Fennel and Sausage Pizza
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This Fennel and Sausage Pizza has a unique combination of flavors, but it’s a delicious one. Fennel has a very mild anise or licorice flavor, and when cooked on pizza and paired with Italian sausage, the flavors shine bright. It’s an exciting pizza to add to your homemade pizza nights because it is easy to make and it’s mighty tasty. & y’all are going to love it!
🔪 How to cut fennel
The most challenging part of this fennel pizza? It’s how to slice the fennel bulb thinly. It cant be tricky, especially if this is your first time. But have no fear; here’s how to thinly slice fennel without a mandoline:
- Chop off the stalks and the root end. Use a large chef’s knife and chop off the fennel stalks to save them later. The wispy parts, also known as the fennel fronds, add fresh floral notes to this pizza.
- Remove outer layers. Remove the tough outer layers of the fennel bulb and discard them.
- Slice in half and half moons. Slice down the center of the fennel bulb and cut very thin half-moon slices parallel to the root end.
🍕 Ingredients
To make this fennel pizza with sausage, you will need a few staple pizza ingredients, fresh fennel, and Italian sausage. But let’s dive deeper into what exactly you will need to make this delicious pizza at home:
- Pizza Dough. Either homemade or store-bought works. Just be sure to bring your pizza dough to room temperature for at least 2 hours before making pizza.
- Italian Sausage. Either homemade or store-bought will work here. We love Italian sausage on this pizza because fennel seeds are the main ingredient.
- Fennel Bulb. Fresh fennel has a lovely anise flavor and is the star ingredient.
- Mozzarella Cheese. We used fresh mozzarella cheese cut into cubes.
- Red Chili Peppers or Sweet Red Peppers. It adds a nice sweet and spicy flavor with each bite.
- Pizza Sauce. You can use a Garlic Olive Oil Sauce or Pizza Marinara for this pizza. We made our simple garlic olive oil sauce for our pictures, but we love both options. You can’t go wrong. You will have different results, though, so if you have 2 pizza doughs, make one with marinara and one with garlic olive oil.
- Fennel Fronds. Optional, but adding fresh fennel fronds add a lovely fresh floral flavor.
🧄 Instructions
- Preheat Oven & Prep Ingredients. Thinly slice the fennel and sweet red pepper, and dice the mozzarella cheese. Preheat the oven to 550 °F or the highest temperature it can get with the pizza stone inside.
- Prep Italian Sausage. Either make homemade Italian sausage or use store-bought. Add sausage to a saute pan over medium heat, and start to break the sausage into thick pieces. Cook until only a little pink is showing, and transfer the sausage to a bowl using a slotted spoon to remove any grease and fat from cooking the pork.
- Prep the pizza dough. Roll out the pizza dough into a thin layer and evenly spread your choice of pizza sauce on top. Use either a garlic olive sauce or pizza marinara.
- Add Ingredients. Generously sprinkle thinly sliced fennel and sweet red pepper evenly on top. Add a generous amount of Italian sausage and mozzarella cheese.
- Bake the pizza. Bake the fennel pizza at the highest temperature (550 ° F); your oven can get for about 10-12 minutes or until doneness.
- Enjoy. Add some fresh fennel fronds generously on top before serving.
❔ FAQs
Pinot Gris and Gerwertraminer pair very nicely with roasted fennel and Italian sausage. The gentle notes of floral and spices perfectly complement the roasted fennel and sausage flavors.
We selected the wine from M Cellars Winery, located within the Grand River Valley Wine Region in Ohio.
Yes. It would help if you used pre-cooked sausage for pizzas because pizza generally cooks quickly, and you don’t want raw sausage on your pizza. Also, pre-cooking your sausage before adding it to your pizza helps remove the excess oil and fat in the pork.
Yes. Leftover pizza is so good when heated up in a saute pan with olive oil or in an air fryer!
This Fennel and Sausage Pizza is easy to make, has a unique combination of flavors, and is very delicious. We hope you all love our pizza recipe. Enjoy! ♡
Fennel and Sausage Pizza
- 1 lb Pizza dough homemade or storebought
- ½ cup fresh mozzarella cheese cut into cubes (4 ounces)
- ½ cup Italian sausage
- 1 fennel bulb julienne or thinly sliced
- 2 sweet red peppers thinly sliced, or sub red chili peppers for a more spicy pizza
- fresh fennel fronds
- 3 tbsp pizza sauce – marinara or garlic olive oil (ingredients follow)
- 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1-2 garlic cloves minced
- pinch of salt and pepper
- pinch of red pepper flakes
- Preheat Oven & Prep Ingredients. Thinly slice the fennel and sweet red pepper, and dice the mozzarella cheese. Preheat the oven to 550 °F or the highest temperature it can get with the pizza stone inside.
- Prep Italian Sausage. Either make homemade Italian sausage or use store-bought. Add sausage to a saute pan over medium heat, and start to break the sausage into thick pieces. Cook until only a little pink is showing, and transfer the sausage to a bowl using a slotted spoon to remove any grease and fat from cooking the pork.
- Prep the pizza dough. Roll out the pizza dough into a thin layer and evenly spread your choice of pizza sauce on top. Use either a garlic olive sauce or pizza marinara.If using garlic olive sauce, add olive oil, minced garlic, and a pinch of salt, pepper and red chili flakes to a bowl before adding on the pizza.
- Add Ingredients. Generously sprinkle thinly sliced fennel and sweet red pepper evenly on top. Add a generous amount of Italian sausage and mozzarella cheese.
- Bake the pizza. Bake the fennel pizza at the highest temperature (550 ° F); your oven can get for about 10-12 minutes, or until doneness.
- Enjoy. Add some fresh fennel fronds generously on top before serving.
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