Topping Your Pizza To Perfection

So many of us enjoy making and dining on delicious pizzas but most of us probably don’t think of the important process involved with making and preparing the absolute perfect pizzas including their toppings and crusts.

Choosing Your Toppings

If you have trouble deciding what to put on your pizzas you will be happy to know that there are plenty of ingredients to choose from. The choices for toppings are just about endless as your only limit is your own imagination. Pizzas can have just a few toppings including the sauce and cheese or have several for a rather filling and delicious meal.

Maybe you are craving the more traditional kind of pizzas we have come to know and love that are made with mozzarella cheese, tomato sauce, and toppings like mushrooms, peppers, sausage, and pepperoni. Alternatively, perhaps you would rather experiment with a few new toppings like roasted nuts and a blend of exotic cheeses and seasonings. Whatever you decide, selecting toppings for your pizzas can be a fun and interesting process especially when you discover the delicious foods used by other cultures.

Making Your Pizza Toppings Even Better

Once you have decided on the toppings for your pizzas, it is time to prepare and assemble them. Keep in mind that many fresh, raw vegetables have a lot of water in them and cooking them on top of pizzas may result in soggy pies. Some of the prime culprits include mushrooms, olives, onions, peppers, and tomatoes but precooking these and other vegetables before using them on your pizzas will help to greatly reduce moisture content.

Besides vegetables, some greasier meats like pepperoni and sausage, two of the most popular toppings for pizzas, can also cause a soggy, wet crust. To avoid this from happening and possibly ruining your pizzas simply precook the meats and then dab the excess grease with a paper towel before putting them on the dough to bake.

Did you know that the order in which toppings are used on pizzas can have a direct effect on their overall taste? Using the same exact ingredients but placed on the pizza in a different order will result in a totally different product.

A perfect example of this would be putting the cheese on pizzas first before the rest of the ingredients such as the mushrooms or herbs and seasonings. Doing this will likely cause the fresh herbs like basil to burn and not allow the cheese to brown properly. On the other hand, if you put the sauce on first, then the basil or whatever seasonings you prefer, and then the cheese the basil will stay safe from burning and the cheese will brown and melt especially when using mozzarella, which has low moisture content.

You will want to put the sauce on top of pizzas first and then usually most of the cheese followed by vegetables such as onions or peppers and the meats like sausage, ham, or pepperoni. Then another layer of grated cheese should be added to the top during the last few minutes of baking to brown and melt over the rest of the toppings. Also, use enough sauce to reach the edges of the dough to avoid a dry, hard crust.

Sausage pizza is a simple dish that is just plain good. Top your crust with sauce, plenty of cheese and then sprinkle crumbled sausage on the top. Bake it in the oven and then dig in. It is delicious! The sausage blends perfectly with the cheese, making a wonderful taste treat.