Sausage, Broccolini and Ricotta Pizza

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So some people use Monday as motivation for healthy eating; there is a lot of #meatfreemonday and #eatclean thrown around on Instagram at the start of each week. Personally I like to go in another direction and use food as a way to beat the Monday Blues. What better way to beat the blues than pizza? It’s cheesy, carby and it never fails to cheer me up!

Today’s pizza recipe is a beauty – a thin and crispy base topped with a swirl of garlicy tomato sauce, sausage, creamy ricotta and a lovely crunch of freshness from the broccolini. Sprinkle over some fresh basil leaves prior to serving to add a final burst of aromatic flavour and the pizza is good to go.

With the Christmas holidays coming up (yay!) pizza making is a great activity to have up your sleeve for entertaining children. Get them involved with kneading the dough, tearing up the mozzarella and most importantly the eating. They will have a blast making their own pizzas and it is a great way to get youngsters involved in cooking.

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Makes 1 large pizza

Prep time: 2 1/2 hours

Cooking time: 5 minutes

Ingredients

  • 200 g strong bread flour
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp instant yeast
  • 1 1/2 tsp sugar
  • 2 1/2 tbsp olive oil
  • 100 ml lukewarm water
  • 200 g tinned plum tomatoes
  • 2 garlic cloves
  • salt and pepper
  • 2 sausages
  • 1 tbsp chili oil
  • 1 tsp dried thyme
  • fresh basil leaves
  • 100 g mozzarella
  • 3 tsp ricotta
  • 50 g broccolini, cut each floret in half

Method

  1. Combine the yeast, 1/2 tsp sugar, olive oil and warm water. Set to one side for 10 minutes.
  2. Sift the flour onto a clean work surface and sprinkle over 1/2 tsp of salt. Make a well in the middle of the flour and gradually pour the water into the well, using a fork to stir it together with the flour as you do.  Once a rough dough has been formed knead it for approximately 15 minutes until the dough has become smooth and springy. Drizzle 1/2 tbsp olive oil into a bowl, place the dough into it, cover it with a tea towel and leave it in a warm place for 2 hours or until it has doubled in size.
  3. Preheat the oven to 300 degrees C. Place a pizza stone or a baking tray into the oven to heat up.
  4. Heat up the chili oil in a frying pan on a medium heat. Mince one of the garlic cloves and add it to the pan with the dried thyme. Squeeze the sausage meat out of the sausage and into the pan, crumble it up with a spoon and fry for 5 minutes until it has browned.
  5. Blitz the tomatoes in a food processor with 1 tsp sugar, the remaining garlic clove and a sprinkle of salt and pepper.
  6. Scrape the dough out of the bowl and use your hands to stretch it out until the dough is approximately 1 cm thick and will fit onto the baking tray. Remove the tray from the oven and carefully place the dough onto it. Use a ladle to swirl the tomato sauce evenly over the pizza base. Sprinkle the sausage meat onto the sauce, do the same with the mozzarella and broccolini. Finally spoon over the ricotta and place in the oven for 5 minutes until the cheese has melted and the dough had turned a golden brown.
  7. Remove the pizza from the oven and sprinkle over a couple of basil leaves.

Thank you so much for reading this post, I hope that you enjoyed it! Please let me know what you think in the comments as I love hearing from you and do not forget to follow me on Instagram, Facebook and and Pinterest (my username is wishtodish) plus subscribe on here to see more recipes and foodie musings from me.

27 thoughts on “Sausage, Broccolini and Ricotta Pizza”

  8. docsimonson says:
    Reply

    Pizza dough is one of my favorite breads to make. I like to use an overnight fermentation. It really gives the bread a nice flavor and texture! Your toppings sound awesome! Ricotta is so creamy against the crunch of the pizza dough!

    Liked by 2 people

  14. Kate says:
    Reply

    I like the way you think! I’m doing a weight loss program right now, and I do my weigh in on Mondays, so I usually have a little treat, like pizza early in the week…without going overboard. This looks delicious!

    Liked by 1 person

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