Thursday, September 8, 2011

Thin Crust Sausage and Pesto Pizza

I like experimenting with making my own pizzas. When I'm not making naan pizza, thin crust pizza is my next favorite. This time I made a sausage and pesto pizza with caramelized onions, Greek olives and mozzarella cheese. It. Was. Amazing.

Pillsbury has a really good refrigerated thin crust pizza dough. It comes in a tube like their crescent rolls. And it makes a good size pizza.

Ingredients:
11 oz Pillsbury Thin Crust Pizza Crust
2 links of Italian sausage (mild or hot)
8 oz jar of pesto sauce (I used Classico)
1 white onion
Mozzarella cheese, shredded
6-8 Ciliengni mozzarella balls, sliced in half (fresh mozzarella)
Greek olives, sliced in half


Directions:
Preheat oven according to pizza dough directions (350 or 400) 
Unroll pizza dough onto a large baking sheet that has been coated with cooking spray. Pre-bake crust for 10 minutes.
Saute the sausage, casings removed and broken into pieces, in a little olive oil, then remove from pan and set aside. 
Add thinly sliced onion to pan and cook until translucent and caramelized.
Spread pesto sauce onto pre-baked crust (as much as you like, I used about 1/2 the jar).
Top with shredded mozzarella cheese and a little grated Pecorino Romano cheese if you like.
Add the cooked onions and sausage.
Add the sliced Greek olives and fresh mozzarella. 
Sprinkle a little more cheese on top.
Bake about 10-12 minutes, depending how crispy you like your pizza. 


When it comes out of the oven, I slide it onto a wooden cutting board and slice it up. The flavor of the pesto with the onions and sausage is sooo good. Delicious! Andrew doesn't like Greek olives (he doesn't like olives of any kind for that matter), so I kept them on my half of the pizza. You can add whatever toppings you like - artichoke hearts, maybe asparagus or veggies. You can be very creative when it comes to pizza. The dough is a blank canvas waiting to be filled with your favorite toppings.

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