Meat Lover’s Pizza has a crispy crust topped with ground beef, sausage, bacon, pepperoni, and ham. Grab some napkins and dig in!
INGREDIENTS
2 store bought pizza doughs (16–20 ounces each)
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, divided
1 large onion, diced into half inch pieces (about 1 1/4 cups)
2 tablespoons fresh garlic, minced
1 teaspoon dry basil
1 teaspoon dry oregano
1/2 pound ground beef
12 ounces sweet Italian sausage removed from casing
1/2 pound bacon
2 ounces pepperoni slices
4 ounces ham cut into one-inch slices (I bought a small ham steak and cut into one inch strips)
1 cup pizza sauce
2 1/2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
Flour, for your counter
Coarse corn meal, to dust the pizza peel
INSTRUCTIONS
Place a pizza stone in the bottom rack of your oven and turn oven to 350 degrees F. You will turn the oven hotter further into the recipe, the initial heat is to get the stone hot.
Remove pizza dough from refrigeration and let sit on your counter, covered.
In a medium to large saute pan, over medium heat, add one tablespoon of the oil and once hot, add the onions and cook for three minutes.
Add the garlic, basil and oregano and cook one more minute. Remove to a bowl.
Heat saute pan back up and add one more tablespoon of oil and the ground beef and cook to brown, breaking up into small pieces as it cooks. Once browned, strain off and discard grease and set cooked beef aside in a small bowl.
Keep pan hot and add the remaining oil and the Italian sausage and cook, breaking up into pieces as it browns. Once cooked, strain off and discard grease and set cooked sausage aside in a small bowl.
Using the same pan, cook the bacon until just shy of crisp and still a little chewy. Discard fat and place cooked bacon on paper towels to drain. Cut into one inch pieces. Set aside.
Optional step…I like the taste of pepperoni but dislike the greasy texture once cooked. So, I place the sliced pepperoni into the same hot pan and cook for 30 seconds just to render off some of the fat, then pat the slices dry between paper towels. This optional step makes the finished pizza less greasy but it does dry out the pepperoni slices a little bit. Your choice on how to prepare.
At this point, bring your oven up to the hottest temperature possible. I set ours to 550 degrees F while I prepared the rest of the pizza.
Working on one pizza at a time, flour your counter and stretch and roll your dough to 14 inches round. If you purchased the 16-ounce dough balls, you may only get them to 12 inches, which is fine.
Sprinkle coarse corn meal onto your pizza peel and transfer the stretched dough circle to the peel. The corn meal helps the finished pizza slide off of the peel and onto the stone. Practice sliding the dough on the corn meal covered pizza peel before you top it to get used to the process.
Spoon half the sauce onto the dough, leaving about a half inch of the outer edge free.
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