Looking to trim your takeout budget, and create healthier meals at home? Nothing is quite as easy as creating your own homemade pizza dough and fixing a meal with all your favorite toppings. Kids love to cook, and pizza is a family-friendly meal that you can enjoy preparing together.
Before we get to all the delicious topping ideas using Florida Raised grass-fed (hormone and antibiotic free beef), we’ll share a little expert advice on creating amazing variations of homemade pizza dough. From the grown-up friendly Neapolitan style crust to a classic American recipe suggested by Bobby Flay, check out some of the resources we’ve provided and try making your own nutritious and meaty pizza at home this week.
Get Fancy! Make Your Own Pizza Dough
If you love pizza, you’re going to really notice the enhanced flavor that fresh homemade pizza dough adds to your favorite meal. If you have never tried to make your own pizza dough, don’t worry. It is one of the easiest, low maintenance recipes you can follow, with minimal clean up.
Neapolitan-Style Classic Dough
When you try this classic pizza dough recipe, consider that it is the kind of gourmet pizza that comes sliding out of a wood oven at some great Italian restaurant. The Neapolitan style dough is meant to create a bit of a crunch at the bottom of the dough, and slightly char on the top, for true Italian texture and flavor.
This dough is a lean recipe, meaning it is made only from flour, salt and yeast. No additional oil or sugar is added, and for authenticity, home chef’s use the “OO” type of high-protein flour, which has an extra-fine texture. This helps the dough to form and absorb the moisture, without adding any oil. The final dough should have a chewy texture, but once cooked, the dough will not be stiff enough to hold as an individual piece. True Neapolitan style pizza has to be eaten with a fork and knife.
Try this recipe for Neapolitan-style pizza dough on Food & Wine, and allow for an extra-long fermentation period to activate the yeast for that rich flavor that compliments a spicy or sweet marinara sauce and your favorite toppings.
Standard Pizza Dough Recipe (Thick Crust)
In America, we often prefer a thicker crust that we can cut and lift to our faces with one hand. That kind of dough has to be more-sturdy in thickness, particularly if you want to add a lot of heavier toppings (like a large quantity of grass-fed ground beef) on top.
Bobby Flay shares this great recipe on The Food Network, and it uses a bread dough recipe to achieve that thicker, more American crust. What is great about this recipe (aside from the amazing flavor) is that the yeast will process and rise in about an hour. That makes it convenient and fast to create your own homemade pizza any day of the week.
After you have tried making your pizza dough for the first time (and mastered it) consider making multiple batches at the same time. Fresh pizza dough can be stored in a sealed bag in the refrigerator for up to three days. Bags of dough can also be frozen for future use; just allow the dough to thaw and rise before using, next time you have a hankering to make your scratch pizza at home.
If you have children, you can also use the dough to create your own home-baked version of pizza pockets, which can be served that day, or you can create the smaller enclosed portions and freeze them on a flat tray. After they have been frozen thoroughly, you can add them to a large Ziplock freezer bag and stick them in the oven anytime you want to serve them a satisfying snack. Check out these ‘how to’ steps from the food bloggers at My Baking Addiction.
Cook Florida Raised Grass-Fed Ground Beef According to Directions
Before you start to pile up the toppings, remember to follow the food safety directions on the outside of every package of Florida Raised grass-fed ground beef. The ground beef must be cooked thoroughly, and if you are planning to use it on a pizza, our suggestion is to gently strain the cooked meat by placing it in a colander with a bowl underneath, to remove the excess juice from the beef. Remember to reserve those drippings if you make soup, gravies or for other recipes.
Once you have prepared one or two packages of Florida Raised ground beef, and cooked it thoroughly, get ready to explore some of these delicious topping suggestions! We searched for the classics and some fun ways to add more protein to your homemade pizza, using Fresh from Florida beef.
Sensational Ground-Beef Topped Pizza Combinations
When you add quality grass-fed ground beef to your pizza, you can feel good about adding many vitamins, minerals and healthy proteins to what is otherwise a traditionally carbohydrate rich meal. Small changes like adding ground beef, make our favorite meals just a little bit healthier, and part of a balanced diet.
Kid Friendly Cheeseburger Pizza
The cheeseburger pizza takes on a lot of different topping variations. But this one is the true Cheeseburger pizza recipe that emulates all the great flavors you would find on a regular hamburger. When you are topping your pizza, you will add dill pickles, tomatoes, cheese and ground beef, and garnish it (after it has cooked) with fresh shredded iceberg lettuce.
Children absolutely love this recipe because it is fun, creative and frankly, a little bit messy. Consider serving it for a special birthday party or whenever their friends gather for some fun at your house. Try this recipe via AllRecipes.com.
Grown Up Game-Day BBQ Beef Pizza
Kids aren’t the only ones that like to gather around with family and friends and enjoy a delicious meaty pizza! If you are hosting guest for game day, then nothing goes further as an appetizer or meal than a hearty beef pizza (with homemade scratch dough). And don’t worry about making the crust ‘perfect’. Let it be abnormally shaped for that authentic rustic ‘fresh from the oven’ appeal.
We liked this Ground Beef Pizza recipe from Genius Kitchen. And if you are serving a crowd, prepare more than one, and consider adding some pickled jalapenos to make one just a little bit more-spicy for the grown-ups who love pizza with some interesting kick! Game on.
Florida Raised grass-fed ground beef is sourced directly from local Florida ranchers, that our family built relationships with for over fifty years. These agricultural producers are committed to providing healthy, high-quality beef without hormones and antibiotics for health-conscious families.
If you haven’t tried Florida Raised ground-beef yet, head to your local Publix store (and other fine grocers) and try it this week. For recipes like pizza where ground-beef is a featured ingredient, you’re going to love the flavor of Fresh from Florida premium ground beef.