Bacon and Pickled Pepper Pizza is light, smoky, tangy, salty goodness. You're going to love it. Leave off the bacon to make it vegetarian. Grab the recipe for pickled peppers at the bottom of the post.
Fresh, frozen, or homemade pizza crust, enough for 1 15" pizza (about 10 oz of dough)
All the sauce
8oz"block" mozzarella, shredded
6ozbacon cut into 1" pieces and parcooked so most of the fat renders out but the bacon is still floppy and not crisp
thinly sliced, tri-color pickled peppers, as many or as few as you like. (Recipe Follows)
6-8sliced pepperoncini
2ozfinely grated hard cheese, such as Pecorino Romano or Parmesan (I used Romano)
Instructions
To Make the Pizza Sauce
Place the tomatoes in a medium-sized bowl and squish them up with your clean hands. You don't want any big chunks left, so be pretty thorough. By the time you get through smooshing up the tomatoes, they will be pretty wet. Give them a quick drain through a seive. They don't need to be completely dry, but get rid of most of the extra "soup," leaving just wet tomato bits.
Add the rest of the ingredients. Stir to combine and let sit at room temperature for 30 minutes or so for the flavors to combine.
To Make the Pizza
Place a rack as close to the bottom of your oven as you can. If you have a pizza stone or pizza steel, put that on the rack. Preheat the oven to 500F.
Press and stretch your pizza dough right on your OXO pizza pan. I promise it won't stick. Press it right out to the edges so you will end up with a nice, big pizza.
Spread your homemade pizza sauce all over the dough to within about 1/2"-3/4" from the edge. This will be a very light layer, so don't be sad if your dough isn't thick with sauce. It will be okay.
Arrange your toppings and cheese however you like. I put down a bit of mozzarella first, followed by the bacon, more mozzarella, pickled tri-color peppers, and pepperoncini, followed by the rest of the mozzarella and finally the Romano. You can add some of the pickled onions too, but I didn't. (See PIckled Pepper recipe at bottom of post)
For a thicker crust, cover and let your pizza rest for 30 minutes or so. Otherwise, straight into the oven he goes.
Bake for about 10 minutes, rotate the pan and bake an additional 5-10 minutes or until the bottom is golden brown and your cheese is nicely melted and starting to brown.
If you want, you can carefully move the pizza to a higher rack and broil for 2-3 minutes to get the cheese and crust a bit browner. Totally your call.
I garnish with some pepper flake, garlic powder, and Italian seasoning. You can, too, if you want.