This homemade pizza recipe includes a homemade pizza crust, roasted garlic alfredo sauce, baby spinach leaves, spices, and apple-flavored chicken sausage. I’m sure that this must sound unique and maybe even a little bold but I can assure you that it was one of the very best homemade pizzas that I have personally ever made!
The homemade pizza crust
This crust involves a few ingredients that you probably have on hand already and I also added a shake or two of garlic and herb seasoning mixture (without salt) to add flavor to the crust.
- 1 packet of instant dry yeast
- 1 cup of warm water (not too hot, not too cold)
- 2.5 -3 cup all-purpose flour or bread flour
- 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil
- 1 teaspoon of salt
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit
- Begin by pouring the yeast packet into a mixing bowl.
- Add warm water, stir and allow to rest for about 5 minutes.
- Then, slowly add the flour (up to #.5 cups) and try to mix the ingredients together as you go.
- Add in the olive oil and salt and continue mixing the ingredients until a smooth dough ball forms. If the dough ball is more sticky than smooth then slowly add in more flour, mixing until desired consistency is reached.
- Allow dough ball to rest for about 5 minutes
- After 5 minutes of rest, divide it into two even sections. Knead and form each into a smooth dough ball of its own
- Prepare a floured surface to continue kneading and begin rolling out the dough (you can also hand press the dough ball into the cake pan instead of rolling it out first)
- Prepare two round cake pans by spraying them with non-stick cooking spray.
- Use your hands to press out the dough ball and form a pizza crust
- Once each ball is pressed into pizza crust form, use a fork to make several pokes into the dough
- Insert each cake pan pizza into the preheated oven for about 10 minutes
- Remove and top with alfredo sauce, spices, Apple flavored chicken sausage slices, cheese, baby leaf spinach, and another layer of cheese to help “seal” the toppings.
- Bake the pizzas at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for about 15 minutes or until desired doneness is achieved.
The sauce
For these particular pizzas, I chose to use roasted garlic alfredo sauce instead of a tomato-based sauce that is typically used for pizza. This choice was made for two reasons.
- I believed the flavor of the alfredo sauce would be more complimentary to the flavors in the chicken sausage than a tomato-based sauce (and I was right)
- It was the only sauce I had in my pantry
The cheese
The cheese I chose to use was a block of tomato basil flavored mozzarella cheese. I shredded it myself as I believe freshly shredded cheese will taste better and will melt better than store-bought shredded cheese.
The toppings
My husband likes to make his food spicy and he usually does so by adding jalapenos or hot sauce. So, while he too used the alfredo sauce and tomato basil mozzarella cheese on his pizza, he added freshly chopped ghost peppers, hot sauce, crushed red pepper flakes, and jalapenos. I’m sure his mouth was on fire!
My toppings were much more simple, far less spicy, but packed a punch of flavor! I chose baby leaf spinach because I try to add dark leafy greens wherever I can! I also chose to slice up some apple-flavored chicken sausage that we had on hand. I then placed the slices around the top of my pizza and it nearly resembled pepperoni (visually, not in taste)!
The end results
My husband’s pizza came out perfectly cooked, cheesy, and super hot! I got the impression that it got a little too close to his heat tolerance level (which far exceeds my own).
My pizza also came out perfectly cooked, with a creamy alfredo sauce that didn’t make the crust soggy. The spinach had wilted from the heat of the oven, but still added flavor. The cheesy levels melted nicely and sealed the toppings just as planned. Of course, the star of the show was the apple-flavored chicken sausage which added a level of unique flavor that I had never experienced on a pizza before!
We both agreed that this one was “one for the books”! I hope you think so, too!
