Recipe report: Pizza

Pizza remains one of customers’ most craveable foods. These five pizza recipes showcase new twists on toppings and techniques to keep those cravings coming. 

The Embers food truck, equipped with a wood-fired oven, drives to various locations around New York state’s Hudson Valley region, offering up several varieties of fresh-baked Neopolitan-style pizza. This version is topped with tomato sauce, broccoli rabe, caramelized onions, Buffalo mozzarella and ’nduja—a spicy, spreadable pork salumi originating in Italy but available now in the U.S.

Click here for the recipe.

Mashed potatoes may sound like an unconventional pizza topping, but it’s a fan favorite at Pizza Luce in Minneapolis. Chef Scott Nelson blends the potatoes with garlic, spreads a thin layer over scratchmade pizza dough, and adds a sprinkling of diced tomatoes, green onions and feta cheese to top it off.

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At Mohawk Bend Restaurant in Los Angeles, flavorful cooking techniques elevate toppings on the Smoked Shorty Pizza. The kitchen braises short ribs in beer and herbs, then smokes grapes over aromatic chips to top a housemade pizza crust. Parmesan cheese, blue cheese and balsamic vinegar add extra layers of flavor.

Click here for the recipe.

At a recent ideation event held at Methodist Hospital in Minneapolis, the chefs worked with partially topped sheeted pizza crusts to create signature pies. Thin layers of cheese and sauce are already applied to the pre-proofed crusts, making it easy to bake pizzas in step with demand. This recipe only needs the addition of shredded steak meat, two cheeses and sautéed veggies—all of which can be prepped ahead—and it’s ready to go.

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To keep college students from getting pizza bored, the chefs at Penn State University created a French variation on the Italian classic. The pissaladiere is a simple flatbread topped with caramelized onions, olives and anchovies, drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with chopped thyme. Cheese is not part of the traditional recipe. This flatbread can serve as a satisfying snack or shareable starter.

Click here for the recipe.