BGE Italian Sausage Pizza

One of our favorite things to make on the Big Green Egg is pizza – or as we like to pronounce it “preet-zah” when we’re being playful. This is probably our third time making pizza on the BGE, and this may be the best one we have made so far.

Let’s start with the dough…

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Joey’s Dough Recipe

This was my first time making dough from scratch, and let me tell you, it is worth the effort.

Ingredients (makes two crusts):

• 4 ¼ cups flour
• 2 ¼ teaspoons instant yeast (one packet)
• 1 ½ teaspoons salt
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 ¾ cups warm water

Directions:

1. Mix all the dry ingredients together and run through a sifter to ensure there aren’t any lumps.
2.  Turn your mixer on low and slowly add in the olive oil and then the warm water.  Turn the mixer off once the dough becomes sticky to the touch and all dry ingredients have been mixed-in.
3. Let the dough rest for 2ish minutes while you coat two medium to large bowl with a light coat of olive oil.  This step is key so you don’t have a sticky mess later and adds a little extra flavor!
4. Split the dough between the two bowls, cover with saran wrap and place in the fridge to rise until you’re ready to cook. *You can let it rise overnight but  might want to use larger bowls than the ones we used.*

 

Next, let’s talk toppings…

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We Called It A “Pesto Italian Sausage Pizza”

On our preet-za, we put:

• Classico pesto sauce to your liking
• 1/2 tomato, sliced
• 6 oz mozzarella cheese, sliced
• 1/8 medium red onion, sliced
• Garlic clove, minced
• Grilled Italian sausage, sliced

Our pesto sauce came from a jar this time, because it was a busy week. (But we’re impressed with the pesto sauce Classico makes!) In hindsight, we only wished we would have drained the sauce a little bit, because it ended up being a little more oily on the pizza than we would have preferred. Either way, doesn’t Joey look great holding that ZA?

 

Cooking the “Preet-Za”:

1. After you cook the sausage, set your BGE to 450 degrees indirect while you cut and prepare the toppings. We arrange the plate setter with the legs up and place the grilling grate on the legs to cook on.
2.  Remove one of your dough crusts from the fridge and dust your rolling surface with flour. We found that it is much easier to roll the dough while it is still cold and if you dust the rolling pin with flour too.
3. Once you have the dough to the size you want, sprinkle your pizza stone with corn meal and place the dough onto the stone. (Some people use parchment paper instead of corn meal but we prefer the extra texture the corn meal adds.)
4. Lightly brush your dough with olive oil and add your toppings.
5. When the BGE is up to temp, place your stone on the grate and close the dome.
6. Melt some butter, and 15 minutes after putting the preet-za on, brush the crust with the melted butter and let the preet-za cook for about 15-20 more minutes.
7. It’s up to you how done you want your crust, but we typically let the pizza cook 30-40 minutes.
8. Cut it up and enjoy! Cheers!!

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Here’s what the final product looked like:

We will definitely make this one again!