Dill Pickle Pizza
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We’re 68437 days into quarantine. The recipes are gonna start getting weird…er.
If there’s one thing that I’ve learned while being in isolation is that you can make pretty much anything into a pizza if you try hard enough. So I thought, “I love dill pickles. I love pizza!” How could it go wrong?
The fact that a local pizza joint was also running a special on dill pickle pizza didn’t ease my cravings. I just had to create this legendary pizza for myself!
With a jalapeno ranch sauce based on a thick, crispy crust this pizza is has quickly become one of my favorites. The dill flavor is practically sweet amongst the rest of the savory flavors.
Combined with dill garlic flavored cheese curds AND mozzarella, you actually can’t go wrong when it comes to dill pickle pizza.
Here’s What You’ll Need For Dill Pickle Pizza:
- about one pound pizza dough – homemade or store bought
- jalapeno ranch dressing
- bacon, to be cooked & crumbled
- garlic dill flavored cheese curds
- shredded mozzarella
- dill pickle slices (or sweeten it up with bread and butter pickles!)
- butter
- ramp salt (if you can get your hands on it!)
- corn meal
- honey – for that sweet, sweet drizzle on top
Most of these ingredients I found either at my nearby grocery store. The specialty ingredients like the ramp salt I picked up from my farmer’s market earlier in the season. Don’t worry if you can’t find these exact ingredients – use whatever brands are local to you!
How to get the Pizza off the Peel:
Another word for a “pizza paddle” – as I’ve been calling it – is more officially a “pizza peel.” If you are using a hot pizza stone to make your pizza, you might want to consider learning how to use a pizza peel to get the best results when making a pizza at home.
Quickly transfer the pizza from the pizza paddle to the preheated stone by thrusting the paddle quickly forward and pulling backward as soon as the pizza slides forward. Let the pizza’s momentum pull it off the peel.
Use this same sort of motion to slide the peel under the pizza and lift up as soon as the entire pizza is fully on the paddle. You should be able to easily do this if you put enough corn meal on the peel to begin with.
Get a pizza peel here (affiliate link)!
And you know you want a pizza stone (affiliate link) too!
What if I don’t have a pizza peel or stone?
That’s totally cool too! Though I definitely must recommend you consider getting one of each for yourself because they really are transformative pizza making tools, even for an amateur baker.
You can easily assemble your pizza on a sheet of parchment paper and lift the parchment and place the entire thing directly on the preheated pizza stone.
If you can’t get your hands on parchment, you can also VERY CAREFULLY assemble the pizza directly on the preheated pizza stone – just be sure to dust with corn meal first!
Finally if you don’t have a pizza stone either don’t fret. You can preheat a regular baking sheet for 10 minutes and VERY CAREFULLY assemble the pizza directly on the preheated sheet or use the parchment method to carefully and quickly transfer the pizza to the baking sheet. Basically, the difference in preheating it means that you can get that classic crispy bottom that all pizzas should have.
What about them cheese curds?
Trust me when I saw that the true secret to the perfect pizza is to use cheese curds. Cheese curds will up the cheesiness tenfold – add it with some mozzarella and you have miles long cheese-pulls ahead.
My grocery store deli is where I found the cheese curds. There were several different flavors to choose from. To amplify the dilliness of my pizza, naturally I went with the garlic dill cheese curds. But if you want a more mild dill flavor, go with a plain cheese curd – or any other flavor that sounds good to you!
Dill Pickle Pizza
Equipment
Ingredients
- 16 oz store bought raw pizza dough or homemade equivalent
- ¼ cup flour
- ¼ cup corn meal
- 3 tablespoons jalapeno ranch dressing
- 5 slices bacon cooked & crubled
- ½ cup garlic dill cheese curds
- ½ cup mozzarella shredded
- ½ cup dill pickle slices
- 3 tablespoons butter melted
- 1 teaspoon ramp salt or sea salt + 1 teaspoon oonion powder
- 4 tablespoons honey for drizzling
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425 F and add a pizza stone. Preheat the stone while you prepare the ingredients. Cook and crumble the bacon and set aside to cool.
- Dust a clean work surface with flour. Roll out the pizza dough until it is a half inch thick and 12-14 inches round.
- Prepare a pizza paddle by dusting it generously and evenly with corn meal. Place the rolled out dough on top so that it is not sticking to the paddle directly. Make sure the dough doesn't stick to the paddle in any spots.
- Melt the butter and mix in the salt. Brush the pizza dough from edge to edge with the butter. Use a spoon to spread the jalapeno ranch dressing in the center of the dough, leaving an inch wide edge for the crust. The ranch dressing will only lightly cover the dough.
- Arrange the cheese curds, shredded mozzarella, dill pickle slices and bacon bits evenly across the pizza dough, as desired.
- Quickly transfer the pizza from the pizza paddle to the preheated stone by thrusting the paddle quickly forward and pulling backward as soon as the pizza slides forward. Let the pizza's momentum pull it off the peel.
- Bake the pizza for 8-10 minutes until the crust is golden brown and the cheese is melted evenly across the pizza. Cool on the pizza stone for 5 minutes prior to cutting to finish cooking. Serve with a drizzle of honey and enjoy!
