Spicy Pizza With Hot Cherry Peppers
Craving a spicy pizza? Try this fiery twist on a sausage and pepper pie, featuring hot cherry peppers, Fresno peppers, spicy sausage, and chili oil.
Equipment
Ingredients
- 425 grams pizza dough New York style thin crust
Spicy Pizza Sauce
- 28 ounces canned crushed tomatoes
- 1 chipotle pepper in adobo
- 2½ teaspoons extra virgin olive oil
- 2½ teaspoons minced garlic
- 1½ teaspoons crushed red pepper flakes
- 1½ teaspoons chili powder
- 1 teaspoon ground red cayenne pepper
- 1 teaspoon paprika
- 1 teaspoon oregano
- ¼ teaspoon sea salt
Toppings
- 3 ounces mozzarella cheese shredded
- 1½ ounces Monterey jack cheese shredded
- 1½ ounces sharp cheddar cheese
- 2 small fresno peppers sliced into thin discs
- 12 slices jarred hot cherry peppers
- ⅓ pound hot Italian ground sausage cooked
- 1 pinch sea salt
- 1 teaspoon chili oil for drizzling
- Chives minced (optional garnish)
Instructions
- First, make the spicy pizza sauce. Add crushed tomatoes, chipotle in adobo, olive oil, garlic, red pepper flakes, chili powder, cayenne, paprika, oregano, and salt to a saucepan. Stir to combine and cook over medium heat for about 5 to 10 minutes, or until fragrant and warm.Carefully transfer the sauce to a blender. Blend on medium speed until smooth, about 30 seconds to 1 minute. Set aside.
- Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F and and lightly grease a 14-inch pizza pan with cooking spray.
- Lightly dust your hands with flour and carefully stretch the pizza dough into a 14-inch circle. Pick up the dough and work around the edges, gently pulling and letting gravity help you, then lay the stretched dough flat onto the pan.
- Prebake the dough for 4 minutes. While it's in the oven, add shredded cheeses to a bowl and toss gently to combine.
- Remove pizza dough from the oven. Top with about ½ cup of the spicy pizza sauce, leaving a quarter-inch of space around the edges for the crust. Sprinkle the blended cheeses evenly over the pizza, then top with sliced Fresno peppers and hot cherry peppers. Finally, top with hot Italian ground sausage and a pinch of salt.
- Bake for 12 to 14 minutes, or until crust is crispy and cheese is bubbly and golden-brown.
- Let the pizza cool for about 1 to 2 minutes, then top with a drizzle of chili oil and a sprinkle of chives. Slice and serve immediately.
Notes
Pizza dough: For a New York style dough, we like following this recipe by Amanda-Rae, with a few modifications based on the reviews (using some of Brian B’s tips) and learnings from our Mastering Pizza cookbook. If you want to try making dough from scratch, make sure you prepare it 1 to 2 days ahead of time so it has time to rise. Alternatively, you can use store-bought dough for this pizza and it will still taste delicious!
Pizza sauce: We included a full recipe here for our spicy pizza sauce since it uses one 28-oz can of crushed tomatoes. It’s more than enough sauce for one pizza (it will make about 3-1/2 cups total), but you can easily freeze the rest for easy pizza nights. We love using our half-cup Souper Cubes tray for this!
Cheese: We recommend buying blocks of cheese and shredding it fresh for this recipe. Freshly shredded cheese melts the best and makes the best pizza!
Fresno peppers: Slice the fresno peppers into very thin discs, but leave all the seeds in. They'll be spicy but they give this pizza delicious flavor!
Blending the sauce: Blending the sauce gives it a nice smooth consistency for spreading on the pizza, plus it incorporates the chipotle pepper for delicious smoky flavor and spice. Be careful when blending a hot sauce - you might want to grab an old kitchen towel and hold it over the lid while you blend, since the heat can make the pressure build up inside the blender.
Baking pizza: Pizza can be finicky and cooks at different rates depending on the hydration level of your dough, your oven's actual temperature, and other factors. We recommend keeping an eye on your pizza as it cooks and using visual cues to tell when it's done - use our time estimates as a rough guide.
Make ahead tips: You can make the spicy sauce and cook the Italian sausage ahead of time if you’d like, and store them in the fridge for up to 3 days before making this pizza.
Storing and reheating leftovers: Leftover spicy pizza can be stored in the fridge for up to 4 days. Reheat in the oven at 350 degrees F for about 10 minutes, or until warm.
Nutrition
Serving: 1slice | Calories: 316kcal | Carbohydrates: 34g | Protein: 14g | Fat: 15g | Saturated Fat: 6g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 2g | Monounsaturated Fat: 5g | Trans Fat: 0.04g | Cholesterol: 32mg | Sodium: 877mg | Potassium: 383mg | Fiber: 3g | Sugar: 8g | Vitamin A: 746IU | Vitamin C: 11mg | Calcium: 175mg | Iron: 3mg
