Pizza! Pizza!

Mmmm. Pizza! I love this pizza so much, I hardly ever order out. This is a crispy crust pizza and the saltiness of the sausage is delightful! Tonight, I used leftover homemade pasta sauce -- on the pasta, it had been great. On the pizza, it’s too sweet. Usually, I use Trader Joe’s Marinara; it has the right flavors and is one of the few sauces that isn’t too watery (watery pizza, gross!). The key to this pizza is the hot, hot stone. The longer you leave it in the oven, the crispier the crust.

Chicken Sausage Pizza with Crispy Crust

• 1 package store-bought pizza dough
• 1 chicken with sun-dried tomato sausage (fully cooked), quartered & diced
• 1 medium onion, sliced into thin rounds
• 3 tbsp pasta sauce
• 6 oz fresh mozzarella, cut into rounds
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• Flour (for rolling out dough)
• ½ tsp cornmeal
• Dash oregano

Place pizza stone on middle rack and pre-heat oven to 450 degrees. The stone needs to be hot! Leave the stone in the oven for 30-45 mins. Remove pizza dough from fridge and allow to come to room temperature (30-60 mins, or as long as you can stand). Having the dough at room temperature makes it easier to roll out.

Meanwhile, get started on the toppings. Heat olive oil in a large pan over medium heat. Add onions and sautee 15 mins, until just starting to caramelize. Add diced sausage to onions and cook for another 5 mins, until sausage starts to brown. Remove from heat and set aside.

Coat the dough, counter and rolling pin with flour and roll out until it’s almost the size of your pizza stone (I hate this part). Don’t worry if it’s not a perfect circle. Using your fingers, roll 1” of the edge back to the center, forming a thick crust. Dust the pizza stone with cornmeal and transfer the rolled dough to the stone. Cook in oven (without any toppings) for 10 mins, until crust turns lightly brown. Note: for reasons I don’t understand, my dough always gets lots of big bubbles in it. I don’t know why this happens, but I just keep poking them with a fork.

Remove pizza from oven and apply toppings; sauce first, then onions & chicken, then cheese. Sprinkle with oregano and bake for another 10 mins, until cheese is bubbly. Let sit for 5 mins and then serve.