Air-Fryer Artichoke Pesto Chicken Pizza

Week 400. Four hundred weeks. The number that contains: eight years, three children, one pandemic, one sunflower, one restaurant, approximately 50,000 pieces of cornbread, and the entire distance from a dark kitchen in Antioch to a lit kitchen on Gallatin Pike. 400 weeks. If each week were a cornbread, I'd have a bakery. I have a bakery. It's called Sarah's Table. The 400 weeks became a restaurant.

Post-wedding glow. Kevin and Donna are on a honeymoon (Gatlinburg — Kevin's choice, because Kevin is a man who honeymons in Tennessee and I respect the loyalty). Kaden is with Crystal in Ohio for the week (the co-parenting schedule continues, the machinery runs, the child moves between two homes and two states and the moving is his normal). The family is: settled. Not calm (Mitchells are never calm — calm is for people who don't make cornbread at 5 AM). Settled. The way a house settles: slowly, with shifts, until it's solid. We're solid.

Spring vegetable pasta. The year-closing tradition. Week 400. Year eight. Penne, asparagus, peas, lemon, garlic, parmesan. The eighth version. The eighth pasta. This year: made at the restaurant. For the first time, the spring vegetable pasta was not made in a home kitchen. It was made at Sarah's Table, on the commercial stove, with the display case gleaming and Earline watching from the wall and the six stools empty because it was after hours and the pasta was for us. For the family. At the restaurant. The home kitchen and the restaurant kitchen finally merged in the pasta — the same recipe in a bigger space, the same food in a new home, the same tradition in a permanent location.

Chloe made: everything. The pasta, the sauce, the garlic bread (from scratch, always). She cooked the year-closing meal. Alone. In the restaurant. I sat at the counter — Jayden's stool, because Jayden was next to me and Chloe was behind the counter and Elijah was in his highchair and Mama was on stool two and the arrangement was: the family at the table, the cook at the stove, the tradition in the food. The tradition is Chloe's now. The tradition has been Chloe's since year five. But this year it was official: Chloe made the pasta in the restaurant and the restaurant is the tradition's home and the tradition lives here now.

Year eight. Done. Four hundred weeks. Onward. Into year nine. Into the second year of the restaurant. Into the year of Kevin's retirement and Chloe's twelfth year and Jayden's ninth and Elijah's fourth and the expansion that's coming and the bigger space that's idling and the future that is arriving one cornbread at a time. Onward. The Mitchell way. The only way. The way that starts in the dark and ends in the light and the ending is just another beginning. Always onward. Always cornbread. Always the table. Amen.

The spring vegetable pasta belongs to Chloe now — that recipe lives in her hands and in the restaurant, and I’m not sharing it here because some traditions earn the right to stay at the table. What I will share is the spirit of that after-hours evening at Sarah’s Table: the pesto, the spring vegetables, the feeling of cooking in a space that finally belongs to you. This air-fryer artichoke pesto chicken pizza captures all of it — the bright herbaceous punch of pesto, the soft richness of artichoke hearts, the kind of fast, celebratory dinner you make when the family is settled and the kitchen is yours and everything feels, for one good evening, exactly right.

Prep Time: 10 min | Cook Time: 12 min | Total Time: 22 min | Servings: 4

Ingredients

1 lb store-bought or homemade pizza dough, at room temperature
1/3 cup basil pesto
1 cup cooked chicken breast, shredded
1 can (14 oz) artichoke hearts, drained and roughly chopped
1 cup shredded low-moisture mozzarella
1/4 cup grated parmesan
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional)
Fresh basil leaves, for serving

Instructions

Preheat the air fryer. Set your air fryer to 375°F and let it preheat for 3 minutes while you prepare the dough.
Divide and shape the dough. Cut the dough into 2 equal portions. On a lightly floured surface, roll or stretch each piece into a rough circle or oval about 7–8 inches across — sized to fit your air fryer basket.
Brush and top. Brush the surface of each dough round lightly with olive oil. Spread pesto in an even layer, leaving a 1/2-inch border. Scatter the shredded chicken and chopped artichoke hearts over the pesto, then top evenly with mozzarella.
Air-fry the first pizza. Place one prepared pizza carefully into the air fryer basket. Cook at 375°F for 10–12 minutes, until the crust is deep golden and the cheese is bubbly with lightly browned spots. Check at the 8-minute mark — every air fryer runs a little differently.
Repeat. Remove the first pizza to a cutting board and repeat with the second dough round.
Finish and serve. Sprinkle each pizza with parmesan, red pepper flakes if using, and a handful of fresh basil. Slice and serve immediately — this one doesn’t wait.

Nutrition (per serving)

Air-Fryer Artichoke Pesto Chicken Pizza — Spring Flavor, the Night Chloe Owned the Kitchen