When making pizza at home, then one topping we suggest is sausage. So, which is the best sausage for pizza made at home? It adds a whole new flavor to the entire pizza.
Of course, if you look around, there are several different types of sausage that you may think would work. But that’s not always the case.
So what we intend to do here is to answer this question and give you some tips and advice on the best sausage and the best way to include it on your pizza.
The Answer
The answer here really does depend on your tastebuds. After all, some people prefer sausage with more spice, while others would opt for a milder version.
That does make answering this very difficult, so the best answer we can give is for you to go for Italian sausage.
That in itself may not come as a surprise. It makes so much sense to use sausage from the place that invented pizza in the first place. However, there’s more to this answer than simply telling you to go out and grab some Italian sausage.
Why Italian Sausage is Best
So we feel that Italian sausage is best for a couple of reasons. First, it’s the ingredients in your typical Italian sausage that helps it to stand out.
To get the best outcome, you need a sausage of around 85% pork, with the rest made of fat. That means you get a meaty sausage while the fat within it adds so much of the flavor.
Also, Italian sausage tends to have one key ingredient: fennel. This provides it with yet another level to the flavor, and we love how this all pulls through in a pizza.
But there’s more to it than this.
You Have More Than One Version
When it comes to Italian sausage, you have more than one version available, and this is where you can change the overall taste of your pizza.
There is a hot or sweet version, and both are distinctly different in their taste.
With the hot Italian sausage, what you get is something that contains spicy peppers. They provide the heat you then look for, which is very different from the sweet version.
One of the key ingredients for the sweet version is sweet basil, so you can see how that will completely alter the taste of the hot version.
However, both can work exceptionally well on pizza, and it’s merely a case of thinking about the flavor you wish to add at that moment in time.
As you can see, these two options do come across as completely different. Ultimately, it depends on what you want to achieve with the taste of your pizza as to which one you then use.
It Crumbles Well
One of the important things about sausage on a pizza is that you don’t have this whole sausage.
Instead, you want the sausage meat to crumble easily, and that’s where the Italian sausage works exceptionally well.
By crumbling, you manage to spread that flavor evenly across the pizza without it overpowering the other ingredients.
This approach will completely change the dynamic of your pizza, and you can ensure you get some of that amazing taste with every bite.
Of course, you don’t always have to crumble it. But we feel this just works best.
However, if you prefer pieces of sausage, we say go for it. The main thing is you manage to get some sausage on your pizza.
It Doesn’t Dry Out
Italian sausage is also highly unlikely to dry out when you crumble it on your pizza. It tends to hold onto its moisture content pretty well, and that’s something else we love about this on a pizza.
Also, it does hold onto its flavor better by not drying out. We feel it means the flavor is far more intense as a result.
This problem of things drying out will apply to the likes of chicken on a pizza. The intense heat the pizza is then cooked at removes the moisture. That doesn’t happen when you use Italian sausage.
Ultimately, it means you have something that keeps its taste and texture. That’s pretty cool in our books, and it should lead to you loving your pizza when you take it out of your oven.
Best Tips On Using Sausage as a Pizza Topping
So now that you know the best sausage to use on pizza, you should learn how to get the most out of it. With that in mind, we have a few tips.
Pre-Cook the Sausage
You must pre-cook the sausage before adding it to your pizza. Don’t just go ahead and throw the raw stuff on there.
You can cut it into slices and fry it in a pan for around five minutes. This takes the rawness away from it but doesn’t mean you burn everything when it’s added to the pizza.
Now, some people go ahead and put raw sausage on their pizza before throwing it in the oven.
It’s felt this adds a new level of intensity to the flavor of the sausage across the whole pizza.
While that’s the case, you must ensure everything is well cooked. We just feel it’s less stressful pre-cooking the sausage.
You Can Cut it Into Slices
We mentioned earlier how you should crumble the sausage meat over the pizza to get even coverage, but if that doesn’t appeal to you, you can easily cut it into slices.
That means you are effectively treating it like pepperoni, but there’s nothing really wrong with that.
Cut it into slices while the sausage remains in the casing, and then fry it on each side for a couple of minutes.
You can then lay it on top of your pizza when fixing the other toppings.
Can You Have Something Other than Pork?
The traditional Italian sausage will be made of pork, but if you would rather go for a sausage with a lower fat content, you are free to do so.
Turkey or chicken will work well, but it won’t have the same outcome or taste as you get from Italian sausage.
However, we know some people wish to avoid ingredients with a high fat content, and some Italian sausage can have 15% fat, so at least you don’t have to completely miss out on sausage on your pizza.
Opt for Low Sugar and Salt Versions
This is more of a health-related thing, but we suggest opting for a sausage with a low sugar and salt version. Don’t worry about it not having the same flavor.
The herbs and other things they place in Italian sausage make the real difference here.
Also, double-check that the sausage you are looking at does not contain nitrates.
You want to avoid them as much as possible, and it won’t affect the taste of the sausage.pap
Best Toppings to Go with Sausage
While we feel that pretty much anything can work well with a sausage regarding a pizza topping, we know some people may want a few tips. So, this is what we suggest.
You need to use both cheddar cheese and Mozzarella with sausage. It just gives a different flavor to it all, and that stringy Mozzarella is always a good idea. Also, we suggest onions and green peppers.
They will work exceptionally well with sausage and help balance things out. But as we said, you can add anything you like.
However, those few ingredients are things that we would recommend you go ahead and add to your pizza. We promise you will then love the result.
Overall Conclusion
So if you plan on making pizza at home, we suggest you get your hands on some Italian sausage to add a new level of flavor to the end result.
Italian sausage comes in either a hot and spicy or sweet version.
Make life easier by cooking the sausage before you put it on your pizza and then crumble the contents over the pizza alongside the other toppings. You will then get an amazing pizza with a taste to it that will blow your mind.
If you have never tried sausage on a pizza before, we highly suggest you go ahead and do it at least once in your life. There’s a good chance you will never want pizza without sausage again.
But then that all comes down to you using the right sausage in the first place.
