But if you've gone with a rectangular cookie sheet, you can cut it into neat squares and serve it that way. You can use the edges of your crust to help you follow the breaks in the original dough, making it easy to make sure your pieces are uniform. Whichever way you enjoy this strawberry dessert pizza, it's sure to become a staple in your household thanks to its simplicity, freshness, and flavor.