Some pizzas are built for a quiet Tuesday night. This isn't one of them.
Sausage and jalapeño is a combination that doesn't need much explaining. Sweet and spicy sausage, fresh jalapeño slices, crushed Bianco DiNapoli tomato, low-moisture mozzarella, baked on the Baking Steel at 500°F until the crust blisters and the sausage cooks raw right on the pie. Five minutes and thirty seconds. That's it.
We made this one at 48 hours on our 72-hour dough pack. Honestly one of the best bakes we've had in a while.
The Ingredients
- 1 dough ball (72-hour dough pack, pulled at 48 hours)
- Bianco DiNapoli crushed tomatoes
- Low-moisture mozzarella, torn or sliced
- Sweet and spicy Italian sausage, raw, broken into small pieces
- 6–8 fresh jalapeño slices, thin
- Hot honey, optional but recommended
The Bake
Place your Baking Steel on the second rack from the top about 7 inches from the broiler. Preheat at 500°F convection for at least 45 minutes. You want that steel fully saturated with heat.
Stretch your dough to roughly 12 inches. Sauce it light with the crushed tomato Bianco DiNapoli is the move here, no cooking required. Layer the mozzarella, then break the raw sausage into small pieces directly on top. Lay your jalapeño slices over everything.
Launch onto the steel. Bake at 500°F convection for 5 minutes 30 seconds. The sausage cooks raw on the pie, the heat from the steel drives up through the crust while the oven air finishes the top. Pull it when the crust is blistered and the sausage is cooked through.
If you have hot honey, drizzle it right before you slice. It balances the heat from the jalapeños perfectly.
Why Raw Sausage?
Don't precook it. Raw sausage on a Baking Steel bake renders down in real time, you get better texture, better fat distribution, and it stays juicy. Pre-cooked sausage dries out. Trust the steel and trust the heat.
The Dough Note
We pulled this dough at 48 hours instead of the full 72. The ferment was active, the stretch was easy, and the flavor was there. If you want a little more depth and a looser, more open crumb, go the full 72. Both work. Neither is wrong.
Ready to try it? Grab a 72-hour dough pack and a Baking Steel Original and make this one this weekend.
About the Author
Andris Lagsdin is the inventor of the Baking Steel and founder of Baking Steel Inc. In 2012 he figured out that a thick piece of American steel could do what no pizza stone ever could. He launched on Kickstarter, got picked up by Serious Eats, and has been making pizza almost every day since. Everything on this site he's made in his own kitchen first.
