Meat Lovers Pizza

Once I started using Italian sausage on my pizza, my days with prepackaged sliced pepperoni were over. Don’t get me wrong, fresh pepperoni from a deli is wonderful on pizza, but in my opinion, ground Italian sausage is where it’s at. If you are a veggie lover, add torn pieces of broccoli rabe (pronounced RAHB, and sometimes referred to as rapini) on top. You might have trouble finding the broccoli rabe, which is usually next to the broccoli. If you can find it, kale works just fine.

Italian Sausage Pizza Recipe

Italian Sausage Pizza   Save Print Serves: 2 pizzas Ingredients

• 1 batchpizza dough
• Cornmeal, for dusting
• “00” flour, for dusting
• Pizza Sauce
• Pizza:
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 pound Italian sausage, mild or hot, whichever you prefer
• 1 pound fresh mozzarella
• If using veggies:
• 1 cup broccoli rabe or kale, washed, dried and torn into pieces

Instructions

1. Place pizza stone in the lower part of the oven and heat the oven to 500 degrees. Allow the stone to preheat for 30 minutes.
2. To cook the sausage, place a large skillet over medium high heat with the olive oil. Add the sausage and using a wooden spoon, break the sausage up into small pieces. Cook for 5-7 minutes until all is cooked through. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the sausage to a plate lined with paper towels.
3. Dust a work surface with flour, flatten and roll out the dough to ½ inch thickness.
4. Generously sprinkle your pizza paddle with cornmeal to prevent the dough from sticking. Place the rolled out dough onto the paddle. Brush the sides with olive oil.
5. Spread pizza sauce over the inner portion of the pizza, leaving about an inch of outer crust bare. Sprinkle the sausage onto the pizza, then follow up with torn pieces of mozzarella. Allow the pizza to cook until the mozzarella starts to turn a golden brown color. Once cooked, let the pizza rest for 1-2 minutes.
6. If using veggies:
7. Spread the sauce first, then the sausage. I like to sprinkle the broccoli rabe and mozzarella at the same time so that some pieces of the torn veggie get covered by mozzarella.