As we finally start to come out of that winter slump, we may be spring cleaning, but our bellies are still craving comfort food. Enter – skillet pizza. This recipe is great for small kitchens because you don’t need much more than a cast-iron skillet and a surface to flour your dough. This pizza doesn’t need to come out perfectly either. The harder of a time you have getting the dough from your wax paper to the skillet, the more rustic it will look. Make this pizza to reward yourself after all of that spring cleaning! And let us know in the comments how it went for you or what pizza toppings you chose!
Ingredients
½ C shredded mozzarella cheese
½ C shredded provolone
¼ C parmesan cheese
¼ teaspoon black pepper
⅛ teaspoon salt
5 oz. pepperoni
1 T Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Tips for this recipe:
- Prep ingredients. The most amount of time you will spend on this recipe is letting the pizza dough sit for awhile.
- If you’re using store-bought pizza dough, then it’s a good idea to let the pizza dough sit in a bowl in room temperature for about 45 – 60 minutes.
- Don’t flour your surface too much, or you may end up with large, hard lumps of toasted flour on the bottom of the pizza.
- Don’t fret about not getting the pizza dough onto the skillet perfectly or with all the toppings. This is not meant to be a perfect pizza, it’s just supposed to be a tasty one!
- You want your skillet and the oven to be really, really hot. You will find that using the broiler setting on your oven will help and so will pre-heating your skillet. Do not handle the skillet without proper heat protection on your hands! Remember to use oven mitts.
- You can use any pizza topping you like! You can use fresh, seasonal vegetables and other toppings like bacon and brussels sprouts or prosciutto and basil for a unique twist. Make it a breakfast pizza by adding chopped pre-cooked bacon and cracking an egg on top.
Instructions:
- Put your pizza dough in a clean bowl for about 45-60 minutes at room temperature. While you’re waiting for the dough to proof a little bit, prep your ingredients.
- Shred cheese and slice pepperoni.
- Preheat your oven to the highest setting. Place your caste iron skillet in the oven as well. If using a pizza stone, this is a good time to preheat it.
- Time to build the pizza! Place the dough on a lightly floured surface and spread around into a vaguely rounded shape. It’s ok if it’s not perfect! This is meant to be a rustic pizza.
- Lightly oil the pan with extra virgin olive oil.
- Layer your toppings – add about ¼ of the cheese to the dough and other toppings on top.
- Grab oven mitts and take your skillet out of the oven. It should be VERY hot, so be careful! Slide your pizza dough with its toppings onto the skillet or pizza stone and immediately place back into the oven. Turn on the broiler and stay close!
- You are going to want to turn the pizza 180° every couple of minutes until the crust is golden brown and the cheese has blistered. Depending on your oven and how hot it is, it may take anywhere from 3 to 10 minutes.
- Once the pizza is done it should look bubbly and browning on the crust, take it out and let it rest on the skillet for about 5 to 6 minutes before cutting.
Bon Appétit!