Meatball Pizza

Ingredients you’ll need for meatball pizza:

• Pizza Dough – I used our regular homemade pizza dough but you could use store-bought too.
• Pizza Sauce – Our homemade pizza sauce has seriously elevated our zaaa game. It’s super quick and you can choose to keep it chunky or blend it for smooth style!
• Meatballs – I used this sausage meatball recipe. It’s on the spicy side but feel free to tone it down.
• Jalapeños – I used fresh jalapeños (FROM OUR GARDEN)! What? Yes, we have a mini garden this year and these jalapeños stole the show. If you don’t like spicy, just leave out the seeds and ribs (or skip them altogether).
• Cheese – Ricotta cheese is best for meatball pizza! Use a full-fat version for best results.

How to make meatball pizza:

1. Make the dough.

• Follow my simple recipe for Homemade Pizza Dough. This dough is pretty quick, and you can mix it up about an hour before you start the pizza assembly. It really does make the BEST pizza!
• If you want to make it ahead of time, you can mix the dough, let it rise, stick it in the fridge (covered), and remove it 30 minutes before assembly.
• Use a baking mat and a rolling pin, with plenty of flour, and roll out the dough in a shape that works for you. If using a cast iron skillet, you’ll want it to fit just right.
• I’ve also tried my hand at spinning the dough around with my hands, but haven’t perfected that YET. 😀

2. Make the sauce.

• Follow my simple 20 minute recipe for Pizza Sauce From Scratch. It’s a quick sauce and is SO MUCH better than store-bought.
• Choose to make it chunky style or smooth!
• This pizza sauce stores well in the refrigerator and freezes well too.

3. Make meatballs.

• Combine the meatball ingredients in a mixing bowl. Use your hands to form into meatballs. For pizza, I like to make them bigger so that when I slice them, the chunks are larger. This recipe makes 8 large meatballs.
• Place the meatballs on a baking sheet and bake at 400 degrees for 18-20 minutes. If they are a tiny bit pink inside, it’s ok because they will continue to cook when baking the pizza.
• Use a sharp knife to cut the meatballs into slices.
• These meatballs can be precooked and frozen, or frozen raw.

4. Assemble pizza.

For all of my pizza recipes, you can choose to bake them 1) in cast iron skillets in the oven or on a grill, 2) on baking sheets in the oven, or 3) on pizza stones in either the oven, grill, or smoker. We tend to rotate how we cook them based on the weather outside and how many people we are feeding.

• Arrange dough. To start, roll out the dough. For this occasion (pictured), we cooked the pizza in a cast iron skillet.
• Add toppings. Spread a generous amount of pizza sauce on the dough. Then add the sliced meatballs and jalapeños. Finally, add generous dollops of ricotta cheese.
• Finish. Drizzle some olive oil over the ricotta cheese, along with some kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper (to taste). This really helps the ricotta to shine.

5. Bake.

• Bake (or grill) – Cook pizza at a high temp. We use 450 degrees in our oven or at least 500 degrees on our grill/smoker.
• The pizza is done when the crust is nice and browned on the bottom.

What to serve with homemade meatball pizza:

• Let’s start out with some craft beer or red wine, shall we? OR you could whip up The Best Mai Tais or some Swirl Margaritas for something fun!
• A simple green salad is all you really need with this hearty pizza. But you could also pair it with my Best Italian Chopped Salad which is a great salad to have in the refrigerator all week long.
• Dessert anyone? We’ve got some delicious ice cream recipes for you to try! Try our Blueberry Ice Cream Recipe or Mint Chip Ice Cream, and let me know what you think!

Kitchen Tools Used: (affiliate links)

• Cast Iron Skillet
• Ceramic Pizza Grilling Stone
• USA Pan Half Sheet Pan

xoxo ~Sue