The most comforting pizza to warm up to all winter long!
Sensational Sausage & Pepper Style!
I say that because you won’t just make this once, you’ll make it time and time again. This is a recipe you will absolutely crave and come back to for a weeknight meal, a Friday night feast with friends to enjoy movies and games with, or a solo Saturday night meal. This is one pizza I promise you can finish by yourself! Even if you’re not normally a pizza lover. I know, I know, there are very far and few between, but of course everyone’s different, so I know there are people out there who would rather eat other delicious dishes instead of pizza. I do however refer to that as a “pizza problem“; because I believe everyone should be in love with pizza. If you aren’t, that tells me you’ve never had a truly perfect pizza. Luckily for you Diamonds, I have come to bless all of you with the most pleasant pizza of your whole entire lives!
Eat a Hershey kiss for every time you read the word PIZZA in this post. Lol.
The secret to a “perfect pizza” is without a doubt, the perfect crust!
If you have a crust recipe that has been passed down in your Italian family from generations to generations that you swear by, definitely go with that! However, I have found a store bought crust that I LOVE the texture of, so whichever way floats your boat! By all means, go with that.
The second secret to a perfect pizza is layering!
You might be thinking to yourself “Briana, that’s literally how you make a pizza. You layer the ingredients.” Yes, but it’s HOW you layer the ingredients. How many layers of the ingredients and how much of each ingredient per pie. It all matters. Even down to the seasonings and garnishes!
Alright Diamonds, I’ll stop teasing you. Let’s build this pizza!
How to build this sausage and pepper pizza step by step:
- Begin with the crust of your choice.
- As for sauce you’ll be shocked to find out that there isn’t one. It’s simply, olive oil. Good olive oil. I am aware that people know sausage and peppers to be swimming in a pot of red sauce. Really good and flavorful sausage and peppers don’t need a drop of sauce. I feel that the sauce actually ruins it. All it does for me is mask the flavor of everything that’s important.
- Season on top of the olive oil with sea salt, black pepper, and grated parmesan cheese.
- Sprinkle on your first layer of cheese. Shredded white cheddar and thick cut mozzarella. There is no better shredded cheese to me than the thick cut stuff! Shredding it yourself is also another classic way to go.
- You can use sweet Italian or hot sausage. However, I used turkey sausage since that is what I prefer. I cut my sausage into very thin pepperoni like discs so that they could get really crispy before piling them on the pizza.
- Before adding on the peppers and onions you must sauté them in a pan with a pad of butter and a drizzle of olive oil for at least 20 minutes to get them caramelized. In traditional sausage and pepper fashion I chose to use red and green bell peppers. You can use whatever your heart desires or what your grocery stores have in stock after turkey day.
- Once the sausage of your choice, onions, and peppers are caramelized you can start layering them on the pizza.
- One more layer of both cheeses are added before sprinkling the top with a few pieces of fresh basil.
BAKE AT 400 FOR 20-25 MINUTES.
Once it comes out of the oven it gets garnished with a drizzle of good olive oil, parmesan cheese, and chopped scallions.
For dipping:
Now, I separate pizza eaters into two totally different categories. One side are those who dip their pizza and the other side are those who do not. I am a blue cheese dipper. Ranch is also acceptable and another love of mine. When I was younger I NEVER ate pizza without ranch. It was a serious staple. However, now that I’m older and of course, wiser, I dip into the blue cheese a lot more often. Garlic butter would be outrageous too if you really want to take your taste buds on a luxurious journey.
Deepfrieddiamonds 
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