12 Best Fruits To Put On Pizza That Aren't Pineapple

Everybody needs a little bit of sweetness to help balance out all of the savory, sour, and salty flavors we find in our lives, our meals, and, naturally, on top of our pizzas. Luckily, one type of sweet ingredient makes a fantastic topping for any pizza, flatbread, calzone, or otherwise deconstructed pizza experience (aka charcuterie). The sweet pizza topping we're referring to is the world's most abundant, naturally occurring dessert: fruit.

Before going any further into the concept of fruit as a pizza topping, let's address and dismiss the elephant in the room: pineapple. The dichotomizing decision to pair this particular tropical fruit with the typical pizza ingredients may be the most contentious culinary stance a person can take; no one has a say in their sense of taste either way. Let's put the pineapple aside for a second and consider some other outstandingly delicious ways you can use fruit to enhance all your favorite pizza flavors. After all, a little sweet alongside all the bread, cheese, veggies, sauce, and meat is precisely what some pizzas need to go from "good" to "so good I can never go back." Here are the 12 best fruits to put on pizza that aren't pineapple.

Although nothing lends itself to dessert quite like a perfectly ripe peach, there is something to be said about this particular fuzzy fruit's ability to enhance even the most savory of flavors, making your tastebuds play sweet and savory jump rope around every bite. One example of this simple pleasure is a two-ingredient dessert often enjoyed in the summertime: high-quality vanilla ice cream melting slowly over a hot roasted peach. There's something special about the incomparable charm of charred peaches paired with dairy. As you may have guessed, the concept also applies to using this fruit on pizza.

Since the flavor of a peach is bright, sweet, and sometimes even a little tart, it pairs well with a wide array of ingredients, even some of the more unusual, funky, and downright fun ones. For instance, our grilled peach and gorgonzola pizza recipe showcases this fruit's incredible ability to balance bold flavors like blue cheese, arugula, and hot honey. So, feel free to get creative and let your imagination run a bit wild with all the possible peach pizza recipes. That said, don't get so carried away that you forget peaches are a very juicy fruit, which could lead to a soggy bottom crust if you aren't careful.

For a fruity, sweet, and savory experience sure to satisfy even the most particular pizza eaters, consider including the ever-classic cantaloupe on your list of pizza topping ingredients. This popular orange melon is one most supermarkets carry all year round, and during its peak season (which is late summer for most but will vary from place to place), the warm weather will transform this otherwise underwhelming fruit into an unparalleled culinary delight. 

All sense of seasonality aside, there's something to be said for cantaloupe's ability to play nice with the more savory side of the culinary spectrum, often celebrated in an appetizer served across many a silver platter around and just after summer. That appetizer is, of course, cantaloupe paired with prosciutto, mozzarella cheese, basil, and sometimes balsamic vinegar (either fresh or cooked into a complex, complementary reduction). Instead of slamming all those ingredients raw onto a stick, we suggest combining them as pizza toppings for a uniquely umami-forward fruit-on-pizza experience.

Dates are one of the most flexible, deceptively multifaceted fruits you could use as an ingredient in your kitchen, especially since dates can hold the line between savory and sweet. Dates do this so well that they are equally suited toward being served as a snack, as part of a dinner, or as an entire dessert. In the case of Palm Springs' most famous desert dessert, maybe even a citywide culturally iconic milkshake as well. Amazingly, this dried-out, incredibly strong-in-taste, unique, and downright sticky-to-the-touch ingredient is, of all fruit, perhaps the most transient in its use. What's even more amazing is how good dates taste on top of pizza.

Other than dates being a dynamic, versatile ingredient that can be used to add a rich sweetness to just about any dish that requires a dash, there is another quality about dates that makes them great on pizza. That quality, ladies and gentlemen, is its ability to pair with bacon to become something truly transcendent-tasting. And if you add in some chèvre of bleu cheese to the date and bacon pizza equation, it'll become an already established but still oh so enlightening sweet and savory culinary revelation.

Many may be confused by the suggestion of strawberries on pizza, but there is something to this seemingly unusual combination of ingredients that sings a sweet melody of summer and late spring. Although strawberry shortcake and other desserts featuring this fruit are rather iconic, there is an underrated, underutilized, and uncommonly amazing assortment of savory recipes these berries bring to life. Pizza is one recipe where strawberries' savory capabilities can show their full breadth of character.

One way to pair strawberries as a pizza topping is to utilize the same combination as seen in a favorite spring and summer strawberry salad recipe, which is comprised of strawberries with chèvre, balsamic vinegar, arugula, and maybe even some walnuts if you're feeling like a fully decked-out savory use of fruit experience that goes great on pizza. For an even more out-there strawberry pizza, consider Utah's The Pie Pizzeria's iconic Bacon-Berry Pie approach and try topping your pizza off with some cilantro, bacon, garlic, and red onion bits and see how well this fan-favorite fruit can balance its sweet-to-meat ratio.

Persimmons are a difficult fruit to attempt to describe to those who have yet to partake. This isn't because they're wholly unique or unlike anything else we eat, but because they taste more like a complex meld of many ingredients that not many people can agree on. Some liken them to quince and others to mangos, but to me, persimmons taste a lot like all the best qualities of a delicata squash, but if it were served raw, dusted with some cinnamon, and had more a pear-like taste and bite to it. In other words, persimmons are a beloved favorite fall fruits, and a perfect fruity addition to put on top of a pizza. 

Although you can combine whatever ingredients your heart desires, we have found that plain cheese, persimmon, and basil are the best way to go for a perfect persimmon and pizza combo. Plus, if anyone needs more convincing than has already been addressed, then perhaps taking a look at this delicious recipe for broiled cheese dip with persimmons will help show that persimmon is already an excellent and established ingredient in savory dishes. Therefore, putting persimmons on top of pizza does make a whole lot of sense for anyone who likes the interplay between sweet and savory.

Pizza is, at its core, comprised of the same ingredients and along the same conceptual thread as the common charcuterie board. Therefore, it's safe to assume quince would work as well on a pizza or flatbreads as it would with the same disassembled foodstuffs when uncooked and stacked on top of a cutting board. Quince, for those out there who have not yet had the opportunity to try it, is a sort of marriage between an apple and a pear — but with all of the starch of a potato. 

In other words, this fruit is crispy, mild, a bit sweet, and starch-forward. Quince is easy to combine with savory flavors and can act as a subtle, perhaps even imperceptible, pizza ingredient; it lends a touch of the crisp, starchy sweetness you crave from fruit, but without inviting any possibility of overpowering the other toppings on your pie. If you're feeling the quince experience in a more in-your-face quince way, try to emulate classic charcuterie and use some quince jam to add a more sweet and condensed quince dip.