Fave Pizza Toppings: Whatever’s left
Guys, you know I don’t make recipes over and over again generally. But this skillet pizza method has become a year-round weeknight staple. It’s always good, always easy, and you only need a few core ingredients to bring it together: pizza dough, marinara sauce, low-moisture mozzarella cheese.
I use the Claire Saffitz cast-iron skillet pizza method via BA, and her topping recommendations are on point. However, you can put whatever you want on this and you’ll be very happy if you follow her steps to success.
Because we love this so much, I always keep frozen pizza dough on-hand - our grocery store sells it frozen which is convenient. If you’re an over-achiever, you could absolutely make homemade dough and freeze it yourself instead. I even forgot to thaw the dough ahead of time before making this recently and was able to get it soft enough within an hour sitting on a preheated oven. That’s how last-minute this can all be.
Bentley’s Way
For the prepared marinara, I love Rao’s the best. Use whatever store-bought sauce you normally buy and enjoy though, because you’ll have a lot left and will want to use it up before it goes bad in another recipe. Also, I have dreams of being more prepared and making this sauce because I hear it’s the best for pizza, but like I said, this is normally a last-minute meal.
For toppings, the fennel and sausage with fresh basil is BOMB. I’ve also done this with pepperoni, salami, and most recently, Parmesan, white onion and fresh basil because I had this all leftover from other meals.
Follow the guidelines in the recipe for adding salt and olive oil. This keeps things crispy and full of flavor. I also add dried oregano afterward with the red pepper flakes for an old fashioned pizza parlor taste.
If your dough is 16 ounces instead of 12, cut about 4 ounces off and make some casual garlic balls on the side - you can bake these with the pizza and brush with melted butter, garlic, salt and pepper. You don’t want the crust to be too thick for this!
You really do want to use low-moisture mozzarella for this. Fresh mozzarella does not bake and melt as well for a traditional pie.
Sorry my stove is perpetually dirty. Let’s call this rustic for now.
We always end up finishing the whole thing between the two of us, but it’s great leftover. Served above with a simple baby butter lettuce salad and chilled Pinot Blanc from Alsace.